Tom Moore, Nuclear-Capable Wonk
@PaperMissiles
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Ex-Senior Professional Staff Member, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee| #nuclear policy expert|Mercurially acerbic #Jayhawk who'd rather be reading Bulgakov.
Joined November 2017
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Last Seen Profiles
Pinned Tweet
We overestimated Russia.
We underestimated Ukraine.
For Russia, every day without victory is defeat.
For Ukraine, every day without defeat is victory.
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A good case for123 agreements with Russia and China. Hint: There isn’t one. Welcome to real competition signaling: Terminate them both, boost loadings on TIID5 at max yield per each a 8 warheads, fund and deploy SLCMs, accelerate Sentinel and fund real pit prod./1
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Welcome to America.
Always, welcome.
No fight for a future that is just is ever lost.
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End START notifications. They have no/no value. Say nothing of suspension, termination or withdrawal. Call out everything in Belarus then approach Poland for land- and sea-based joint basing and nuclear force deployments. Let Moscow guess, matching silence with silence./2
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Ukraine isn't waiting for the US to make up its mind up on ATACMS. They cannot afford to wait longer now that the DPRK and Russia introduced those systems as a foreign sale. I say the door is wide open. They have both a domestic and additional foreign option(s) for 300 km+.
Russia gaining access to these long range fires capabilities is going to add a whole range of challenges for UA that will enhance Russia's offensive capabilities
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All Russian military assets are legitimate targets. I can recall when everyone fretted over RU EW before, during and after the ABM Treaty, and more. Most of those arguments were overstated. If it flies a Russian flag, it can be struck.
Not a wise decision on the part of Ukraine to strike Russian early warning facility that’s part of the nuclear infrastructure. Bombers and military sites in general are different because they’re used to attack Ukraine.
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Guys: Sarmat has been in the works for a long dang time.
It's not because of Ukraine. It's because SS-18 Satan is old and they planned to replace it, eventually, just like we do Minuteman III. It's not related to Ukraine. Nothing like an ICBM just generates in a few months.
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Add to Chinese target burdens, never subtract, test their actual ability to ramp up, monitored via NTM, taking all offers of talks off the table indefinitely & suspend all joint glossaries, declarations or any other relevant statements, non-binding and rule out all binding./3
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Yes, Russia seems likely to invade Ukraine, but please, for the love of God, remember to say "again."
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PS: We’re done with half measures, or had better be. Our enemies need no more handwringing capitulation to ourselves from us for the future they rejected. It’s out of reach, by the kilometer and kiloton, more and more, every year. I don’t like it at all. But what I liked is dead.
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Nuke Ukraine?🧵
For many who wish to ban nuclear weapons, the war in Ukraine stresses nuclear danger. They've an incoherent understanding of nuclear control, war escalation control and termination, both for Russia and US/NATO, and political objectives of nuclear employment./1
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Cease all US unilateral stockpile declarations. End all talks in interagency of any modifications, save up, to NUWEP. Classify all discussions and end public leaks, comments, and open discussion of FYNSP and FYDP nuclear programs, policies and force posture./4
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Make multiple, secret offers intended to confuse the China-Russia nuclear axis. Target it with sanctions, espionage and sabotage at all levels, technical and political. Task the IC with demonstrable, measurable missions to do so, and crack the whip to a crisp salute to do so./6
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Accelerate Sentinel and forever end possibilities for single warhead loadings on all US land based IC forces, thus breaking out of START with an option, though wholly classified and up to us, unilaterally. Make a case Russia. You haven’t shown up to a BCC, anyway./5
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PPS
Action now averts more unilateral decision-making in Kyiv, Seoul, Tokyo, Ankara, and more friendly capitals, putting us in a more awkward less favorable position later. There are no more places in the sand to stick our head. Not our style, anyway.
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Confound all opposition to such measures domestically, building on the SLCM consensus in Congress. Ignore outliers, reward supporters, and change rhetoric to match competition, in private, rather than relentless apathetic opposition to a done deal./7
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Orcas are apex if they encounter White sharks. After they cooperatively hunt you can see them place the shark in a catatonic state by rolling it over. This attack and kill strategy has gained more coverage in last decade, despite Orcas doing it for millions of our puny years.
Orca whales devour great white shark in wild Mossel Bay footage
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Make competition evident, embraced and aggressive. Do this at the PCC, not CSIS DASD think-piece levels. Yes, the idea behind competition entails threat economy, but we have the bank for it. Now show us some resolve./FIN
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Tu-95 made its first flight OTD in 1952.
