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Major European Internet Cables Cut In Suspected Retaliation for Nordstream Sabotage

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A major internet cable in the south of France was reportedly severed on Wednesday night, triggering internet issues across the world – and it occurred just hours within a “major incident” that left residents of the Shetland Isles off the coast of Scotland without connectivity following damage to a submarine cable. According to cloud security company Zscaler Trust, the damage to the cable in France impacted connectivity to Europe, Asia, the US and potentially other parts of the world. The incident reportedly affected three cable links: Marseille-Lyon, Marseille-Milano and Marseille-Barcelona. Zscaler reported that its “customers may see packet loss and or latency for websites and applications which traverse these impacted paths”.

While the incident has since been resolved, Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry has claimed that it was an “act of vandalism”.

He wrote on Linkedin: “Zscaler detected a strange traffic anomaly. From Europe to India, access to certain applications became sluggish. Latency to impacted applications spiked, but others kept on operating normally. Our investigation identified that the issues were a result of a severed fibre cable in Marseille, France. . .

Mr Chaudhry also that this cable that he suspects was likely targeted was a hugely important one, further raising his suspicions. . .

This also comes after reports emerged that the French Presidency was consulting with leading experts to strengthen the security of submarine cables amid growing fears that France could be Russia’s next target, following its suspected “sabotage” of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines last month. (Read more from “Major European Internet Cables Cut In Suspected Retaliation for Nordstream Sabotage” HERE)

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DRAMATIC ESCALATION: Russian Jet Fires Missile While Tailing Hi-Tech British “Nuke-Sniffer” Plane Near Ukraine; Russia Envoy to U.S.: Channel That Stopped Nuclear War 60 Years Ago Is Dead

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By The Sun UK. [British] Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the unarmed RAF Rivet Joint was on routine patrol in international airspace last month when it was tailed by two Russian Su-27 fighter jets. . .

“During that interaction however, it transpired that one of the SU-27 aircraft released a missile in the vicinity of the RAF Rivet Joint beyond visual range. . .

The RAF RC-135W “soaks up” enemy signals and is also known as a ‘nuke sniffer’ because of its capability to test the atmosphere for evidence of radioactivity. . .

Fears of an imminent nuke test on the Ukraine border were raised earlier this month after a train was seen carrying supplies.

And NATO warned Russia has deployed its giant new Belgorod submarine which can be armed with terrifying nuclear “doomsday drones”. (Read more from “DRAMATIC ESCALATION: Russian Jet Fires Missile While Tailing Hi-Tech British “Nuke-Sniffer” Plane Near Ukraine” HERE)

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Russia Envoy to U.S.: Channel That Stopped Nuclear War 60 Years Ago Is Dead

By Newsweek. Asecret, direct channel between the Kremlin and the White House helped to prevent nuclear war 60 years ago, as Moscow and Washington engaged in a nuclear standoff known in the United States as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Today, however, with U.S.-Russia relations at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War and new talk of nuclear contingencies emerging from both sides, Moscow’s envoy in Washington has told Newsweek that no such communication now exists, setting the stage for a new and dangerous era for the two nations, and for the rest of the world.

Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., recalled the words of his predecessor, Anatoly Dobrynin, who said in his time that “the Cuban missile crisis revealed the mortal danger of a direct armed confrontation of the two great powers, a confrontation headed off on the brink of war thanks to both sides’ timely and agonizing realization of the disastrous consequences.”

Antonov also quoted U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who, shortly after the October 1962 crisis resolved with an agreement for Moscow to withdraw missiles from Cuba and Washington to pull back its own weapons in Turkey, told Soviet Council of Ministers First Deputy Chairman Anastas Mikoyan, “What we have now is, although our two countries do not challenge each other directly, we keep running into each other almost everywhere, which in our nuclear age is fraught with serious dangers for world peace.” (Read more from “Russia Envoy to U.S.: Channel That Stopped Nuclear War 60 Years Ago Is Dead” HERE)

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Putin ‘Willing to Do Anything’ to Avoid Defeat in Ukraine

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is “willing to do anything” to avoid defeat in his war against Ukraine, including targeting civilians, a Russia expert has said, as Moscow launched a fresh wave of strikes in multiple regions of the country.

