How Big An Escalation Are We Looking At?

NATO—mostly meaning US—direct involvement in the war on Russia is reaching disturbing levels. Larry Johnson had a Friday Update that should give you a fright:

UKRAINE CROSSES A MAJOR RED LINE

First of all, I recommend that you read the entire post. There’s a lot of information about the ATACMS missile system—it comes in the second half of the post. I’ll quote the really disturbing part. Note that Larry is working off Simplicius, which will be relevant later:

Ukraine, with Western assistance, crossed a red-line today that is going to be followed, I believe, by a very powerful, widespread Russian response.

Apparently Ukraine has attacked a Russian ballistic missile early warning radar in Armavir, Russia. This destruction of this particular radar node has limited direct military utility for Ukraine, due to its coverage. I guess some one really wants to test stability.

This ICBM warning radar is located in the Federal Republic of Voronezh, which is 150 miles (250 kilometers) east of Belgorod. The radar is damaged, but not destroyed. Nonetheless, this marks a direct attack on Russia’s early warning system to detect a nuclear attack. Ukraine and the West have crossed a definitive red line for Russia and there will be hell to pay for this. This attack does not harm Russia’s tactical position on the battlefield one iota. But it does represent a clear escalation by the West to target Russia’s nuclear deterrence capability. The rubicon is crossed and this war is going to enter a new level of peril, especially for Ukraine and the West.

At a minimum, Russia is likely to intensify efforts to locate and destroy ATACM launchers and missile supplies. This means that more NATO troops will likely die in the coming weeks. Insanity rules in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and Kiev. The nuclear genie may be out of the bottle and, if there is another attack of this nature, Russia may decide to use tactical nukes on Ukrainian bases. Here I agree with Simplicius, this is a damn reckless move by the West.

I have zero expertise in such matters, which means that I’ll offer an opinion anyway. I agree that this is an extraordinarily reckless move. As we’ll see below, the attack Larry is describing may be one of two separate attacks.

Will Schryver has his own take on this event—or pair of events—which I find compelling. He agrees that a Rubicon may have been crossed, but also warns that he believes Simplicius is being alarmist. This would not be the first time for Simplicius, who tends to reflect a certain strain of Russian thinking that consistently believes that Putin is being too soft. I’ve had occasion to warn (yesterday most recently) that Simplicius does sometimes get his facts wrong, despite his high volume of good information.

Will’s post is quite lengthy, so I again recommend readers to look at the entire piece.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!

Ukraine War Update

-Memorial Day Weekend, 2024

As best I can gather, five American ATACMS missiles were used in a short-range attack against a Russian S-300 battery recently repositioned in Donetsk region. At least one of the missiles got through and scattered the contents of its cluster munitions warhead, destroying some elements of the battery (see image below).

So, note a few things. Will states that the ATACMS were used to attack a radar that was part of an S-300 battery that was recently repositioned. To me, that means that this radar is not part of the ICBM early warning system. It was repositioned for a specific purpose, which I’m guessing has to do with the use of ATACMS against Crimea. As Will explains, the radar is directed towards the south—toward ATACMS launch sites that are targeting Crimea.

However, and this brings us back to Larry’s post, Will states that drones were used to attack the radar that I believe Larry is talking about:

Meanwhile, another curious strike — apparently with long-range UAVs — was made against one of Russia's "over-the-horizon" strategic radar installations. We're talking about a large, multi-structure fixed site (see image below).

This site can only "look" across a third or so of the horizon, and is situated to look from SW to SE to detect ballistic missiles launched from western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.

So now we are talking about ballistic missiles on the strategic level. Will ties this in to what he describes as the appearance in Ukraine—in conjunction with more ATACMS missiles—of “improved long range attack drones.” Will then provides a bullet point list assessment of what’s going on. Basically, he believes this is an attempt to degrade Russian air defenses to allow some meaningful ATACMS attacks on Crimea and, in particular, on the Kerch bridge—a Neocon obsession. (It’s worth noting that there appears to be a sort of cat and mouse game going on. Reports that I find credible maintain that the few ATACMS that have got through have mostly struck “decoy” sites, stocked with out of service planes, etc.) Here are a few of the main points, and you can compare them to the excellent ATACMS graphic that Larry displays:

•  The evidence is clear to me that what we are seeing is a 100% NATO operation. Sure, they might have a handful of Ukrainian orderlies to fetch coffee and sandwiches and whatnot, but otherwise it's probably 85% American, 10% British, and 4% French "volunteer specialists" running the entire show — from target selection to ISR to pressing the "Fire" button on a control panel.

