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alexander lukashenko
Russian Officials Say Wagner Mutineer Prigozhin Was Passenger in Fatal Plane Crash
Suspicions quickly turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with U.S. President Joe Biden saying that "there's not much that happens in Russia" without his involvement.
Aug 23, 2023
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the billionaire head of the Wagner Group mercenary firm who recently led an aborted rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin—an erstwhile close ally—was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed on Wednesday north of Moscow, according to Russian officials and media.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry said there were no survivors among the 10 passengers aboard the Embraer Legacy 600 private business jet, which reportedly belonged to Prigozhin and was en route from St. Petersburg to Moscow when it crashed in the Tver region more than 60 miles north of Moscow.
Rosaviation, Russia's civil aviation regulator, confirmed that Prigozhin was on the passenger list—but it remains unclear whether he was actually aboard the doomed jet.
The fate of the 61-year-old oligarch—once known as "Putin's chef" because the Russian president ate at his restaurants and contracted his catering business—has confounded observers since he led his Wagner mercenaries in a short-lived mutiny in which they captured and briefly occupied the city of Rostov-on-Don in June.
Prigozhin then ordered his men to march on Moscow to seek "revenge," accusing Russian military leaders of killing his troops during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Wagner forces played a critical role in Russia's battlefield successes and suffered heavy losses—especially among prisoners who volunteered to fight in exchange for their freedom.
In a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko—a close Putin ally who has allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine from his country—Prigozhin called off his coup attempt in exchange for safe passage to Belarus. However, Lukashenko said last month that Prigozhin and thousands of his fighters were still in Russia, while brushing off speculation that Putin would try to assassinate him.
"If you think Putin is so malicious and vindictive that he will wipe him out tomorrow... no, this will not happen," Lukashenko said at the time.
Earlier this week, Prigozhin published his first recruitment video since the mutiny, seeking soldiers of fortune to fight in African conflicts, including in Mali—where Wagner fighters, along with U.S.-backed government forces, are accused of committing widespread atrocities.
While the cause of Wednesday's plane crash remains unknown for now, speculation and suspicion of Putin's involvement came quickly, as the president vowed to severely punish what he called Wagner's "internal betrayal" and a "stab in the back of our country and our people."
U.S. President Joe Biden—a staunch supporter of Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion—told reporters after the crash that "there's not much that happens in Russia that Putin's not behind."
"But I don't know enough to know the answer," he added. "I've been working out for the last hour-and-a-half."
Numerous prominent Putin opponents have suffered mysterious and usually fatal poisonings, falls, and shootings over the years.
In a 2018 interview, Putin was asked if he knew how to forgive. "Yes, but not everything," the Russian leader replied. When asked what he could not forgive, Putin answered with one word: "Betrayal."
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Putin Says 'First Batch' of Russian Nuclear Warheads Deployed in Belarus
"No matter what the political climate, Russia must work with the United States to control the risk that nuclear weapons will be used—and to eliminate them," says Global Zero. "Anything less means disaster for everyone."
Jun 16, 2023
Nearly 16 months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow has begun deploying "tactical" nuclear weapons in Belarus, confirming recent remarks from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
In what the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) called an "extremely dangerous escalation" that "risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences," Putin had announced the plan in late March.
"We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia, both that are three times more powerful than the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Lukashenko told a Russian state television channel earlier this week, referencing the 1945 U.S. bombing of the Japanese cities. "Up to a million people would die immediately if, God forbid, this weapon were used."
Putin, who has said that Moscow will retain control over the Russian nukes in Belarus, addressed the deployment on Friday while speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
"As you know, we held talks with our union state, with President Lukashenko on deploying part of these tactical weapons to Belarusian territory," Putin said. "It has happened—the first nuclear warheads have been delivered to Belarusian territory. This is the first batch. We will complete this work by the end of this year."
\u201cThe amount of deciphering required with every Putin/Lukashenko statement on moving nuclear weapons to Belarus demonstrates how much uncertainty there is with this proposed deployment.\n\nTimelines, goalposts, locations all keep changing. And what is meant by \u201cfirst part\u201d here? Odd.\u201d— Matt Korda (@Matt Korda) 1686944360
In response to a question about the deployment, the Russian leader reportedly said that "this is a deterrence measure."
