The Russian Defense Ministry announced on December 14th that “Russia’s Yars intercontinental ballistic missile has been loaded into a silo at the Kozelsk missile formation in the Kaluga Region in central Russia,” southwest of Moscow.
With a 7,500 mile range, the Yars rocket is able to hit the United States. The Yars carries multiple independently targetable warheads, which means it can strike many targets at once. A single Yars missile, for example, could strike Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The Russian news source Pravda claims the Yars nuclear load is 12 times more destructive than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Russian officials were two-faced about this missile deployment. On the one hand, they tried to make it sound perfectly normal. Said Commander of the Kozelsk missile formation Alexey Sokolov, the placement of the missile was simply part of “the run-up to the Strategic Missile Force Day,” an annual celebration.
Explained Sokolov, “This operation is important, because it will allow a yet another ICBM to enter the combat duty as scheduled.”
On the other hand, Vladimir Putin told reporters on December 9th, just five days before the placement of the Yars in its silo, that if the West attacks Russia with nuclear weapons, “I assure you, after the early warning system receives a signal about a missile attack, hundreds of our missiles will be in the air from our side. It is impossible to stop them.”
Putin said that Russia would suffer nuclear hits, but, “the enemy will be wiped off the face of the earth because intercepting a hundred missiles is impossible.” You heard that right. Vladimir Putin says if he is told Western nuclear missiles are headed for Russia, he can wipe the United States off the map.
There’s another tripwire that Russians say could set off World War III. Russia is systematically destroying Ukraine’s cities and its energy infrastructure. And it is lying about it.
Russian sources claim that the rain of roughly 2,000 missiles with which Russia has bombarded Ukraine for the last month is surgically targeted at military assets and does not touch civilians. This is false.
To stop this destruction, America is finally yielding to Ukraine’s requests for one of the highest level anti-missile and anti-aircraft defenses we’ve got, our Patriot missiles. December 15th, America announced that it was finalizing plans to send at least one battery of Patriots to the Ukraine.
Shouts Russia’s leading news agency, RIA Novosti, in a headline, “USA’s Patriot systems in Ukraine will take the world straight to WWIII.”
RIA Novosti quotes Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the International Committee of Russia’s Federation Council: “The United States is provoking us into a direct conflict with NATO.”
And RIA Novosti quotes Igor Korotchenko, the Director of the Russian Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade, who told RIA Novosti, “This will be a fundamental step towards escalation on the part of Washington. The purpose of this step is to prolong the existence of Zelensky’s regime and significantly complicate Russian air strikes against key objects of Ukraine’s military and energy system.”
He is right. That is our purpose. To back a democratically elected government. And to prevent Russia from utterly destroying Ukraine’s military and its energy system. But this defense of the Ukraine is essential. Why?
To protect the roughly ten nations Vladimir Putin told us in November, 2021, would come next on his list of essential conquests, former members of the Soviet Union like Poland, Romania, Latvia, and Lithuania. That’s a third of Europe.
If Vladimir Putin is allowed to pursue his ambitions for conquest, it will leave the United States badly weakened. And by weakening us, it will help usher in the new world order that Russia’s ally China wants. A new world order in which Russia hopes to sit at China’s right hand.
Meanwhile let’s hope that Donetsk militia commander Alexander Khodakovsky is wrong when he states on Russia’s Channel24 TV that, “The next spiral of escalation can only be one: nuclear.”
References:
https://english.pravda.ru/news/world/155089-soho_ukraine_news/
https://english.pravda.ru/news/world/155111-usa_patriot/
https://tass.com/politics/1411067
https://tass.com/defense/1550211
https://tass.com/politics/1550683
https://tass.com/politics/1550703
https://twitter.com/i/status/1602743461270151169
https://www.the-sun.com/news/6911324/putin-readies-nuke-launch-missile/
