It’s not going to work for a nuclear war.

Not these ones they’re selling.

A deep one works.

But some kind of bunker may help you in the case of some other sort of disaster.

AP:

When Bernard Jones Jr. and his wife, Doris, built their dream home, they didn’t hold back. A grotto swimming pool with a waterfall for hot summer days. A home theater for cozy winter nights. A fruit orchard to harvest in fall. And a vast underground bunker in case disaster strikes.

“The world’s not becoming a safer place,” he said. “We wanted to be prepared.”

Under a nondescript metal hatch near the private basketball court, there’s a hidden staircase that leads down into rooms with beds for about 25 people, bathrooms and two kitchens, all backed by a self-sufficient energy source.

With water, electricity, clean air and food, they felt ready for any disaster, even a nuclear blast, at their bucolic home in California’s Inland Empire.

“If there was a nuclear strike, would you rather go into the living room or go into a bunker? If you had one, you’d go there too,” said Jones, who said he reluctantly sold the home two years ago.

Global security leaders are warning nuclear threats are growing as weapons spending surged to $91.4 billion last year. At the same time, private bunker sales are on the rise globally, from small metal boxes to crawl inside of to extravagant underground mansions.

Critics warn these bunkers create a false perception that a nuclear war is survivable. They argue that people planning to live through an atomic blast aren’t focusing on the real and current dangers posed by nuclear threats, and the critical need to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, government disaster experts say bunkers aren’t necessary. A Federal Emergency Management Agency 100-page guide on responding to a nuclear detonation focuses on having the public get inside and stay inside, ideally in a basement and away from outside walls for at least a day. Those existing spaces can provide protection from radioactive fallout, says FEMA.

But increasingly, buyers say bunkers offer a sense of security. The market for U.S. bomb and fallout shelters is forecast to grow from $137 million last year to $175 million by 2030, according to a market research report from BlueWeave Consulting. The report says major growth factors include “the rising threat of nuclear or terrorist attacks or civil unrest.”

“People are uneasy and they want a safe place to put their family. And they have this attitude that it’s better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it,” said Atlas Survival Shelters CEO Ron Hubbard, amid showers of sparks and the loud buzz of welding at his bunker factory, which he says is the world’s largest, in Sulphur Springs, Texas.

Hubbard said COVID lockdowns, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war have driven sales.

On Nov. 21, in the hours after Russia’s first-ever use of an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile to attack Ukraine, Hubbard said his phone rang nonstop.

Ron Hubbard

Nonproliferation advocates bristle at the bunkers, shelters or any suggestion that a nuclear war is survivable.

“Bunkers are, in fact, not a tool to survive a nuclear war, but a tool to allow a population to psychologically endure the possibility of a nuclear war,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Sanders-Zakre called radiation the “uniquely horrific aspect of nuclear weapons,” and noted that even surviving the fallout doesn’t prevent long-lasting, intergenerational health crises. “Ultimately, the only solution to protect populations from nuclear war is to eliminate nuclear weapons.”

Researcher Sam Lair at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies says U.S. leaders stopped talking about bunkers decades ago.

“The political costs incurred by causing people to think about shelters again is not worth it to leaders because it forces people to think about what they would do after nuclear war,” he said. “That’s something that very, very few people want to think about. This makes people feel vulnerable.”

Lair said building bunkers seems futile, even if they work in the short term.

“Even if a nuclear exchange is perhaps more survivable than many people think, I think the aftermath will be uglier than many people think as well,” he said. “The fundamental wrenching that it would do to our way of life would be profound.”

That’s been a serious concern of Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern for almost 50 years.

“If we ever get to a point where there’s all out nuclear war, underground bunkers aren’t going to protect people,” he said. “Instead, we ought to be investing our resources and our energy trying to talk about a nuclear weapons freeze, initially.”

James McGovern

McGovern pushed back against FEMA’s efforts to prepare the public for a nuclear attack by advising people to take shelter.

