Introduction
Recently, much talk has been about escalating tensions between NATO and Russia. Moreover, there is fear about the West crossing red lines and a potential Russian counterstrike with tactical nukes. But are these threats real? And how likely are they?
These are questions I’m going to discuss today. Moreover, I want to comment on the current operational situation on the battlefield.
“Ukraine’s” Deep Strikes
First, I’d like to talk about the alleged Ukrainian strikes with Western weapons “deep” into Russian core territory. This topic has been a thorn in my eye for a long time, and now I will try to clarify several things.
There are no Ukrainian strikes deep in the Russian territory/rear. None. This does not happen. Maybe at the beginning of the war, there were some occasions when we saw some Ukrainian strikes in the Russian rear with old Soviet Weapons and drones. But now, there are none.
Still, there are strikes in the Russian rear and on Russian territory. So, how is that possible?
Most, if not all, of the strikes on the Russian territory are being conducted with Western weapons. And not only some easy-to-handle stuff but ever more sophisticated equipment. But what is so sophisticated?
The equipment itself is difficult to handle. A lot of training and experience is necessary, especially under non-ideal combat conditions.
The equipment is difficult to maintain. If you have issues with it in the field, only experienced service workers can fix it under combat conditions.
These weapons depend on sophisticated targeting data that no one in Ukraine can collect, analyze, and program into the weapons. Ukraine is incapable of these activities now, and they will not be able to develop those skills in the future. Not because the Ukrainians are incapable of understanding it but because it would take a long time to train them and above all, it is classified information. The West is never going to share such knowledge with Ukrainians because of the fear that the information will leak into Russian hands.
The collected raw data must be processed by Western assets into target data that can be used by the Western weapons in Ukraine. Not only can Ukraine not process the raw data, Ukraine cannot collect the data.
The only step that is likely being done by Ukrainians themselves is to fly a plane to the release point and push a preprogrammed button to release a Storm Shadow or SCALP or whatever missile onto a pre-defined target with a pre-defined attack route.
So, Ukraine is not “doing this or that” in Russian territory at any time. Some of the Ukrainians truly would love to do that. But… they can’t 😊
Read full text: https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/nuclear-war-ahead-i