The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For the Prophecy sees without the element of time. For the Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be. 11:11 LLC
It begins in Pennsylvania, crosses the Delaware River and continues through Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Passaic and Bergen counties before crossing the Hudson River near Indian Point nuclear facility.
In the past, it has generated occasional activity that generated a 2.6 magnitude quake in New Jersey’s Peakpack/Gladstone area and 3.0 magnitude quake in Mendham.
“There is occasional seismic activity in New Jersey,” said Robinson. “There have been a few quakes locally that have been felt and done a little bit of damage over the time since colonial settlement — some chimneys knocked down in Manhattan with a quake back in the 18th century, but nothing of a significant magnitude.”
“More recently, in the 1970s and early 1980s, earthquake risk along the Ramapo Fault received attention because of its proximity to Indian Point,” according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website.
Historically, critics of the Indian Point Nuclear facility in Westchester County, New York, did cite its proximity to the Ramapo fault line as a significant risk.
“Subsequent investigations have shown the 1884 Earthquake epicenter was actually located in Brooklyn, New York, at least 25 miles from the Ramapo Fault,” according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website.
Exclusive: Iran steps up underground uranium enrichment, IAEA report says
Francois MurphyAugust 29, 20223:22 PM MDTLast Updated 20 hours ago
VIENNA, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Iran is pressing ahead with its rollout of an upgrade to its advanced uranium enrichment programme, a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog seen by Reuters on Monday showed, even as the West awaits Iran’s response on salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal.
The first of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at the underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz is now enriching, the report said, the latest underground site at which the advanced machines have come onstream. read more
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Diplomats say the IR-6 is its most advanced model, far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1 – the only one the deal lets it enrich with.
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For more than a year Iran has been using IR-6 centrifuges to enrich uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons-grade, at an above-ground plant at Natanz.
Recently it has expanded its enrichment with IR-6 machines at other sites. Last month a second IR-6 cascade at Fordow, a site buried inside a mountain, started enriching to up to 20%.
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In the confidential report to U.N. member states, the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote: “On 28 August 2022, the Agency verified at FEP that Iran was feeding UF6 enriched up to 2% U-235 into the IR-6 cascade … for the production of UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235.”
Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) is the gas centrifuges enrich.
Of the two other IR-6 cascades installed at the Natanz FEP, one was undergoing passivation with depleted UF6, a process that is carried out before enrichment proper begins, and the other had yet to be fed with any nuclear material, the agency said.
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Iran and the United States appear to be inching towards an agreement to revive the 2015 deal, which placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting sanctions against Tehran. That deal unravelled after a U.S. withdrawal in 2018 prompted Iran to breach those restrictions one by one.
After more than a year of indirect talks, Iran has said it will soon respond to the latest U.S. comments on a compromise text submitted by the European Union, which is coordinating the talks.
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A deal would involve undoing much of the enrichment work Iran has been doing, and capping its enrichment at 3.67% purity.
Its installation of advanced machines at underground sites like Natanz and Fordow, however, could be a signal to any power that might want to attack it if there is no agreement, since it is unclear that airstrikes on those sites would be effective.
Western powers worry that Iran is moving towards the ability to make nuclear bombs. Iran denies any such intention.
Francois MurphyAugust 29, 20223:22 PM MDTLast Updated 20 hours ago
VIENNA, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Iran is pressing ahead with its rollout of an upgrade to its advanced uranium enrichment programme, a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog seen by Reuters on Monday showed, even as the West awaits Iran’s response on salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal.
The first of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at the underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz is now enriching, the report said, the latest underground site at which the advanced machines have come onstream. read more
Diplomats say the IR-6 is its most advanced model, far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1 – the only one the deal lets it enrich with.
For more than a year Iran has been using IR-6 centrifuges to enrich uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons-grade, at an above-ground plant at Natanz.
Recently it has expanded its enrichment with IR-6 machines at other sites. Last month a second IR-6 cascade at Fordow, a site buried inside a mountain, started enriching to up to 20%.
In the confidential report to U.N. member states, the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote: “On 28 August 2022, the Agency verified at FEP that Iran was feeding UF6 enriched up to 2% U-235 into the IR-6 cascade … for the production of UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235.”
