Tag: Nuclear Weapons

Putin Says He Could Put Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Belarus by Summer

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said he would be able to position tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by the summer, a move that threatened to increase tensions with the United States and Europe while his forces wage war in Ukraine. The Russian leader has repeatedly raised the specter of using nuclear weapons since ordering […]

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Daniel Ellsberg’s Life Among Secrets

Q. How should the average reader understand the difference between the importance of a risotto recipe that was disclosed by the Russian hack of John Podesta’s email account and serious secrets like those disclosed by Snowden? Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists, who studies secrecy, for instance, once called the indiscriminate disclosure of […]

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Is Nuclear Arms Control Just a Fantasy?

Yet even the sharply reduced Russian and American nuclear arsenals are still enough to wipe out much of the world, China is pushing hard to become the third nuclear superpower, and at least six other countries, including the uber-dictatorship North Korea, have nuclear weapons (the others: Britain, France, Israel, India and Pakistan). Perversely, the complexity […]

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Blinken Confronts Lavrov in First Meeting Since Ukraine War

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his Russian counterpart on Thursday held the first private, face-to-face exchange between a U.S. cabinet member and a top Kremlin official since the invasion, and Mr. Blinken said he used the encounter to demand that Russia end its war on Ukraine. The unscheduled encounter with Sergey V. Lavrov, […]

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Putin Unlikely to Use Nukes in Ukraine, Pentagon Says

The Pentagon says it does not believe Putin will use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Photos via Getty Images and Wikimedia.  Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s scary rhetoric threatening nuclear strikes in Ukraine, the Pentagon doesn’t believe the Kremlin would actually do it.  Speaking at an oversight hearing on American military support for Ukraine of the […]

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Biden: ‘No evidence’ Russia changing nuclear posture despite suspending treaty

Biden: ‘No evidence’ Russia changing nuclear posture despite suspending treaty | The Hill Skip to content President Joe Biden listens during a meeting with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of nine countries that make up the eastern flank of NATO, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023, in Warsaw. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) President Biden […]

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Biden and Putin Give Clashing Claims of Who Is to Blame on Ukraine

WARSAW — President Biden and Vladimir V. Putin laid out radically different visions on Tuesday for Ukraine’s future, offering sharply contrasting narratives about who is to blame for the bloody, yearlong war and seeming to agree on only one point: The conflict is nowhere near an end. Mr. Biden repeatedly blamed Mr. Putin, the president […]

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What Putin’s Suspension of New START Treaty Means for Arms Control

The reasons are numerous. First, there is virtually no communication between the two countries. The “strategic stability talks” that Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin agreed upon in June 2021, at their only face-to-face meeting as presidents, were suspended after the invasion of Ukraine. Second, trust between the two countries is virtually nonexistent. Mr. Putin and […]

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Fears of Russian Nuclear Weapons Use Have Diminished, but Could Re-emerge

Heightened nuclear fears in October came against the backdrop of a successful counteroffensive by the Ukrainian military when it reclaimed a huge swath of territory east of Kharkiv, in the northeast. It then made a drive at Kherson, in the south, forcing the Russian military to eventually retreat from there. With their army in disarray, Mr. Putin […]

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