The attack comes two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin
signed a revised nuclear doctrine that formally lowers the threshold for
the country’s use of nuclear weapons. Ukraine on Tuesday fired several
American-supplied longer-range missiles and reportedly fired U.K.-made
Storm Shadows on Wednesday into Russia. ...
The developments come as the war has taken on a growing international
dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the
battlefield — a development that U.S. officials said prompted U.S.
President Joe Biden’s policy shift on allowing Ukraine to fire
longer-range U.S. missiles into Russia. The Kremlin responded with
threats to escalate further.
Referring to French President Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to rule out sending western troops to Ukraine this week, Putin said Russia remembered “the fate of those who once sent their contingents to our country. “Now the consequences for possible interveners will be much more tragic,” he added. “We also have weapons that can strike targets on their territory.”
The comments appeared to be a direct response to French President
Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion earlier this week that European heads of
state and Western officials, who had met in Paris on Monday, had talked
about the possibility of sending ground troops into Ukraine.
The French leader on Monday said there was no consensus on the idea, but that it had not been “ruled out.”
Navalny looked healthy when he appeared by video
for a courtroom appeal on Thursday. Speaking from prison, Navalny
complained about the frequent fines he received while in a punitive cell
and asked the judge to send him some money “as my own is running out
thanks to your decisions”. ...
In 2020, Navalny fell into a coma after a suspected poisoning using novichok by Russia’s FSB security service and was evacuated to Germany for treatment. He recovered and returned to Russia in January 2021,
where he was arrested on a parole violation charge and sentenced to his
first of several jail terms that would total more than 30 years behind
bars.
What Pat gets wrong is that Putin hasn't threatened to use "tactical atomic weapons". Putin's threats are deliberately ambiguous and not specific. But they are linked to the new tests and deployment of hypersonic delivery systems, which can carry nuclear or conventional warheads. Putin thinks his hypersonic missile is "the most powerful handgun in the world".
Putin is Dirty Harry.
But what's in the gun? 180gr jacketed hollow points or 320gr flat-nose?
Mr. Putin talks about nuclear weapons a lot. He did it again Wednesday: In a meeting with politicians in St. Petersburg, he said if anyone intervenes in Ukraine and “creates unacceptable threats for us that are strategic in nature,” the Russian response will be “lightning fast.” He said: “We have all the tools for this that no one else can boast of having. We won’t boast about it, we’ll use them, if needed.”
He’s talked like this since the invasion. It’s a tactic: He’s trying to scare everybody. That doesn’t mean the threat is empty.
There are signs the Russians are deliberately creating a historical paper trail, as if to say they warned us. On Monday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the risk of nuclear conflict is “serious” and “should not be underestimated.”
No he doesn't. No he hasn't. And neither has Lavrov. Listen for yourself. It's Peggy who is supplying "the risk of nuclear conflict", not Lavrov. Lavrov is clearly referring to the dangerous increased rhetoric about the possibility of nuclear conflict, which is precisely the hysteria Peggy Noonan is engaging in. The Russians have been very circumspect. They don't actually use the terminology. They're not bluffing. They're beating around the bush to create uncertainty, to keep their enemies off balance.
Putin has never used the phrase "nuclear weapon" in any of these examples which have been reported in the press since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Putin's hypersonic capability is clearly in focus in his statements. He has them and the West does not. He's threatening to use them with conventional warheads against Western targets, which is bad enough. But nuclear warheads? That's what he wants us to think, to create fear. But he's never actually said it.
The nuclear talk is all Western hype, exaggeration, and lying. And Drudge is a major aggregator of such headlines. It's irresponsible and it must stop, because to continue it is to make the unthinkable, thinkable, and then actual.
Try exercising your free speech absolutism then, as your tongue vaporizes inside your mouth.
Meanwhile Peggy Noonan appears not to have considered that Putin has daughters, to whom he might really want to leave something other than smoking embers.
Hysteria has a way of blinding one to important facts.