“What a stupid thing to say that we all just need to know where to hide and where to avoid the most impacts of nuclear radiation. I mean, really, that’s chilling when you hear people try to rationalize nuclear war that way,” he said.

You are going to want to cover the hatch.

That’s important.

You don’t want someone stumbling on your hatch and opening it to get your food.

Ultimately though, once the apocalypse comes, you are going to want to be mobile, at least for the first year while you’re waiting for the blacks to die off.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accuses the West of pushing #Russia to its “red lines” – situations it has publicly made clear it will not tolerate – and says Moscow had been forced to respond.https://t.co/2HD1rvJgDV pic.twitter.com/O7kvLWleQI

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) December 16, 2024

There is a lot Putin can still do to the Ukraine without needing to go into threats against Europe.

Hopefully, he starts doing these things against the Ukraine soon, so he can start threatening Europe.

RT:

The West’s support for Ukraine is pushing Russia to the point where it cannot help but retaliate, President Vladimir Putin has said, while warning the US against deploying medium-range missiles.

Speaking at a meeting of top Russian Defense Ministry officials on Monday, Putin accused the US of seeking “to weaken our country and inflict a strategic defeat” on Moscow by continuing “to pump a de facto illegitimate ruling regime in Kiev with weapons and money, sending mercenaries and military advisers, thereby encouraging further escalation of the conflict.”

Washington is instilling fear in Americans by resorting to “simple tactics,” Putin stated. “They push us to the red line… we begin to respond, and then they frighten their population,” he added, suggesting that the US used the same approach during its rivalry with the Soviet Union.

The Russian president also slammed the West for what he described as attempts to impose its own rules on the rest of the world while waging “hybrid wars” against anyone who resists, including Russia.

In this vein, NATO is boosting its defense spending and forming “strike groups” near Russia’s borders, he added. “The number of American service members in Europe has already exceeded 100,000 troops,” he noted.

At the meeting, Putin also noted that America thinks it is God, which is factual.

“In fact, there is only one stable rule: no rules for those who make the rules, for those who consider themselves to be at the head of the whole world, those who consider themselves to be representatives of God on Earth, although they themselves do not believe in God,” Putin said.

“They consider themselves representatives of God on Earth, although they themselves do not believe in God”: the United States and the entire collective West, trying to maintain their dominance, continue to impose their “rules” on the entire world, but do not follow them… pic.twitter.com/ZkpTTrse0k

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) December 16, 2024

Everyone who doesn’t believe in God thinks they are a god. This is standard. If you don’t believe in God, it is just stupid to act morally. It would be nonsensical, like Nietzsche said.

There is nothing more pathetic than some reddit atheist defending morality as “humanism.”

If I didn’t believe in God, I would want to rule the world viciously. It’s very simple logic.

‘Putin didn’t want the war’ John Mearsheimer on Ukraine

War in Ukraine is the Fault of US, British and NATO Expansion.

We Believed That We Could Win The War. pic.twitter.com/qMRLnaoYfH

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) December 7, 2024

Let’s see if Trump does something to stop this!

Spoiler: he will not!

RT:

The US is stepping up efforts to increase deployment of intermediate and short-range missiles, including stationing hypersonic weapons in Europe and Asia, according to information obtained by RT. Production and deployment of such systems in the US has reportedly been picking up pace in recent years.

Among the major weapons being developed is the multiple-launch rocket system Dark Typhon, which will be capable of firing Standard-6 missiles with a 500-km range and Tomahawk cruise missiles (2,400-km), as well as a hypersonic missile that is also still being developed. The system is expected to become operational by 2025.

During the NATO summit this past July, Washington and Berlin announced that Dark Typhoon would be stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany starting in 2026, a prospect that Russia slammed as an “escalatory action” given that it would place the missiles within range of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other major Russian cities.