Of the two other IR-6 cascades installed at the Natanz FEP, one was undergoing passivation with depleted UF6, a process that is carried out before enrichment proper begins, and the other had yet to be fed with any nuclear material, the agency said.
Iran and the United States appear to be inching towards an agreement to revive the 2015 deal, which placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting sanctions against Tehran. That deal unravelled after a U.S. withdrawal in 2018 prompted Iran to breach those restrictions one by one.
After more than a year of indirect talks, Iran has said it will soon respond to the latest U.S. comments on a compromise text submitted by the European Union, which is coordinating the talks.
Its installation of advanced machines at underground sites like Natanz and Fordow, however, could be a signal to any power that might want to attack it if there is no agreement, since it is unclear that airstrikes on those sites would be effective.
Western powers worry that Iran is moving towards the ability to make nuclear bombs. Iran denies any such intention.
By Raffi Berg & Tom Bateman BBC News, London & Jerusalem
Watch: Moqtada al-Sadr supporters storm Iraq’s presidential palace after he retires
At least 23 people have been killed in some of the worst fighting for years in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, sparked by a key leader’s decision to quit politics.
His bloc won the most seats in October’s elections but could not agree on the formation of a new government with the second largest bloc, comprised mainly of Iran-backed parties.
Once an Iranian ally, Mr Sadr has repositioned himself as a nationalist wanting to end US and Iranian influence over Iraq’s internal affairs.
Iraq has had years of turmoil: It has suffered instability and seen the growth of powerful armed groups since 2003, when dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown by a US-led invasion.
Ordinary life is hard: The country is oil rich but many Iraqis suffer from unemployment, corruption and a lack of basic services, with successive governments held to blame.
Much of the violence has been concentrated around the city’s Green Zone, a heavily fortified area that houses government buildings and foreign embassies. Dutch embassy staff were forced to move to the German mission due to the clashes.
Iran has closed its borders with Iraq in response to the unrest, and Kuwait has urged its citizens to leave the country immediately.
All of those killed were Mr Sadr’s supporters, while some 380 were injured, Iraqi medics said, according to AFP news agency.
A spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was alarmed by events and called for “immediate steps to de-escalate the situation”.
On Tuesday Mr Sadr apologised to the Iraqi people for the violence and instructed his supporters to leave their protests.
“This is not a revolution because it has lost its peaceful character,” he said in a televised address. “The spilling of Iraqi blood is forbidden.”
After he spoke, the army lifted a nationwide curfew which had been imposed on Monday.
Moqtada al-Sadr, 48, has been a dominant figure in Iraqi public and political life for the past two decades.
His Mehdi Army emerged as one of the most powerful militias which fought US and the new Iraqi army in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion which toppled former ruler Saddam Hussein.
He later rebranded it as the Peace Brigades, and it remains one of the biggest militias in the paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces.
The deep roots of this crisis lie in the plight of ordinary Iraqis, sick of the sectarianism and endemic corruption that has plagued their politics for two decades. It has increased the political space for those offering radical action and a way out.
The immediate cause is in the growing, violent rivalry between the factions of Iraq’s majority Shia community, vying for control of the country and the state. The deadlocked election result has led to the longest period yet without a government.
The sight of his supporters jumping into the swimming pool of a government palace on Monday is a reminder of his power to mobilise his base, the growing protests a sign of his reputation for radical action. More worrying is how quickly the violence has escalated in Baghdad, accompanied by a warning from the UN that the survival of the state is at stake.
Hamas referred to the entrance of Jewish worshippers through the Gate of the Tribes, which is reserved for Muslim entrance only, a ‘serious escalation.’ While the incident does not signal a change in government policy, Jewish groups are taking the opportunity to call for additional Jewish entry
Israel Police on Sunday played down reports by Jewish worshippers about their ascent to the Temple Mount under the supervision of an officer through a gate reserved for Muslims, in violation of the status quo at the disputed holy site.
The spokesperson for the Jerusalem District police warned about “false advertising” about the incident – which Jewish groups dubbed as ‘historical’ – saying that a group of around 50 Jews were ejected, and that those who were not violating the rules, which includes a ban on Jewish prayer at the site, were then allowed to reenter through the gate.
Although this year has already witnessed record-breaking numbers of Jewish worshippers ascending the Temple Mount, they only enter via the Mughrabi Bridge, overlooking the Western Wall plaza. Any other entrance into the contested complex is seen as an affront to the fragile religious status-quo, which permits Jewish presence but not prayer.
