Date: Wednesday, 29 May 2024
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/former-high-us-defense-official-says
https://theduran.com/former-high-u-s-defense-official-says-ukraines-may-23rd
Former high U.S. defense official says Ukraine’s May 23rd hit on Russian radar site might lead to WW III.
Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)
On May 29th, Stephen Bryen headlined “Ukraine's Attack on Russia's Strategic Radar a Significant Escalation: Ukraine Risking Nuclear Conflict” and reported that:
On May 23rd drones launched from Ukraine hit a Russian strategic radar station in Armavir, Russia. This attack is not the first time that nuclear facilities in Russia have been targeted and hit, but it represents a significant escalation that could trigger Russian retaliation on NATO suppliers or even a nuclear response by Russia. The core of Russian angst about Ukraine is that the country would become a NATO base for nuclear missiles. ...
Armavir consists of two long-range phased-array radars for warning of a nuclear attack. This site is in southern Russia in Krasnodar, Krai and is on the grounds of the Baranovsky Air Base located there. One of the radars covers the southwest, and the other faces southeast. …
Officially the radar is listed as UHF which means either 1ghz or below in frequency, which includes L Band at 1 Ghz. L Band radars offer a means of detecting stealth aircraft. … They have a range of 6,000 km (3,728 miles). ...
The Ukrainian attack represents the first time that strategic nuclear defense installations have been attacked in Russia or any other country.
Concern about nuclear weapons in eastern Europe and, potentially in future in Ukraine, plays an outsized role in Russia's strategic outlook and their assessment of US and NATO intentions. …
US legislators and NATO’s leader are urging Ukraine to fire long range missiles at Russian territory. ... The Russians have been concerned, especially since 2019, that the US was secretly preparing a nuclear arsenal in eastern Europe, primarily in Poland and Romania. Recent Polish requests for NATO nuclear weapons to be positioned in that country, partly in response to Russian deployments of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, is concerning. …
That evasive term “concerning” might refer only to Russia, or also to the United States; he evades the question of whether this attack by Ukraine could be part of a U.S.-regime plan to strip Russia of its early-warning defense capability to avoid The Kremlin’s being blitz-nuked by a U.S. missile or stealth plane — such as this radar facility was designed to protect against.
In the 1980s, under President Reagan, Bryen had founded and headed the Defense Technology Security Administration within the U.S. Defense Department, and he has extensive experience at top levels in academia, government, industry, and national-security think tanks, including as the President of the aerospace-defense firm Finmeccanica North America (now Leonardo) (which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, rates as the world’s 9th-largest seller of armaments), and he was a Deputy Under Secretary of Defense throughout Reagan's two terms. He also has been a senior staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So, he is very knowledgable, and has high quality inside sources, regarding these matters.
He notes there that, “So far Russia has said very little about the attack.” But, clearly, this attack’s success is extremely concerning to Vladimir Putin.
Also on May 29th, the SouthFront site, which is perhaps the best single news-source about the war in Ukraine (although Alexander Mercouris and Brian Berletic also might be), headlined “BREAKING: THIRD ATTACK OF NATO DRONES TARGETED RUSSIAN VORONEZH-DM RADAR IN ARMAVIR, KRASNODAR REGION” and reported that:
On the morning of May 29, another kamikaze UAV [drone] targeted Russian strategic Voronezh-DM radar in the city of Armavir in the Krasnodar region. The local governor confirmed the incident, claiming that the enemy UAV was destroyed by Russian air defense forces.
This is the third attack that targeted this radar station which is part of the Russian Missile Attack Warning System aimed to detect the launch of ballistic nuclear missiles on large distance. On the night of May 27, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported the destruction of 12 drones over several regions of Russia, four of them were shot down in the Kuban [region]. Then, Russian sources shared the photo of the UAV that was reportedly intercepted when heading towards the Voronezh-DM radar near Armavir.
The footage [in that incident] confirmed that the strategic component of the Russian nuclear missile shield was targeted by Tekever AR3 converted into kamikaze UAV.
These UAVs are manufactured in Portugal, and the company’s office is located in Britain. Most likely, the British military is involved in the combat use of UAVs in Ukraine. Thus, NATO weapons are used to disable the Russian Missile Attack Warning System.
The first attack on the Voronezh-DM radar station in Armavir took place on May 24 and it resulted in some damage. On May 26, an unidentified drone crashed in the Orenburg region near another Voronezh-M type radar station. LINK On May 23, the Center for Deep Space Communications in Crimea was struck by 4 US-made ATACMS missiles. LINK, LINK
Despite the attempts of some Western leaders to blame the Ukrainian military for the risky attacks on the Russian Missile Attack Warning System, that are allegedly launched by Kiev itself, it is obvious that NATO warmongers are behind the strikes, which are coordinated by NATO reconnaissance in the Black Sea region, launched by NATO drones and missiles, and planned by the NATO military. … This is a highly dangerous escalation launched by NATO warmongers, in particular from London and Washington.
Perhaps the reason why Bryen isn’t being equally direct in his statements is that his entire career was serving the aggressor (the U.S. regime), and he might be somewhat “concerned” that he could lose some of his inside sources if he were to be as direct as SouthFront is.
And perhaps Putin will soon decide what his response will be to what by now is almost certainly a plan by NATO to blitz-nuke The Kremlin. Of course, he cannot rationally make such a decision on only an “almost certainly” basis, but, presumably, he soon will have better evidence than merely that. And he knows that what NATO does is ultimately decided in the U.S. White House.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