…

According to the information obtained by RT, the US plans to start deploying the missiles in Japan by October 2025, which would put then within 8-10 minutes’ flight time from Vladivostok. By 2026, one rocket launcher equipped with 16 missiles is expected to be stationed in Wiesbaden, with a flight time to central Russia also estimated at 8-10 minutes.

The US probably doesn’t care must about Vladivostok, given that they have all of these missiles pointed at Moscow and Saint Petersburg. I think the missiles in Japan are for threatening China, primarily.

But of course, the US threatens the entire world, so I guess they want to threaten Siberia as well.

America is like an evil wizard with a vendetta against all human life.

Vladivostok is a very nice and friendly city.

Sad the US wants to threaten it with hypersonic missiles.

If I was going to threaten Vladivostok with something sonic, I would threaten to send Sonic the Hedgehog to hang out with them and have a fun adventure together.

We are actively preparing for negotiations in the US, which will include meetings with President Biden and representatives from both parties in Congress. We also expect meetings with both presidential candidates.

Ukraine will always be grateful to the United States for… pic.twitter.com/CyRIVtpqPn

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 20, 2024

It looked like Biden and Starmer were going to make a joint announcement that they were going to help the Ukraine launch missiles at Moscow, and then when Putin said that he would view this as a declaration of war by the United States, they backed down.

But they’re still talking about it.

The Guardian:

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to carry out long-range strikes inside Russia with US-supplied weapons, and to earn “a place in history” by “strengthening Ukraine” before he leaves office.

Speaking before a crucial trip next week to Washington, where he will meet Biden and the US vice-president and presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, and address the UN, Zelenskyy said he would present a “victory plan” to end the war.

His vision for a “just peace” has not been made public. But in a media briefing with the Observer in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said it involved carrying out deep strikes with western missiles inside Russia – something London and Washington have so far refused.

The UK has indicated it is willing to allow Ukraine to use British Storm Shadow cruise missiles. But the White House remains sceptical. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, failed to resolve the issue when he held private talks last week with Biden in Washington.

Zelenskyy confirmed no green light had been given, despite months of high-level lobbying. “Neither the US nor UK has allowed us to use these weapons on the territory of Russia, against any targets and at any distance,” he said.

Storm Shadows, the French equivalent, Scalp, and the US Atacms system have “not been provided in the numbers we need”, Zelenskyy added. He suggested the reluctance of international partners could be explained by fear of “escalation” with Moscow – an analysis Kyiv does not share.

Asked how he might persuade Biden when they meet on Thursday, Zelenskyy cited the fact that the outgoing president had in the past “changed his opinions” after “difficult discussions”. Some US members of his entourage supported strikes, he said – which was “already an achievement”.

Zelenskyy added: “Biden can strengthen Ukraine and make important decisions for Ukraine to become stronger and to protect its independence while he is US president. I think it is a historical mission after all.”

As well as meeting Harris, Zelenskyy said he would “most likely” have a meeting with Donald Trump on Thursday or Friday. “Our teams are in contact. The main thing is to have time [together]. I won’t look into the future, but I think it will be important for both of us,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump, huh?

He’s continually supported weapons to the Ukraine, but he publicly whines about the war and says Biden is trying to start World War III.

It’s not clear what he would do if he “wins” the election, but he would definitely be under pressure to focus primarily on killing the enemies of the Jews.

This pro Ukrainian map demonstrates Russias lighting strike to reclaim its territory in Kursk, Ukrains troops risk encirclement and complete destruction. pic.twitter.com/RHVUlodmZw

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) September 20, 2024

#FMsays The US deployment of a mid-range missile system in the Philippines threatens the security of regional countries and intensifies geopolitical confrontation, FM spokesman Lin Jian has said while urging the nation to stop inciting military confrontation and quickly pull out… pic.twitter.com/Bbhji5Wvbt

— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) September 19, 2024

How many wars is this government planning to fight?

We’ve got Russia, the entire Middle East, and now China?