The story was reported by the daily Israel Hayom, and widely disseminated by Palestinian sites and on social media. A Hamas spokesperson called the move “a dangerous escalation,” while the Palestinian Foreign Ministry slammed the “flagrant violation of the status quo in Al-Aqsa,” adding that it holds the “Israeli government fully and directly responsible.”
The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs condemned what it called “the continued storming of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif by extremists, and allowing them to violate its sanctity through provocative practices and under the protection of the Israeli occupation police.”
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called “the continued storming of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
The Gate of the Tribes, on the northern side of the Temple Mount, is usually reserved for Muslim access only. While the incident does not signal a change in government policy, Jewish groups are taking the opportunity to call for additional Jewish entry.
Tom Nisani, the director of Beyadenu, which advocates for Jewish prayer at the site, called on Israel to allow Jewish entry through additional gates, noting that several Jews entered the complex this morning “smoothly and without problems.”
The group also posted a video of Jews awaiting entrance on Mughrabi Bridge, stating that the sole entrance “is not coping with the thousands of Jews ascending the Mount.”
“The important thing is that Jews entered through this gate, and that’s historical.”
Beyadenu did not deny the police’s version of events, but responded: “The important thing is that Jews entered through this gate, and that’s historical.”
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City is considered the holiest site in Judaism, having been the seat of the two ancient temples. At the same time, it is also the seat of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site.
Since Israel conquered East Jerusalem in 1967, it allows Jews to visit on the condition that they refrain from prayer or religious rites, but radical groups have been praying there with increasing frequency, sometimes under the protection of the police.
The uptick in devout Jews entering the Temple Mount on Sunday comes on Rosh Chodesh, the celebration of the month of Elul in the Jewish calendar.
The Waqf, the Jordanian custodian of the holy site, has not yet responded to the incident.
Gunfire rang out in the Green Zone of the capital Baghdad and security forces launched tear gas canisters on Monday to disperse al-Sadr supporters converging on the area. At least 10 people have been killed, the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies reported.
Al-Sadr’s statement, published on Twitter, came after months of protests by supporters backing his call for new elections and for the dissolution of the Iraqi parliament, which has seen 10 months of deadlock – representing the longest Iraq has gone without a government.
“I hereby announce my final withdrawal,” al-Sadr said.
He added that “all the institutions” linked to his Sadrist Movement will be closed, except the mausoleum of his father, assassinated in 1999, and other heritage facilities.
The head of the Sadrist parliamentary bloc Hassan Al-Athary announced in a Facebook post later on Monday that al-Sadr began a hunger strike “until the violence and use of weapons” end.
The announcement was quickly met with escalation from al-Sadr’s supporters, who stormed the presidential palace, a ceremonial building inside the fortified Green Zone of government buildings.
Hundreds pulled down the cement barriers outside the palace with ropes and breached its gates. Many rushed into the lavish salons and marbled halls of the building, a key meeting place for Iraqi heads of state and foreign dignitaries.
Protesters also blocked the entrance to the Umm Qasr port near the southern city of Basra, bringing operations down by 50 percent, Reuters reported, citing two unidentified sources.
Nationwide curfew
Iraq’s army declared a nationwide, indefinite curfew that went into effect at 7pm (16:00 GMT) on Monday.
“The security forces affirm their responsibility to protect government institutions, international missions, public and private properties,” a military statement said.
In his statement, al-Sadr attacked his political opponents and said they had not listened to his calls for reform.
Al-Sadr has withdrawn from politics or government in the past and also disbanded militias loyal to him. But he retains widespread influence over state institutions and controls a paramilitary group with thousands of members.
He has often returned to political activity after similar announcements, although the current political deadlock in Iraq appears harder to resolve than previous periods of dysfunction.
“It’s not quite clear what is he resigning from. Is he asking the other members of his party that hold bureaucratic positions in the state to resign? That’s to be seen,” Hadad told Al Jazeera.
“He has done this many times and usually when he does claim to be withdrawing or resigning from the political system, it’s usually before elections and he always ends up backtracking. So, the question again here is ‘Will he backtrack as well?’”