A day after targeted strikes in Kyiv killed at least four people on Monday morning, Russia conducted massive airstrikes on residential areas and energy infrastructure in many regions of Ukraine, including the capital city, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Zhytomyr.

An air alert was declared throughout Ukraine on Tuesday morning.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Tuesday morning that a critical infrastructure facility in the city’s Desnyansky district was hit, while Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, said three explosions rocked an energy supply facility. (Read more from “Putin ‘Willing to Do Anything’ to Avoid Defeat in Ukraine” HERE)

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‘Dangerously Depleted’: The US Is Sending So Many Weapons to Ukraine That Experts Are Starting to Worry

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The U.S. needs to seriously invest more in weapons and ammunition if it wants to continue supporting Ukraine and brace for conflict with other great powers, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Global efforts to support Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion have triggered billions in spending to bolster Ukraine’s military, depleting U.S. stocks and raising concerns that the West may cripple its military opposite the rising threat from China. The U.S. will have to dramatically ramp up production, or otherwise risk further weakening the U.S. arsenal and adversely affecting America’s ability to react to dangers from China and other potential foes, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“For U.S. policy makers, the critical question regarding our policy towards Ukraine is quickly becoming more a what we can do for Ukraine, not necessarily what we should do,” Dan Caldwell, a senior advisor to Concerned Veterans for America and vice president for foreign policy at Stand Together, told the DCNF. “U.S. stockpiles of munitions are becoming dangerously depleted and it will take years for U.S. production capacity to catch up.” (Read more from “‘Dangerously Depleted’: The US Is Sending So Many Weapons to Ukraine That Experts Are Starting to Worry” HERE)

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Russia to Hold Large-Scale Nuclear Weapons Exercise: A Drill or Real?

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Russia is expected to hold large-scale exercises of its nuclear forces soon, leaving the West hard-pressed to spot whether Moscow is just carrying drills or an actual nuclear attack, according to a report.

Every year, Russia holds nuclear exercises around October. However, this year’s drills come just weeks after President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons “if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened.” His statement, coupled with the upcoming drills, have some Western officials worried as Russia continues to post losses in Ukraine.

“This is why you don’t want to have extraordinarily overheated rhetoric at the same time you’re going to do a nuclear exercise,” a Western official told Reuters. “Because then we do have an additional challenge to really be sure that the actions that we see, the things that are occurring, are actually an exercise and not something else.”

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby vowed that the United States would monitor Russia’s so-called “Grom” drills, adding that they expect Moscow to include live missile launches during the exercise.

“While Russia probably believes this exercise will help it project power, particularly in light of recent events, we know that Russian nuclear units train extensively at this time of year, again, routine, and obviously, we’re going to continue to monitor that accordingly,” Kirby told reporters on Thursday. (Read more from “Russia to Hold Large-Scale Nuclear Weapons Exercise: A Drill or Real?” HERE)

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I Won’t Go to War With Russia for Randi Weingarten

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After news broke on Monday that Russia launched missiles at several Ukrainian cities, the president of the second-largest teachers union in America announced she was “heading to the border now to assess the situation.” . . .

What is the woman infamous for sentencing American children to school on screens doing in Ukraine other than making herself a Franz Ferdinand-like target and possibly violating the Logan Act? Especially since the U.S. Department of State has ordered Americans “not travel to Ukraine due to Russian military invasion.”

According to the AFT, which sponsored the trip, Weingarten’s presence in Ukraine is supposed to “offer solidarity and support in the face of relentless attacks that have forced hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee the country’s east.”  