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Ah, I hurt the little chap’s feelings. 🥱
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Oh my God.
This speech.
This text.
He's lost his mind.
This is not a controlled, grey KGB man.
This is someone who believes himself.
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Oh, God, my DMs.
Listen: I am perfectly happy to talk in private. But I am not ready for people who can Google to question me. I earned my gray hair before there was a Google. And some of what I remember AIN'T on the goddamn internet.
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Chuck Yeager once responded to a tweet of mine.
It was a good day.
RIP 🇺🇸
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Confirming Russian fears, yes we have a gay bomb.
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"But their ordeal didn’t end there; while Daria was able to escape Russia within days with the help of local connections, Oksana and her two children were taken to a temporary housing facility deeper in Russia, where her captors said they should be "'de-nazified[.]'"
A Ukrainian family told me about their terrifying time in a basement during Russia's siege of Mariupol and perilous journey thru Putin's filtration camps before being deported to Russia.
Some of it was captured in sketches.
I hope you read.
via
@politico
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I simply like Joe Biden. I am biased as he was personally nice to me when I was just a grunt staffer. Donald Trump is just mean, unable to understand government, and responsible for the attack on the US Capitol. I criticize Biden. I loathe Trump. And most Americans are the same.
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Ukrainian officials can't say it, but I can: Failure to provide ATACMS is a mistake and will force Ukraine to find other supplier(s) for long-range ground fires. Russia doesn't control all options. US re-transfer consent isn't required for all of those, either.
Two nations. One clear, firm, and unwavering message: We stand together.
Дві країни. Один чіткий, твердий і непохитний сигнал: ми разом.
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Whiteman AFB 393rd Expeditionary Bomb Squadron B-2 Spirit taxis during Red Flag-Nellis 22-1 on January 26, 2022, at Nellis AFB.
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Like hell.
BREAKING: Intel sources say Moskva had at least two nuclear weapons aboard when it went down in the Black Sea.
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All data controlled under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, as Restricted Data includes information concerning:
-design, manufacture, or use of atomic weapons;
-production of special nuclear material; and
-use of special nuclear material in the production of energy.
It's been a while since this was part of my job, so I'm not sure how far Restricted Data (RD) extends. Documents like the Nuclear Posture Review and documents with information about where nuclear weapons are stationed may not be RD; I'm not sure about that. 3/
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ATACMS might come to Ukraine when a new, non-Army, CJCS does.
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@Bina_Chlover
No, not “whatever we wanted,” but rather what we needed. The door opens and closes, and I’m rather tired of the humiliation visible on our faces. 1995 and the era of good feelings is over for the rest of our lives.
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There is a major Russian missile exercise every year this time, lightning or GROM, in Russian. Ten calma, amigos.
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“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” Nobody alive today has kept such an oath for so long.
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If she scaled up, filled it with a lifting gas, and with the right prevailing wind, she could be home, in Russia, in a few days.
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Not every American wingspan that flies carries munitions.
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Never in the field of human conflict was so much held hostage by so few idiots for so long.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene, in a nod to Viktor Orban, has submitted an amendment to the Ukraine aid bill barring funding until "restrictions on Hungarians in Transcarpathia" and other minorities are lifted.
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“You’ve hit our own pipeline, you arrogant ass!”
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Someone wrote a book on all the bad ideas for American ICBM forces.
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To see the Soviet Union fall twice in my lifetime, that would be something.
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Am profoundly grateful to the American intelligence community and rather sick of the "but they didn't get this part" kritik. If you feel that way, get trained, get a clearance, and find out that there is no armchair in your cubicle.
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Sorry, but that is in NO WAY a JDAM hit on the hospital. Neither 1,000 or 2,000 lbs. create that much fire on impact at night unless they hit a weapons depot. That fire on the hospital is a lot like burning propellant and unused explosive. And we have other instance of....
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“There is no Soviet Union.”—God.
“There Is No God!” Soviet anti-religion poster.
Prints available:
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And the dragons came.
Eruption on Mount Etna gives the illusion of a Phoenix in the sky
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"Give me a croissant, Vasili, one croissant only."
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Reactors and dams are specifically noted as off limits under the LOW.
It looks like the Kakhovka dam is gone indeed. Major flooding likely on the left bank, also affecting many civilians living there. Neither side claimed the explosion.