How can anyone look at the behavior of the US government and claim these people are victims? They are totally out of control lunatics who just start whining about how they are victims whenever you point out that they are harassing, threatening, and murdering others.

If I didn’t know better, based on this behavior pattern, I would think the US was run by the Jews.

Reuters:

The United States has no immediate plans to withdraw a mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines, despite Chinese demands, and is testing the feasibility of its use in a regional conflict, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The Typhon system, which can be equipped with cruise missiles capable of striking Chinese targets, was brought in for joint exercises earlier this year, both countries said at the time, but has remained there.

The Southeast Asian archipelago, Taiwan’s neighbour to the South, is an important part of U.S. strategy in Asia and would be an indispensable staging point for the military to aid Taipei in the event of a Chinese attack.

China and Russia have condemned the first deployment of the system to the Indo-Pacific, accusing Washington of fuelling an arms race.

China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it was very concerned about the plan to keep the system in place.

“It seriously threatens the security of regional countries and intensifies geopolitical confrontation,” ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a press briefing.

…

The U.S. has been amassing a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia, as Washington attempts to catch up quickly in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a big lead, Reuters has reported.

Although the U.S. military has declined to say how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles are due to be bought in the next five years, according to government documents outlining military purchases. Several thousand Tomahawks are already in U.S. inventories, the documents showed.

China has denounced the deployment of the Typhon several times, including in May when Wu Qian, spokesperson for China’s defense ministry, said Manila and Washington had brought “huge risks of war into the region”.

Ultimately, the problem is that China is a heterosexual country, while Taiwan is an anal cesspit. The purpose of the US government is to spread sodomy around the earth.

The US is claiming with zero evidence that China is planning to invade Taiwan, and then they are using that baseless claim as an explanation for why they are militarizing the entire region, thereby attempting to provoke China into invading Taiwan.

However, right now, it looks a lot more likely that there will be conflict in the South China Sea, around the Philippines, than around Taiwan.

There is a temple to commemorate Zheng Chenggong in my hometown and Zheng is celebrated as a national hero because he inspired a sense of national consciousness, Huang Chi-jung from Taiwan said, adding that as a genuine Chinese, she firmly believes in Taiwan’s reunification.… pic.twitter.com/zCbytmgXZi

— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) September 19, 2024

Many or most Taiwan people actually want reunification.

President Putin has decreed an increase the staffing level of the Armed Forces to 2 million 389 thousand people, including 1.5 million military personnel.

The last time the staffing level was increased was in December 2023, it was 2,209,130 ​​people, including 1,320,000… pic.twitter.com/jem6VROw8b

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) September 16, 2024

This is the only rational thing for Russia to do at this point: transfer their entire economy into a war economy.

They have no way of knowing what the US is going to do next, and the only thing they can do is prepare for the worst, while also sending a signal that they are ready for a major conflict if the Americans push for it.

Reuters:

President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China’s.

In a decree published on the Kremlin’s website, Putin ordered the overall size of the armed forces to be increased to 2.38 million people, of which he said 1.5 million should be active servicemen.

According to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading military think tank, such an increase would see Russia leapfrog the United States and India in terms of the number of active combat soldiers it has at its disposal and be second only to China in size. The IISS said Beijing has just over 2 million active duty service personnel.

The move, the third time Putin has expanded the army’s ranks since sending his military into Ukraine in February 2022, comes as Russian forces push forward in eastern Ukraine on parts of a vast 1,000 km (627-mile) frontline and try to eject Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region.

Personally, I thought the Americans were going to back down a long time ago, and they didn’t, so who even knows.

They will eventually have to make a decision when they run out of Ukrainians, but they now seem to be moving to push for the deportation of men who fled to Poland and Western Europe to force them into the military, so that will give them yet another wave of warm bodies to throw into the meat-grinder.

It could take another 18 months for those people to get ground up, and then at that point, the US would have to decide if it wants to throw Poland at Russia, and really escalate things into a real WWIII.