Frankly, that’s not a good enough reason to be gung-ho about celebrities such as Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Liev Schreiber, Jessica Chastain, and now leftist pawns such as Weingarten making the dangerous pilgrimage East with the hopes that they can “make a difference” in Ukraine. These American civilians have no business traveling to Eastern Europe in the midst of a conflict that is teetering on the edge of nuclear war, even if they are just trying to “do something” beyond putting the performative blue and yellow flag in their Twitter bios.

Already, American warmongers including President Joe Biden have threatened escalation if Russia continues its rampage in the East. The last thing the United States needs after funneling more than $67 billion to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime without any accountability or oversight is to have an American injured or dead thanks to their reckless travel. There’s no doubt that any incident of consequence would be used as an excuse to take U.S. involvement from proxy war to direct conflict.

(Read more from “I Won’t Go to War With Russia for Randi Weingarten” HERE)

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Russian Troops Pour Into Belarus ‘by the Trainload’

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Russian troops are pouring into Belarus “by the trainload.”

The news comes alongside an announcement from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that Russian troops would return to the country, which neighbors both Russia and Ukraine, in large numbers, according to the Belarusian state news agency Belta. Tens of thousands of Russian troops used Belarus as the staging ground for their initial northern offensive into Ukraine in February but mostly withdrew by late March. Since then, a few hundred Russian troops have stayed behind, mostly air and missile troops that use the close Russian ally as a launching pad for missile strikes into Ukraine, but that now appears to be changing.

“Russian soldiers are entering Belarus by the trainload. They’re traveling in cattle cars — just a huge quantity. Just waves of trains arriving,” a Belarusian source told Kyiv Post correspondent Jason Jay Smart.

(Read more from “Russian Troops Pour Into Belarus ‘by the Trainload’” HERE)

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Signs to Watch for if US Believes a Russian Nuclear Attack on Ukraine Is Imminent

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Reflecting the growing concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin may order a limited nuclear attack on Ukraine, the United States and its allies are escalating an already significant standing effort to monitor Russia’s nuclear forces.

At least three Navy attack submarines are operating in the Atlantic Ocean area, their primary mission being to track and sink Russian ballistic missile submarines. Another U.S. attack submarine is berthed at a British naval base in Scotland. U.S. and British signal intelligence aircraft are expanding their Ukraine collection efforts to include Belarus and Kaliningrad. Other more boutique U.S. military capabilities are monitoring Kaliningrad for the same reason. U.S. satellites are almost certainly expanding their monitoring of Russian nuclear forces and storage sites. But partly due to the ground intelligence efforts of NATO allies in Eastern Europe, the U.S. has good visibility into Russia’s nuclear weapons posture. Britain’s GCHQ signal intelligence service also has exceptional insight into the Russian military command. . .

First off, watch the political space. Putin would want to leverage the threat of any nuclear strike to the maximum before actually using a nuclear weapon. Paying close attention to his increasingly hostile rhetoric would thus be important. But we would also see urgent statements from Biden and other world leaders warning of the grave consequences Russia would face if it used nuclear weapons. They would warn Russian commanders and nuclear forces personnel that following any such orders would mean their own personal liability. This narrative effort would seek to increase Putin’s fear that an order to use nuclear weapons might instead result in a palace coup by his own military.

The West would likely threaten a full embargo of the Russian economy. Biden and a number of other allied leaders, though probably not all, might also warn of a U.S. military response. Then there’s Xi Jinping’s China. China might be Putin’s most valuable partner, but it’s desperate to avoid a Russian nuclear strike. Xi knows it would greatly undermine China’s already fraying credibility with the European Union, in particular. Beijing’s public warnings to Moscow would be a bad sign.

