Nuclear Escalation Continues

Carl Osgood May 27, 2024 EIRNS: Photo - Russian Voronezh-M type early warning radar station. Credit: kremlin.ru

The campaign against Russia’s nuclear early warning system seems to be continuing. Reports emerged yesterday of an attempted drone strike aimed at another Russian radar station, this one in the Orenburg region bordering Kazakhstan, some 1,500 km to the east and north of the Armavir station, which was damaged by a drone strike on the night of May 22-23. According to topwar.ru, a pro-Russian military news site, one drone reportedly fell on the village of Gorkovskoye, about 6 km to the east of the radar station. According to southfront.org, satellite imagery confirms no damage to the radar installation.

Ukraine’s military intelligence, the GUR, is taking credit for this long-range strike, which traveled a “record breaking” 1,800 km, telling Ukrainian media through an unnamed source that it was responsible for the Orenburg strike as well as the Armavir strike. The military intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent that the consequences of the May 26 attack are still being clarified.

According to a report in yesterday’s London Sunday Telegraph, the Armavir strike is causing “alarm” in the West. The Telegraph quotes Mauro Gilli, a senior researcher at the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, who said the drone strike had been a tactical success because it will force Russia to redeploy air defense systems and it also put down a marker that no Russian military site was untouchable. “We can debate the effectiveness and merit but strategically there is logic,” he said.

Other Western analysts, though, were more hesitant and said that Ukraine should avoid striking Russia’s nuclear infrastructure, The Telegraph goes on.

“Not a wise decision on the part of Ukraine,” said Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. “Bombers and military sites in general are different because they’re used to attack Ukraine.”

Thord Are Iversen, a Norwegian military analyst, said striking a part of Russia’s nuclear warning system was “not a particularly good idea … especially in times of tension.”

“It’s in everyone’s best interest that Russia’s ballistic missile warning system works well,” he said.