The US would almost certainly discover ahead of time if Russia was preparing a nuclear strike on Ukraine, and Moscow might very well want it known, nuclear weapons experts said on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons if Russia’s “territorial integrity” or existence is threatened.
Moscow’s declaration on Friday that it was annexing four partly occupied regions of Ukraine potentially means Russia could consider responding to attacks on the claimed territory with a nuclear strike.
Photo: Reuters
Should such an escalation materialize, it would probably be in the form of a smaller tactical nuclear weapon, likely launched on a short-range Iskander ballistic missile, the experts said.
While military analysts downplay Moscow’s threats for now and US officials say they have seen no activity indicating such plans, Western defense and intelligence agencies are closely watching to see if real atomic threats emerge.
Preparations for an attack would be evident, said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, Switzerland.
A 2017 report by the institute maps out 47 nuclear storage sites across Russia: 12 national-level facilities and 35 base facilities.
These are monitored constantly by intelligence and military surveillance satellites of the US and other countries, he said.
They can even be watched closely by commercial satellites, as shown by the widespread, regularly updated imagery of activities at North Korean nuclear facilities, he added.
Podvig said Russia has deployed its strategic or long-range nuclear warheads in the field — on missiles, bombers and submarines.
However, its nonstrategic or tactical nuclear weapons, which number as many as 2,000, are stored and not installed on delivery vehicles, such as the Iskander, Podvig said.
“There are no Iskanders roaming around with nuclear-armed warheads. These weapons are in storage,” he said.
Mark Cancian, a former official in the US defense and energy departments who worked on nuclear weapons issues, echoesdthe assessment.
“I’m confident the United States would see any Russian preparations for using nuclear weapons,” Cancian said. “The weapons need to come out of storage, the units involved need to be alerted and the Russians might also alert their strategic nuclear forces.”
He said evidence would also come from likely visible preparations for Russia’s ground forces, issuing them protective equipment and instructions on how to act in a nuclear environment.
The assesssment came after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution introduced by the US and Albania condemning Moscow’s proclaimed annexation of parts of Ukraine.
China abstained from the vote.
Putin earlier in the day proclaimed Russian rule over the four regions, which make up 15 percent of Ukraine’s territory — the biggest annexation in Europe since World War II.
The move has been firmly rejected by Western countries and even many of Russia’s close allies.
Near the front line in northeastern Ukraine’s Kupiansk, 20 people were yesterday killed in an attack on a convoy of civilian vehicles.
“According to preliminary data, 20 people died in the cars... The occupiers attacked civilians who tried to escape the shelling. This is cruelty that has no justification,” Kharkiv Governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on Telegram.
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