According to the BBC: "When asked by the forum's moderator about the possibility of using those weapons, he replied: 'Why should we threaten the whole world? I have already said that the use of extreme measures is possible in case there is a danger to Russian statehood.'"
Writing Friday for Responsible Statecraft, Greg Lane, a former senior executive in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations, argued that "Russia's goals here appear more political than military."
"First, and as it relates to the war in the Ukraine, he wants to again highlight his own unpredictability, specifically his willingness to escalate the conflict if certain red lines are crossed," Lane wrote. "Highlighting the possibility of a nuclear exchange over the war in the Ukraine also serves a second political goal for Moscow, which is to find and exploit wedge issues that can be used to influence European public opinion."
"Perhaps most importantly for the Kremlin, however, is that the re-stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus marks real and measurable progress in Putin's effort to reconstitute a 'Greater Russia,'" Lane added. "With the debacle of his so-called 'special military operation' and the now extreme improbability that the Ukrainians would ever voluntarily join such a union, the Russian president needs to be able to identify some success in making Russia great again."
\u201cPutin: \u201cWe have more [nuclear] weapons than NATO countries. They know about it and all the time we are persuaded to start negotiations on their reduction. Fuck them, you know, as our people say.\u201d https://t.co/En6U9Z7DzY\n\nDirect violation of NPT Article VI.\u201d— Hans Kristensen (@Hans Kristensen) 1686939895
TASSreported that Russia's embassy in Washington D.C. said that Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov met with U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy on Friday and "topical issues of the bilateral agenda were discussed."
Asked about Putin's statements on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that "we'll continue to monitor the situation very closely and very carefully. We have no reason to adjust our own nuclear posture. We don't see any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon."
Noting U.S. President Joe Biden's comments earlier this week about the American commitment to defending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Blinken stressed, "That is our north star and we're very focused on that."
"As for Belarus itself, this is just another example of Lukashenko making irresponsible, provocative choices to cede control of Belarus' sovereignty against the will of the Belarusian people," the top U.S. diplomat said.
Blinken's remarks aligned with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's Thursday response to Lukashenko announcing the arrival of Russian nukes.
According toThe Associated Press, Stoltenberg told journalists in Brussels that "we are, of course, closely monitoring what Russia is doing. So far, we haven't seen any changes in the nuclear posture that requires any changes in our posture."
"Russia's nuclear rhetoric and messaging is reckless and dangerous... Russia must know that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," he added, noting that "Russia has invested heavily in new modern nuclear capabilities and also deployed more nuclear capabilities, including close to NATO borders, for instance, in the high north."
The AP pointed out that "Biden and his NATO counterparts are gathering for a summit on July 11-12 in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Belarus border."
Of the world's nine nuclear-armed nations, Russia has the largest stockpile, followed by the United States; the other seven countries have far fewer. None of them support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
"No matter what the political climate, Russia must work with the United States to control the risk that nuclear weapons will be used—and to eliminate them," Global Zero, a campaign to abolish nukes, tweeted Thursday. "Anything less means disaster for everyone."
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Is This or Isn't This a Photo of a Broken US Nuclear Weapon?
"If the image is indeed from a nuclear weapons accident, it would constitute the first publicly known case of a recent nuclear weapons accident at an air base in Europe," according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Apr 03, 2023
Was a U.S. nuclear bomb damaged in a recent accident at a European air base?
This question is being asked Monday after the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) discovered and published a photo—used in an April 2022 student briefing at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico—that shows four people inspecting what looks like a damaged B61 atomic bomb. The U.S. is set to soon deliver a new generation of this so-called "tactical" nuclear weapon to Europe.
"The document does not identify where the photo was taken or when, but it appears to be from inside a Protective Aircraft Shelter (PAS) at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands," according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at FAS, which analyzed the image in depth. "It must be emphasized up front that there is no official confirmation that the image was taken at Volkel Air Base, that the bent B61 shape is a real weapon (versus a trainer), or that the damage was the result of an accident (versus a training simulation)."
"If the image is indeed from a nuclear weapons accident," Kristensen noted, "it would constitute the first publicly known case of a recent nuclear weapons accident at an air base in Europe."