Again, Russia has no way of knowing what they’re going to do, and I don’t even think the people in Washington themselves know what they’re going to do, so the only possible logical thing for Russia to do is expand their military and prepare for this war to get much larger.

“Why did you have to call in artillery fire on yourself?”

Vladimir Putin spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Danilov, who led the defense of the village of Malaya Loknya in the Kursk region.

During defensive actions from August 8 to 24, A. Danilov’s unit destroyed up to… pic.twitter.com/qAol54q6bQ

— East_Calling (@East_Calling) September 16, 2024

NATO Secretary-General @jensstoltenberg says on FP Live that he is in favor of allies loosening restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-made long-range missiles. Watch the full interview or read the Q&A here: https://t.co/3WEPN7WMqA pic.twitter.com/Lm4xle93pG

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) September 16, 2024

Previously: Biden Says Putin Won’t Retaliate If Washington Lets the Ukraine Use Long-Range Missiles to Strike Russia

The Ukraine would not even use this to attack military targets. They would just try to kill random people in Moscow. That’s all they ever do. They’re very bad at attacking military targets, and don’t seem to care about doing that.

Reuters:

The outgoing head of NATO Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday he welcomed talks on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russian territory, but any decision on the issue would have to be made by individual allies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden held talks in Washington on Friday on whether to allow Kyiv to use the long-range missiles against targets in Russia. No decision was announced.

“I welcome these developments and these decisions but its for individual allies to make the final decisions,” Stoltenberg told LBC radio. “Allies have different policies on this.”

They will do this.

They’ve done everything else they said they would never do. It’s a process. They say “we would never do that,” then “well, we might do that,” then “we should do that,” then “okay, we’re doing that.” They’ve done this like 35 times now. None of the Wunderwaffen have actually done anything. The Ukraine just keeps on losing.

While the mentally unstable European elites try to convince you that Russia will “Invade NATO”

The American invasion and occupation happened a long time ago. pic.twitter.com/pImVFYI2Y8

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) September 16, 2024

BREAKING:

🇷🇺 Putin on the potential use of NATO Long-range weapons against Russia:

“If they do that, NATO is officially at war with Russia ”

“This would mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European nations are at war with Russia. And if that is the case,… pic.twitter.com/VqJ0h8JSYr

— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) September 12, 2024

BREAKING: Prime minister Keir Starmer and President Joe Biden meet in Washington for intensive talks on Ukraine war. https://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3

📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/2uYORruPn3

— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 13, 2024

Vladimir Putin is a psychopathic mad man hellbent on world domination, simply because he enjoys causing suffering because he hates democracy and freedom.

But look, you also gotta remember that he’s a really chilled out and reasonable guy, and you can basically just go into his country and kill everyone and he will just sit back and relax.

He won’t ever do anything.

The Guardian:

Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday.

Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow.

At a foreign policy summit on Friday afternoon, Biden said: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”

Biden and Starmer’s top foreign policy teams were meeting at the Blue Room in the White House. At the start of the meeting, James Matthews from Sky News jumped the gun by asking Biden: “What do you say to Vladimir Putin’s threat of war?”

Biden scolded him. “You be quiet, I’m going to speak, OK?” the president said, before beginning his prepared remarks.

Also present at the Blue Room meeting were Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary. Other British participants included Tim Barrow, the national security adviser, and Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray.

Starmer flew over from London on Thursday for the working meeting amid escalating tensions with the Kremlin after the UK had indicated that the US had agreed to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to bomb Russia.

After the summit, Starmer said the meeting was not about a particular decision on Storm Shadow. “Well, we’ve had a long and productive discussion on a number of problems, including Ukraine, as you’d expect, the Middle East, and the Indo Pacific, talking strategically about tactical decisions,” he said.