Al-Sadr’s party, the Sadrist Movement, won the most seats in an October 2021 election, but he ordered his legislators to resign en masse in June after he failed to form a government of his choosing, which would have excluded powerful Shia rivals close to Iran.
The move, however, handed the initiative in parliament to his Iran-backed Shia opponents, the Coordination Framework alliance.
Al-Sadr’s supporters stormed the parliamentbuilding in late July and stopped his rivals from appointing a new president and prime minister.
Mustafa al-Kahttps://andrewtheprophet.comdhimi, al-Sadr’s ally who remains Iraq’s caretaker prime minister, said he suspended cabinet meetings until further notice after Sadrist protesters stormed the government headquarters on Monday.
Al-Kadhimi also directed an “urgent investigation” into Monday’s events and stressed that the use of live ammunition by security forces against protesters is “strictly prohibited”, Iraq’s state news agency INA reported.
Political deadlock
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed said more al-Sadr supporters joined those staging the sit-in at parliament, adding al-Sadr’s statements appeared to seek to distance himself from any potential unrest.
“This resignation comes at a time that the political crisis in Iraq has reached an elevated stage,” said Abdelwahed. “It can be read in terms of disappointment, frustration by the Sadrist movements. But on the other hand it could be also read as an attempt to try to put more pressure on his rivals”.
He added the political deadlock has halted services that are “impacting the regular citizens”.
Protests last week spread to the country’s Supreme Judicial Council, the country’s top administrative judicial authority, as al-Sadr called on the judiciary to dissolve parliament. The council said at the time that it did not have the authority to dissolve parliament.
Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court is meeting on Tuesday to decide on whether parliament will be dissolved, although Farhad Alaaldin, the chairman of the Iraq Advisory Council, told Al Jazeera that the Iraqi constitution says it is “up to the parliament to dissolve itself”.
He said the court proceedings would likely be postponed if protests escalated.
Alaaldin said it was unlikely that al-Sadr would be stepping away from Iraqi politics for good. He has announced his withdrawal from political life before, only to walk his decision back.
“He wants to see Iraq in a way that he’s seeing it and he’s been working systematically since 2010, or you can say 2006, onward,” he said. “I don’t believe that he’s going to throw away everything that you’ve worked for for the past 18 years just on a tweet.
“He has a mission and he has a plan, and he thinks he has the way to make it into a different regime where he would be the dominant force.”
ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/APRussian pundits have suggested the Kremlin should deploy low-yield tactical nuclear weapons to break the military stalemate in Ukraine, but this could trigger a dangerous escalation with the West.
Gwynne Dyer is a UK-based Canadian journalist and seasoned commentator on international affairs.OPINION: On August 25 the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, announced that the country’s combat aircraft have been ‘upgraded’ by the Russians to carry nuclear weapons, and Belarusian pilots are being trained to deliver them. It got a single paragraph, or no notice at all, on most news sites. Nobody panicked.That’s partly because nobody is afraid of the Belarusian air force, and nobody believes that the Russians would really give Lukashenko nuclear weapons. It’s also partly because everybody has got used to Moscow reminding us every three or four weeks that it might use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine if it gets really cross.: *
Russian President Vladimir Putin started hinting heavily that he might use nuclear weapons if other countries intervened to prevent his conquest of Ukraine on the very first day of the war. “The consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history,” he warned on February 24.That sounded like Putin was actually threatening to use his long-range, city-killing nukes on Nato countries if they intervened. After that opening fanfare, however, the threats from Russian official sources were dialled back to occasional reminders that Moscow might use much smaller tactical nukes on the eastern battlefields in Ukraine. nullThe talk-show super-patriots on Rossia-1(state television) went on fantasising about World War Three in full costume dress – “Why do we need a world if Russia is not in it?” as presenter Dmitri Kiselyov put it – but the military professionals had presumably pointed out to the regime that threatening Armageddon would alarm even Russia’s friends (like China).So the official references by Russian sources to possible nuclear use in Ukraine became more indirect and less frequent, particularly after Russian abandoned its failed attempt to seize Kyiv and the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine began making slow but steady progress. Even for Russians, nuclear use is a counsel of despair.But now the Russian offensive in the east has fully stalled, and the perceived stalemate has put the question of tactical nuclear weapons back on the table. To be fair, the renewed chatter about the Russian use of mini-nukes is now coming more from pundits in the Western media than from Russia sources, but the concern is genuine.Even one tactical nuke could open up a hole in Ukrainian lines that Russian forces could pour through. The Russians would also hope that it would terrify the Nato countries into abandoning their support for Ukraine. On the other hand, it might escalate the conflict into a full-on nuclear war between Russia and the Nato countries.RODRIGO ABD/APSoldiers