We would also expect to see visible signals from the military’s Strategic Command. The so-called “doomsday” airborne nuclear command and control aircraft would escalate their training and readiness activity (this has not yet happened). Alongside the two U.S. ballistic missile submarines that always operate in the Atlantic/Arctic, we might see additional surge deployments from Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Any new deployment of B-2 bombers and the most advanced WC-135R “nuke sniffing” aircraft to Britain would demand attention. Top line: All of these capabilities exist to defeat Russia in a nuclear war. But, considering the Biden administration’s hesitant nuclear posture, related deployments might not occur until a Russian strike appeared imminent. (Read more from “Signs to Watch for if US Believes a Russian Nuclear Attack on Ukraine Is Imminent” HERE)

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US Officials Say Ukraine Behind Car Bomb Assassination of Putin Ally’s Daughter: Report

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By New York Post. US intelligence believes parts of the Ukrainian government gave the go-ahead for a car bomb that killed the daughter of a staunch Putin ally in August, according to a report Wednesday.

Kyiv has unequivocally denied any involvement in the blast that killed Darya Dugina, 29, in front of her father, Putin loyalist and Russian ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugin, both after the blast and in response to the report by the New York Times.

But multiple sources, speaking to the outlet on condition of anonymity, said that the US intelligence community believes parts of the Ukrainian government were complicit in the attack. The sources said Washington admonished Kyiv for the assassination. . .

At the time of the attack, Kyiv denied any involvement.

“We are not a criminal state, unlike Russia, and definitely not a terrorist state,” Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said at the time. (Read more from “US Officials Say Ukraine Behind Car Bomb Assassination of Putin Ally’s Daughter: Report” HERE)

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U.S. Believes Ukrainians Were Behind an Assassination in Russia

By DNYUZ. United States intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, an element of a covert campaign that U.S. officials fear could widen the conflict. . .

The closely held assessment of Ukrainian complicity, which has not been previously reported, was shared within the U.S. government last week. Ukraine denied involvement in the killing immediately after the attack, and senior officials repeated those denials when asked about the American intelligence assessment.

While Russia has not retaliated in a specific way for the assassination, the United States is concerned that such attacks — while high in symbolic value — have little direct impact on the battlefield and could provoke Moscow to carry out its own strikes against senior Ukrainian officials. American officials have been frustrated with Ukraine’s lack of transparency about its military and covert plans, especially on Russian soil.

Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine’s security services have demonstrated their ability to reach into Russia to conduct sabotage operations. The killing of Ms. Dugina, however, would be one of the boldest operations to date — showing Ukraine can get very close to prominent Russians.

Some American officials suspect Ms. Dugina’s father, Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian ultranationalist, was the actual target of the operation, and that the operatives who carried it out believed he would be in the vehicle with his daughter. (Read more from “U.S. Believes Ukrainians Were Behind an Assassination in Russia” HERE)

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Putin: ‘Partial Mobilization’ to ‘Liberate’ Ukraine From ‘Neo-Nazi Regime’

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Following two days of feverish anticipation and speculation on Russian media, Vladimir Putin finally gave his Ukraine address on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. Moscow time. . .

Over the course of his 14-minute speech, Putin characterized the Ukrainian government and its armed forces as “neo-Nazis” 10 times.

“Respected friends, the topic of my speech is the situation in the Donbas and the course of the special military operation to liberate it from the neo-Nazi regime that seized power in Ukraine in 2014 as a result of an armed coup,” said the four-term Russian president, who in 2020 ushered in constitutional changes that would allow him to remain in office until 2036. . .

“In order to protect our Motherland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to ensure the security of our people and people in the liberated territories, I consider it necessary to support the proposal of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to conduct partial mobilization in the Russian Federation,” he said.

After laying out an extended reminder of his country’s nuclear capabilities, the Russian commander-in-chief concluded that, “It is in our historical tradition, in the destiny of our people, to halt those who strive for world domination, who threaten the dismemberment and enslavement of our homeland, our Fatherland. That is what we are doing now, and it will continue.” (Read more from “Putin: ‘Partial Mobilization’ to ‘Liberate’ Ukraine From ‘Neo-Nazi Regime'” HERE)

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