•  So, to a degree arguably unprecedented in this war, we are now seeing a direct battlefield engagement between NATO forces and Russian forces.

•  The NATO boys are apparently attempting to degrade Russian air defenses, primarily in the vicinity of Crimea. And they are using mostly cluster-warhead ATACMS missiles to do it. They've also launched a few SCALP cruise missiles, but few if any appear to have evaded interception.

•  They have already expended several dozen of these cluster-warhead ATACMS, the overwhelming majority of which have been intercepted — to the point they chose to use FIVE of them to attack a single S-300 battery! This is VERY telling. The Russians have destroyed Patriot batteries with single well-placed Iskander strikes.

•  But this also means the US is husbanding its stock of unitary-warhead ATACMS missiles — the kind that would be suited, for example, to a strike against the Kerch Bridge.

•  It's not entirely clear how many of the most recent delivery of ~100 ATACMS missiles pack the more powerful unitary warheads. Quite likely most of them, but few if any have been used so far.

•  Based on the high Russian interception rate against the ATACMS, and given the relative hardness of a structure like the Kerch Bridge, I figure Team NATO will calculate it is necessary to launch a salvo of 30-50 missiles in order to hopefully achieve a dozen solid strikes against the bridge — which would still be very unlikely to do severe damage.

The key point by far is the first one. This is NATO/US using their own equipment and personnel to launch attacks into Russia. Can you say “act of war”? Note in particular the need to use ISR for all these attacks. Putin, Lavrov, and other top Russian officials have all been expressing increasing irritation at these provocations in recent days.

Based on these considerations Will draws these conclusions, which are more limited than those Simplicius advances, but still concerning.

The Ukrainian army is in a state of near-collapse.

The Russians are clearly stronger than at any point in this war.

The storehouse of NATO weaponry has been attrited to an astounding and entirely unforeseen extent — almost to the point of effective exhaustion for many of the European NATO countries.

But the empire apparently remains determined, if not outright desperate to string out the affair long enough to preserve the western political status quo.

That’s a very important point. This war on Russia began as a war of aggression projected to lead to subjugation of Russia, to be looted by the West. It has been transformed into a desperate struggle by the West to preserve the Anglo-Zionist Rules Based Order.

This next paragraph makes that last point clear: “The Pentagon and Whitehall.”

The Pentagon and Whitehall are understandably frustrated by the relative impotence of their toys versus the toys of the Russian Ministry of Defense, and are intent on finding some way to string together a few meaningful wins while their limited inventory holds out.

For their part, the Russians are able and ever more likely to retaliate against NATO targets beyond the borders of Ukraine — particularly against Perfidious Albion.

And, just to put emphasis on their serious intent, they are conducting a second round of tactical nuclear missile exercises in Belarus.

A second round of tactical nuclear missile exercises? In Belarus—basically on the border with NATO proper, not just Ukraine? That sounds like a deadly serious message is being sent. What is that message? In a separate comment Will writes:

I think [Simplicius] is overreacting, and greatly overestimating the success rate of the ATACMS and what he perceives as the struggles of Russian AD.

I agree with him (as I have written frequently) that the time has come for Russia to deal with NATO ISR once and for all.

Could the two be connected—the question of NATO ISR and the tactical nuke exercises? What I mean is something along these lines. Dealing with NATO ISR would, at a minimum, include shooting down NATO planes/drones in NATO airspace (especially Poland and Romania) as well as in international airspace over the Black Sea. The elimination of NATO ISR from the battlefield space would be something like reducing the conflict to one of Ukraine using muzzle loaders or possibly bows and arrows against Russian machine guns—or probably worse. Is it possible, therefore, that Russia has reached the enough-is-enough point and is contemplating eliminating NATO ISR from the equation, and the tactical nuke drills are a warning of what will happen if NATO tries to escalate in response? Or are these drills a warning against further drone attacks against strategic radar installations.

Either way, it’s something to think about.