walk amid destroyed Russian tanks in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 3, 2022. Russia expected a quick victory when it invaded Ukraine earlier this year, but was unexpectedly caught in a bloody war of attrition. Russian losses are now estimated to have surpassed those the Russian military suffered during the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan.Both sides will have war-gamed this to death, trying out the various possible moves and counter-moves once a single low-yield Russian nuclear weapon has been used on the Ukrainian front line. (Even Putin would not nuke a city, or launch a full strike on all of Ukraine. This would be ‘robust signalling’, not an overture to worldwide nuclear holocaust.)ADVERTISEMENTnullAdvertise with StuffThe likelihood that the Russians would actually choose to go down this road is currently quite low, but it is not zero. There is no genuine Russian national interest at stake here, but the careers of Vladimir Putin and his closest associates certainly are at risk. For them military defeat, or even a prolonged and costly stalemate, spells political ruin.Many of them would just flee abroad and live with their money if the Ukrainian invasion fails and the regime collapses, but for Putin himself this seems to be a heritage issue. He feels the hand of history on his shoulder, and he has come to see himself as an historical figure on the scale of Catherine the Great or Peter the Great.Putin is probably not thinking of ordering a single nuclear strike on Ukraine at the moment, for the military stalemate is still young and he clearly believes he still has cards to play. But if those cards don’t work and the Russian military and political situation deteriorates, he might be tempted. What should Nato do if he gives in to the temptation?The best Nato response would be to do nothing nuclear at all. Just announce that any further nuclear weapons use, or any attempt by Russian troops to advance through the gap that the single strike opened in Ukraine’s defences, will be met by the full deployment of Nato’s conventional air power over Ukraine.Is this what Nato’s war-gamers have concluded? I don’t know, but both sides will have been gaming out every possible response to the explosion of a single Russian tactical nuclear weapon in eastern Ukraine. Let us hope that this is what the Nato groups have decided – and that they have also communicated their decision to the Russians.
Faults Underlying Exercise Vigilant GuardStory by: (Author NameStaff Sgt. Raymond Drumsta – 138th Public Affairs Detachment Dated: Thu, Nov 5, 2009 This map illustrates the earthquake fault lines in Western New York. An earthquake in the region is a likely event, says University of Buffalo Professor Dr. Robert Jacobi. TONAWANDA, NY — An earthquake in western New York, the scenario that Exercise Vigilant Guard is built around, is not that far-fetched, according to University of Buffalo geology professor Dr. Robert Jacobi. When asked about earthquakes in the area, Jacobi pulls out a computer-generated state map, cross-hatched with diagonal lines representing geological faults. The faults show that past earthquakes in the state were not random, and could occur again on the same fault systems, he said. “In western New York, 6.5 magnitude earthquakes are possible,” he said. This possibility underlies Exercise Vigilant Guard, a joint training opportunity for National Guard and emergency response organizations to build relationships with local, state, regional and federal partners against a variety of different homeland security threats including natural disasters and potential terrorist attacks. The exercise was based on an earthquake scenario, and a rubble pile at the Spaulding Fibre site here was used to simulate a collapsed building. The scenario was chosen as a result of extensive consultations with the earthquake experts at the University of Buffalo’s Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), said Brig. Gen. Mike Swezey, commander of 53rd Troop Command, who visited the site on Monday. Earthquakes of up to 7 magnitude have occurred in the Northeastern part of the continent, and this scenario was calibrated on the magnitude 5.9 earthquake which occurred in Saguenay, Quebec in 1988, said Jacobi and Professor Andre Filiatrault, MCEER director. “A 5.9 magnitude earthquake in this area is not an unrealistic scenario,” said Filiatrault. Closer to home, a 1.9 magnitude earthquake occurred about 2.5 miles from the Spaulding Fibre site within the last decade, Jacobi said. He and other earthquake experts impaneled by the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada in 1997 found that there’s a 40 percent chance of 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurring along the Clareden-Linden fault system, which lies about halfway between Buffalo and Rochester, Jacobi added. Jacobi and Filiatrault said the soft soil of western New York, especially in part of downtown Buffalo, would amplify tremors, causing more damage. “It’s like jello in a bowl,” said Jacobi. The area’s old infrastructure is vulnerable because it was built without reinforcing steel, said Filiatrault. Damage to industrial areas could release hazardous materials, he added. “You’ll have significant damage,” Filiatrault said. Exercise Vigilant Guard involved an earthquake’s aftermath, including infrastructure damage, injuries, deaths, displaced citizens and hazardous material incidents. All this week, more than 1,300 National Guard troops and hundreds of local and regional emergency response professionals have been training at several sites in western New York to respond these types of incidents. Jacobi called Exercise Vigilant Guard “important and illuminating.” “I’m proud of the National Guard for organizing and carrying out such an excellent exercise,” he said. Training concluded Thursday.