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Kursk is the only time I ever saw senior Royal Navy men openly cry for the fates of a Russian crew.
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Ukraine has an on and off reporting in the open about Hrim/"Grom"-2. The missile was being developed from a long time back and it likely has a range up to 300km. Reports of its use and status are murky, but it is a very good candidate of suspicion for something other than ATACMS.
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There are no longer any useful SS-24s in Russian railcars and he is talking about an older garrison that isn't used anymore. There are no active SS-24 launcher cars in service as launchers for that missile, or any other. BZhRK remains a paper missile. Stop it.
[2] "Russia has 2 types of
#nuclear
trains developed in the USSR. The first type is a ballistic launcher with a rocket that consists of 7 railway cars camouflaged as refrigerators or passenger cars. There is such a division in RAF located in Nizhniy Tagil city," said Mr. Zhdanov.
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Whatever differences exist between us, we have this.
Or rather, we had them. And we ought to remember them more often than every June.
Merci au nom d'une nation reconnaissante.
🇫🇷🇺🇸
On this day 78 years ago, 156,000 soldiers landed in Normandy to liberate France during WWII.
Every year, French soldiers take sand from Omaha Beach and rub it onto the gravestones to give the letters a gold coloring.
They do this for all 9,386 American soldiers buried there.
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Aside from the exceptionally large amount of PDA, SAC-D remains concerned about a couple of things that have not been widely reported on:
Tactical vehicle reset, and a bit on Javelin.
@greygossling
@cameron19460429
@Schizointel
@sentdefender
@TheKimulation
@secretsqrl123
@HelloMrBond
@Planet__Claire
@John_A_Ridge
@DefenseBulletin
$5.5 billion in authority still needs to get utilized. Or the Biden Admin needs to explain how they will legally transfer that authority to the next fiscal year.
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What Russia did in the past 72 hours may prove to be its worst strategic mistake of the past several decades.
Ankara may be ready to do more, now, finally. I defer to
@aaronstein1
, but with Erdogan it's usually personal.
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As a former staffer for Dick Lugar, am getting a few questions about BW facilities in Ukraine. This statement is wholly unclassified: There are no offensive BW facilities in Ukraine BUT the Russians may plant evidence to substantiate their lies.1/2
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It never ends well.
Ramaswamy: “I would negotiate a deal that ends the Ukraine war. Freeze the current lines of control. Yes, that means giving part of the Donbas region to Russia. I would make a hard commitment that NATO never admits Ukraine…”
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Soviets used CW in Afghanistan & denied it. Tactically effective against resistance unequipped to defend, carries no threat of similar retaliation, is lower risk for RU troops than exposure to nuclear/bio weapons & has a plausible deniability (if certain FGAs not employed).
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Nothing like getting the family together at holidays.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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The very successful Russian effort to supply Ukraine and the US intelligence community rolls on.
The advanced Russian electronic warfare system Krasucha-4, captured on the battlefield in Ukraine, will be transported to the United States for investigation, the British Daily Telegraph reported.
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The only way to get rid of nuclear weapons has dropped in Congress. The Planetary-Annihilation-Battle-Stations (PABS) amendment is expected to pass both Houses this month.
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Thank you for your questions regarding Putin's decision to place Russian "nuclear forces" on a "higher alert status" due to "aggressive statements" of "NATO leaders." I was asked to say some of things I have shared with some of you today, here. 1/x
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Твиттер—это Сталин гулаг, просто. Вот и все.
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You are trying to use the ultimate self-suicide ploy to defend some fucking morons in the Donbas over your fucking genocidal war of imperial aggression in a fucking century where the entire fucking planet is laughing at the fact you shrank beneath North Korea in meaningful ways.
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Latest Ukrainian underwater cultural heritage site.
Героям слава!
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Oh and Nick, countries DO plan to start wars intending to go nuclear, at least on paper and historically. Russia, in fact, is the one.
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Allow me: Some of the best American IRBM over SLBM humor of all time, "PERSHING vs POSEIDON, or SHOOT AND SCOOT," a golden oldie.
Why would the top military brass choose a new and unproven
#Pershing
missile over more established systems such as the Navy's Poseidon and Polaris?
(🎥WSMR)
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Air bases in Crimea are valid and legal targets under the Law of War, Ukraine's ROE and lawful, moral war conduct. If Russians don't like it, they can leave.
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We won a war before we used the only working devices on earth based on the belief that it’s terror would avoid an invasion of Japan. Nobody could shoot back. That’s not a nuclear war.