Kristensen continued:
Most people would describe a nuclear bomb getting bent as an accident, but U.S. Air Force terminology would likely categorize it as a Bent Spear incident, which is defined as "evident damage to a nuclear weapon or nuclear component that requires major rework, replacement, or examination or re-certification by the Department of Energy." The U.S. Air Force reserves "accident" for events that involve the destruction or loss of a weapon.
It is not a secret that the U.S. Air Force deploys nuclear weapons in Europe, but it is a secret where they are deployed. Volkel Air Base has stored B61s for decades. I and others have provided ample documentation for this and two former Dutch prime ministers and a defense minister in 2013 even acknowledged the presence of the weapons. Volkel Air Base is one of six air bases in Europe where the U.S. Air Force currently deploys an estimated 100 B61 nuclear bombs in total.
The United States is modernizing its air-delivered nuclear arsenal including in Europe and Volkel and the other air bases in Europe are scheduled to receive the new B61-12 nuclear bomb in the near future.
Just over a week ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to the United States' positioning of tactical nukes in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Turkey to justify his plan to station similar weapons in Belarus. Subsequently, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that he is also seeking to store more powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles.
After condemning the Kremlin's "dangerously escalating proposal," Daniel Högsta, acting executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), alluded to arms-sharing among the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and argued that "as long as countries continue their complicity in considering nuclear weapons as anything other than a global problem, this helps give Putin cover to get away with this kind of behavior."
ICAN wrote Monday on social media that news of potential damage to a B61 atomic bomb "is a terrifying reminder of three things."
First, the organization observed, Dutch, Belgian, German, Italian, and Turkish civilians are being put "at risk if anything goes wrong."
Second, "if these weapons were used intentionally, it would be the military pilots from those countries—not the U.S.—dropping the bomb and committing mass murder of civilians," ICAN noted. "No one in these countries voted or consented to have that done in their name."
Finally, "accidents happen," the organization pointed out. "The long history of nuclear weapons mishaps and near-misses shows just how much luck has kept us from nuclear war."
"Luck is not a good security strategy," ICAN added. "Responsible states should join the [United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] and push to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether."
Russia, the U.S., China, France, and the United Kingdom—the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council who control more than 12,000 atomic warheads combined—have expressed opposition to the body's nuclear ban treaty, which entered into force in January 2021 when it was ratified by 50 governments.
"Luck is not a good security strategy. Responsible states should... push to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether."
Beatrice Fihn, the former executive director of ICAN who led the organization when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, made the case last week that recent weapon-sharing proposals reveal the dangers of "nuclear deterrence" theory, which asserts that threatening to use atomic bombs dissuades governments from taking certain actions and therefore helps avert nuclear war.
"We have to stop being so stupid by continuing to say nuclear deterrence works," Fihn argued. "We need to urgently stigmatize and delegitimize the use, threat to use, testing, stationing, and possession of nuclear weapons."
For the first time since the 1980s, the world's nuclear arsenal—90% of which is controlled by Moscow and Washington—is projected to expand in the coming years, and the risk of weapons capable of annihilating life on Earth being used is growing.
"We need to use all available methods and tools of the international community to pressure Russia on this," Fihn said last week. "And then we need to urgently work to eliminate nuclear weapons and remove this option from all counties. For Ukraine and also for every other country and person on this planet."
U.S. President Joe Biden warned in October that Russia's war in Ukraine had brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any point since the Cuban missile crisis. Just days later, however, his administration published a Nuclear Posture Review that nonproliferation advocates said increases the likelihood of catastrophe, in part because it preserves the option of a nuclear first strike. The U.S. remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war, decimating the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in August 1945.
Izumi Nakamitsu, the U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs, warned Friday in a briefing to the body's Security Council that "the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is currently higher than at any time since the depths of the Cold War."
"The war in Ukraine represents the most acute example of that risk," said Nakamitsu. "The absence of dialogue and the erosion of the disarmament and arms control architecture, combined with dangerous rhetoric and veiled threats, are key drivers of this potentially existential risk."
"States must avoid taking any actions that could lead to escalation, mistake, or miscalculation," she added. "They should return to dialogue to de-escalate tensions urgently and find ways to develop and implement transparency and confidence-building measures."
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