US lawmakers have followed in the steps of Nancy Pelosi this week to visit Taiwan as China continues to threaten the island. Ms Pelsoi’s visit earlier this month angered Beijing, who then launches military drills near Taiwan in response. Senator Marsha Blackburn said she will not let China prevent her from visiting Taiwan. She said: “Taiwan is our strongest partner in the Indo-Pacific Region. Regular high-level visits to Taipei are long-standing U.S. policy,” Blackburn said in a statement. “I will not be bullied by Communist China into turning my back on the island.”
Taiwan has not declared independence, and China considers the island a province of the country.
But the US has stood up for Taiwan’s right to self-governance, even vowing to defend the country should it come under attack.
She said: “Their [China’s] presence in the waters and airspace around Taiwan demonstrates that they can control it if they wish to.
“It is a dangerous time in terms of potential for escalation when you have a normalised PLA (Chinese military) presence that could potentially restrict freedom of operations and freedom of movement, which is a key US objective.
WW3: Biden and Xi are at risk of escalation near Taiwan (Image: getty)
Belarus Leader Lukashenko Hints at Nuclear Strikes From Belarusian Planes – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Friday that his country’s aircraft are capable of carrying Russian nuclear weapons – a statement seen widely as explicit support for the Kremlin’s war efforts and against the allied support of NATO countries to Ukraine.
“We, along with Putin, said once in St. Petersburg that we will adapt the Belarusian Su [-24] planes as well to make them capable to carry nuclear arms. Do you think we were just yakking? Everything is ready!” the Belarusian leader said.
Writing on his official website, Lukashenko celebrated Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union and wished all citizens of the country “peaceful skies, tolerance, courage, strength and success in restoring a decent life.”
“I am convinced that today’s disputes will not be able to destroy the centuries-old foundation of sincere good neighbourly relations between the peoples of the two countries,” the statement continued.
The comments were understandably looked at with suspicion by Ukrainian officials given Lukashenko’s close ties to Russia and implied support of Russian President Vladimir Putin since the war began on February 23. The Belarusian leader sees the situation differently, however.
“That is why he cynically wishes us a ‘peaceful sky’ while allowing deadly rockets to hit us.”
Russian President Putin. Image Credit: Russian Government.
What to Makes of Belarus? Lukashenko Sees Things Differently
In May this year, Lukashenko claimed told The Associated Press that he did not expect the war in Ukraine to last so long and that he was doing “everything” he could to bring the war to an end. Describing the war as a “special military operation” – the term used by the Kremlin to describe the invasion – Lukashenko accused also Kyiv of “provoking” Moscow.
“But I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it. I want to stress one more time, I feel like this operation has dragged on,” Lukashenko said.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
RODRIGO ABD/APSoldiers walk amid destroyed Russian tanks in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 3, 2022. Russia expected a quick victory when it invaded Ukraine earlier this year, but was unexpectedly caught in a bloody war of attrition. Russian losses are now estimated to have surpassed those the Russian military suffered during the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan.Both sides will have war-gamed this to death, trying out the various possible moves and counter-moves once a single low-yield Russian nuclear weapon has been used on the Ukrainian front line. (Even Putin would not nuke a city, or launch a full strike on all of Ukraine. This would be ‘robust signalling’, not an overture to worldwide nuclear holocaust.)ADVERTISEMENTnull
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