Russia Drills for Nuclear War

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Email This Article Print This Article Print All Articles

Russia's strategic missile forces today launched a three-day drill expected to simulate the use of nuclear weapons, RIA Novosti reported (see GSN, Sept. 9, 2009).

Russian military personnel would follow procedures in the nation's recently adopted military doctrine for dealing with nuclear and conventional conflict, said strategic missile forces spokesman Col. Vadim Koval (see GSN, Feb. 9).

"The SMF are conducting command-and-staff drills on March 10-12 in line with the annual training program," he said. "A total of more than 2,000 servicemen and 150 theater- and tactical-level command-and-control centers take part in the drills," Koval added.

The missile forces carried out 11 major drills and two strategic missile test-firings last year, according to RIA Novosti.

Within six years, Moscow intends to upgrade the command-and-control infrastructure of its strategic missile systems to make the nation's deterrent less susceptible to enemy missile interceptors and bolster the resilience of its delivery systems.

The Russian strategic missile forces possess 538 ICBMs, a number that includes 306 SS-25 Sickle missiles, 88 SS-18 Satan missiles and 56 Topol-M missiles, RIA Novosti reported (RIA Novosti, March 10).

ITAR-Tass, though, reported that the group holds 466 ICBMs that could carry 1,357 nuclear warheads (ITAR-Tass, March 10).

That Russia is attempting to rise from the ashes is a good thing. We will need a strong Russia later against the Jihadis.

I didn't catch this earlier. Wow, you KGB-Putin-friendly guys are dangerous! I don't know why John lets you all stay on here pushing this blatantly obvious pro-Putin propaganda. There is a serious possibility that the KGB Putin government itself was behind many of those terror attacks there, or at least cooperated in some way, and that they were working with al-qaeda number two, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, prior to the 911 attacks. This is why the former KGB agent who spilled the beans on Putin and this plot was poisoned to death several years ago.

Now if you attempt to link this 'theory' to the whack-job Bush-Cheney 911 'inside job' conspiracy theories, I'd tell you the situation is not at all analogous, as it is way beyond the realm of possibility that Bush-Cheney would ever dream of such a devious plot in order to launch a war or whatever, but very much inline with the history of KGB/FSB. They even initiate deliberate misinformation/disinformation accusing us of doing things that they themselves are doing or have done to throw the clueless among us (most people) off track. It was they who started the CIA-created-the-AIDs-virus conspiracy theory that Obama's reverend Wright ran with. Not saying they were the ones who actually started the virus, but rather just using it as an example of the way they operate. They are masters at the sophisticated, complex game of chess, while most of us, unfortunately, can barely understand checkers. As a people, we are easily misled, deceived and manipulated. The most recent example of this is Obama winning over the hearts and minds of millions of Americans to win the presidency. It would be difficult to come up with a more convinceable example than this of the simplicity and gullibility of the American people. And it just seems to get worse with each new generation.

From the prestigious conservative website, Heritage.org...

Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006
The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
_____________________________________________________

Blowing up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror
by Alexander Litvinenko, Yuri Felshtinsky, Geoffrey Andrews and Co (Translator)

Synopsis: Blowing Up Russia contains the allegations of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko against his former spymasters in Moscow which led to his being murdered in London in November 2006. In the book he and historian Yuri Felshtinsky detail how since 1999 the Russian secret service has been hatching a plot to return to the terror that was the hallmark of the KGB. Vividly written and based on Litvinenko's 20 years of insider knowledge of Russian spy campaigns, Blowing Up Russia describes how the successor of the KGB fabricated terrorist attacks and launched a war. Writing about Litvinenko, the surviving co-author recounts how the banning of the book in Russia led to three earlier deaths.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blowing-up-Russia/Alexander-Litvinenko/e/9781594032011
_____________________________________________________

Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security agent fighting for his life in a UK hospital after allegedly being poisoned, has been a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin since before he became president in 2000.

Mr Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another opponent of the Kremlin who was shot dead last month, and said recently he was investigating her murder. It was after being handed documents apparently relating to the case that he was taken ill more than two weeks ago.

But he is perhaps best known for a book in which he alleges that agents co-ordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people. He now appears to have fallen victim to the kind of plots which he wrote about.

Arrest

Mr Litvinenko, 43, first became a security agent under the Soviet-era KGB, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in its later incarnations.

He is reported to have fallen out with Vladimir Putin, then head of the security service, in the late 1990s, after failing in attempts to crack down on corruption within the organisation. In 1998, he first came to prominence by exposing an alleged plot to assassinate the then powerful tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who himself now lives in self-imposed exile in the UK. He was subsequently arrested on charges of abusing his office and spent nine months in a remand centre before being acquitted.

In 1999 he wrote Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he accused the current Russian security service, the FSB, of carrying out several apartment house bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people. The attacks, which Moscow blamed on Chechen rebels, helped swing public opinion behind Russia's second war in the breakaway republic.

Petrol bombs

Complaining of persecution, in 2000 Mr Litvinenko fled to the UK where he sought, and was granted, asylum. But after settling in an unnamed London suburb, the former spy continued to behave as if on the run, constantly changing his contact details. The Times newspaper reported that over the summer someone tried to push a pram loaded with petrol bombs at his front door. Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of President Putin, he has continued to make allegations about his former bosses. Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before 9/11.

http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/litvinenko.html

Dear EDL.
You accuse me of something I'm not, and Impugn things I did not say.

You need to back up and understand real world politics - needing a strong Russia in the future is not a “pro-Putin propaganda” as you put it. Do you imagine that a weak Russia can be of any help against the estimated 120 million potential jihadis? What I'm saying is we need a future strong Russia (the country, not a particular system of government), not a future strong man (Putin) who is transitory at best.

Never take anything which comes out of Russia as proven - everything is a box within a box etc. The FSB replaced the KGB in ‘91 - long before 911. Especially anything regarding a direct attack on the US - too much risk. The only way the Russians would attack us would be a surprise all out thermonuclear one - and they have absolutely no reason to do so.

I'm quite aware of the rumor of Russian-Jihadi cooperation against the US, as well as the Chechen internal attacks. Beyond all of that, I'm just not buying the whole conspiracy bit - sometimes things are just what they seem and no more. With Russia, the more westerners look for a conspiracy, the more they will find, until lost in a maze which has no bearing on what is actually occurring.

“As a people, we are easily misled, deceived and manipulated.”
Internally, Americans find themselves feeling powerless ever since the educational system collapsed back in the mid 60s when our native communists began to reach critical mass.

And the same can be said for ‘foreign policy’: Americans have always behaved “stupidly” in world politics, but somehow managed to pull the bacon out of the fire before it was too late. That is not a judgment, just a fact.

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