However, Biden indicated the topic was under discussion between the leaders and their teams. In response to a shouted question asking how soon he was prepared to let Ukraine fire missiles deeper into Russia, Biden said: “We’re going to discuss that now.”

…

The British Storm Shadow missiles, made by a European company, can strike targets at least 190 miles away and Ukraine wants to use them to bomb airbases, missile sites and other military targets in the Russian heartlands.

Earlier, Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage.

Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it had acted on documents showing that part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine.

Lovely narrative.

It just makes so much sense.

🇷🇺🇬🇧 Russia intends to expel six British diplomats for engaging in espionage activities.

The FSB : “London’s efforts to escalate the international military-political situation.” pic.twitter.com/y8WPAwoxob

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) September 13, 2024

North Koreans celebrate the country’s 76th founding anniversary.

The US is still threatening to destroy North Korea for some reason.

The reason, apparently, is that if you don’t do anal sex, you’re not allowed to exist.

It’s called “democracy.”

AP:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to redouble efforts to make his nuclear force fully ready for combat with the United States and its allies, state media reported Tuesday, after the country disclosed a new platform likely designed to fire more powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the mainland U.S.

Kim has repeatedly made similar pledges, but his latest threat comes as outside experts believe Kim will perform provocative weapons tests ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. In recent days, North Korea has also resumed launches of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea.

In a speech marking the 76th founding anniversary for his government on Monday, Kim said North Korea faces “a grave threat” because of what he called “the reckless expansion” of a U.S.-led regional military bloc that is now developing into a nuclear-based one. Kim said such a development is pushing North Korea to boost its military capability, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

Kim said North Korea will “redouble its measures and efforts to make all the armed forces of the state including the nuclear force fully ready for combat,” KCNA said.

North Korea has been protesting the July signing of a new U.S.-South Korean defense guideline meant to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons to cope with growing North Korean nuclear threats. North Korea said the guideline revealed its adversaries’ plots to invade the country. U.S. and South Korean officials have repeatedly said they don’t intend to attack the country.

It’s great that Russia made that defense agreement with Korea.

Kim is a good guy, and he has a great country full of happy people, and he deserves to be involved in things.

I heard the Russians were insane. That was the narrative. They were mad lunatics, hellbent on conquering Europe.

Putin is so completely unhinged, I was told, that he thought he was going to conquer a country of 40 million people with 150,000 troops. He was whacked out of his mind. A certified madman.

But then we start talking about “Russia is saying they will fire nukes,” and all of the sudden the American media is like “well, they are far too reasonable to do anything like that – do not worry, the Russians just get it.”

Russia continues to say they are going to fire nukes, and the media continues to downplay this.

Reuters:

Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.

The existing nuclear doctrine, set out in a decree by President Vladimir Putin in 2020, says Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.

Some hawks among Russia’s military analysts have urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use in order to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the West.

Who is saying that?

If that’s the plan it’s clearly not going to work.

It seems more likely that they are actually getting ready to fire nukes. It’s not clear that they’re playing a game here.

Putin said in June that the nuclear doctrine was a “living instrument” that could change, depending on world events. Ryabkov’s comments on Sunday were the clearest statement yet that changes would indeed be made.

“The work is at an advanced stage, and there is a clear intent to make corrections,” state news agency TASS cited Ryabkov as saying.

He said the decision is “connected with the escalation course of our Western adversaries” in connection with the Ukraine conflict.

Look – there is no doubt at all in my mind that Russia will fire nukes before it loses the war.

That is either insane or it isn’t, but it is the situation.

Framing this as “oh, they’re just faking it, don’t worry” is wrong and it certainly does not line up with the narrative about the Russians being a bunch of lunatics.

Russia has delivered a chilling warning to the West by amending its nuclear doctrine to allow for a first strike if the country perceives itself to be under serious threat.

This move comes as Russia accuses Western powers of plotting to use Ukraine as a staging ground to… pic.twitter.com/LBM7CK6gSR

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) August 27, 2024