Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 4 – To overcome the
stalemate on the ground and to get itself out of the diplomatic corner it has painted
itself into by vetoing the UN Security Council resolution on the Malaysian
airliner tribunal, Moscow appears to be planning an act of “nuclear provocation”
against Ukraine so as to turn the tables on Kyiv and the West, according to a
Ukrainian analyst.
On Khvylya.net, Sergey Klimovsky
argues that Moscow is now in a position where one must “consider seriously” the
possibility that Russia will try to organize a small nuclear explosion possibly
of a dirty bomb that it would be able to place the blame on Ukraine (hvylya.net/analytics/geopolitics/pochemu-ugrozu-yadernogo-udara-so-storonyi-rossii-po-ukraine-nuzhno-rassmatrivat-serezno.html).
The
Ukrainian military and its supporters have forced the Kremlin from launching a
direct invasion this summer, Klimovsky says, and their firmness have led the
Russian side to shift from hybrid war to a more normal kind and “to go from
attack to active defense.” But that clearly is not sufficient from Moscow’s
point of view.
For
any breakthrough to happen, he continues, Russia will need more fighters and
more technology, especially since the shift from hybrid to regular war
threatens to make it into a world conflict.
Technically, Russia is “more or less” prepared for this. But “psychologically,
the Russian federation is not ready for such a war,” and so the Kremlin is
trying to remedy that.
Russian
military flights over the Baltic and Europe are not only acts designed to
intimidate the West, Klimovsky says, they are intended to make Russians
accustomed to the idea that “their army can bomb something in Europe and that
from this is required the expression of 100 percent approval of the party,
government and bombers.”
That
this is what is going on was suggested by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Kremlin’s “covert
mouthpiece,” in comments on July 31. He called for renaming the Russian Federation
the Russian Army, promised to put “half the world on its knees,” and assured
Russians that Turks would give them massages and Italians would cook them
spaghetti.
His
words were warmly supported by his audience almost to Putinesque levels, Klimovsky
says.
The
next day, “The Times” of London carried a story entitled “Ukraine rebels
‘building dirty bomb’ with Russian scientists” (thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4514313.ece).
Its source was the Ukrainian intelligence service, and the DNR hastened to
respond with a non-denial denial: a bunker with radioactive waste exists there,
but no one is working with it.
That wasn’t enough so then
propagandists for the Russian-occupied areas suggested that the US was
preparing a nuclear bomb there and planning to use it against the Russians in
the Donbas. Such absurdities are the
norm in Russia’s info war, Klimovsky says, “but the threat of a nuclear
terrorist act on the occupied portion of the Donbas and in Rostov oblast is
real.”
The reason for that is “Churkin’s
veto at the UN” on a resolution calling for a tribunal about the Malaysian
airliner. Having cast it, Russia in effect “admitted that its forces shot down
the passenger jet. If the Russian Federation had not been involved, then it
would have supported the creation of the tribunal.”
Having landed in this position,
Klimovsky says, “the Kremlin had to immediately create someone who could be
called a greater terrorist than Russia.” A terrorist act in Africa wouldn’t
have been enough to end the opprobrium visited on Moscow but an attack
supposedly orchestrated by “’the bloody junta from Kyiv” again Russians would
be “convincing.”
“A nuclear strike on the Donbas”
would cause people to forget about the tribunal and would be used by Moscow to “justify
its annexation of Crimea.” The Russian side would claim that “Kyiv apparently
had not given up its nuclear arms” and “therefore Russia had done the right
thing by seizing Crimea since Ukraine itself had violated the Budapest
agreement.”
The most probable places where such
an incident could be carried out and then blamed on the Ukrainians are
Debaltsevo, Shirokino and Gorlovka. The
first, where a train brought “an important cargo” on July 30 that required
guards, would work because it is near Ukrainian lines and the total population
is much smaller because many have left.
A thousand casualties from such an explosion would be
enough for Moscow to begin talking about “a new Hiroshima.” And of course, “the
Kremlin would be very happy if the wind would carry the radiation from an
explosion further into Ukraine.” It might even arrange to have this happen on
August 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day.
The other two sites would also
serve, Shirokino because it would reduce Russian losses in an eventual attack
on Mariupol and Gorlovka because a nuclear explosion there could set up a
series of chemical explosions. The number of victims all that would cause make
it perhaps “the most suitable candidate for Hiroshima-2,” as Russia Today would
undoubtedly claim.
Right now, Klimovsky says, “three things
can prevent a [Russian-orchestrated] nuclear terrorist act in Donbas:” the
creation of a UN tribunal on the downing of the Malaysian aircraft, the
introduction of UN peacekeepers into the Donbas, and the winds which normally
at this time of year would carry any radioactive cloud into Russia.
For the time being, the Khvylya.net
commentator concludes, “the winds are the most reliable means.”
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