The idea that "a nuclear war can never be won" is a rich talking point coming from the only nation on earth who ever won a nuclear war. We need a touch more self awareness.
Vague platitudes won't save civilization.
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Highly recommend.
If you want to keep up with the body of Russian military thought on nuclear forces and more particularly a peculiar, parochially Russian view of deterrence issues larger than nukes, these authors are the most studied. Excellent resource.
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So, Kazakhstan has frozen Russian bank-controlled assets in the country, this only months after Moscow's CSTO intervened there to the benefit of Tokayev, so it can only be a shock to Patrushev and Putin.
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Me, in conversation with a senior Russian official (ret., and not Yesin): "How many warheads does Russia need?"
RUOFF (Ret.): "I don't know, Tom. I don't speak Chinese."
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The complete extent of the Russian state's interdependence on organized crime is a closely held secret in both Russia and in the US. Putin's own Petersburg past is largely in the open, and reveals the extent to which he used his position to cultivate, as he was trained, assets.
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Go f--- yourselves is right up there with "NUTS."
Honor is due.
13 Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island refused to surrender. All perished. Their last words to the Russians:
“Go fuck yourselves.”
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Russian strategic deterrence forces are not only nuclear. When Putin makes broad statements on forces nobody else "can boast" this is roughly equivalent to the Victory Day Parade line "ne imeyushcheye analogov v mire"--to wit, there are no analogues in the world./1
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Oh I am framing this.
apparently this is chinese anti-american agitprop and I gotta say it makes us look FULLY SICK which I don't think was the intention
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Russia would be much more circumspect about this loss had it been the case that they had dumbly floated that pig with roman candles on the decks at angles.
BTW, Slava class do have rotary launchers downstairs. Standard size. Not ready for nukes, at least in this image.
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Bullshit. Utter bullshit.
In Opinion
“Even if we don’t accept Putin’s claim that America’s arming of Ukraine is the reason the war happened in the first place, it is certainly the reason the war has taken the kinetic, explosive, deadly form it has,” writes Christopher Caldwell.
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This account is called "paper missiles" because of my intense fascination with all the weapons concepts that FAILED. As Hill staff, I asked for a list of all experimental programs since 1950 for all ideas for all trajectories of attack. Idea after idea, concept after concept.
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Program proposal:
Joint US-Polish development of a new GLCM with range 300km to 1,300km.
Proposed project name: WINGED HUSSAR, Mark 1.
Proposed launchers: Integration with any existing land- or sea-based launcher either extant or to be proposed by either side.
Basing: Classified.
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Russia is wrong. Ukraine is right, boot my butt cuz this website is shite.
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They were unable to use the warheads.
One lesson of Russia’s war on Ukraine is that whatever the great powers promise, never give up your nukes.
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Will the last sane person to leave Russia please hide all the nukes and liquor, and turn off the lights.
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If you had told me 2 years ago that Russian air forces (however reorganized) could suffer the loss of two, large bomber aircraft in separate regions of Russia simply to Ukrainian UAS, I would not have found it incredible. Amazing what inexpensive, unmanned air forces can do.
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FMF/FMS is actually better when you can plan multi-year security assistance. Wars are not dependable undertakings, and “for as long as it takes” has negative appropriations effects. But there is a lot of exceptional statutory presidential authority that wasn’t used.
Zelensky said that Ukraine needs 25 Patriot batteries. If the Biden Admin had used their USAI funds to place orders for them back in 2022, Raytheon could have built that many by now. Just an astounding misuse of funds. This is why USAI needs to be cut in favor of FMF.
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Both declassified docs and selectively leaked classified ones suffer from a big problem: You don't have as much context as would be best and you are only seeing what someone wanted you to see, which is never the whole picture. Ever.
Exclusive: The Washington Post has obtained additional US intel assessments that leaked in recent weeks.
This one casts doubt on Ukraine's ambitions for an anticipated spring offensive.
Via
@AlexHortonTX
@John_Hudson
@ikhurshudyan
@samueloakford
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Bazalt did carry nukes at one time, and Russia sure did say to heck with the PNIs (no nukes on surface ships), but come on. On her? I would be very surprised.
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I have had it with the sermonizing questions: You want Ukraine to win or do you want to make fancy moral points? Russian exploded and unexploded weapons have already killed more Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine than all UXO in Vietnam has ever done by a factor of 3 or 4.
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