The US military appears to be increasing aerial surveillance over Russian territory in Europe, possibly indicating worry that the Kremlin may decide to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine as Russian authorities have warned.
According to a flight tracking website, a US electronic surveillance aircraft, the Boeing RC-135 took off from a base in the United Kingdom on Wednesday and circled Kaliningrad, a Russian territory along the Baltic Sea that was annexed after World War II but has no land border with the Russian Federation. This flight occurred at least three times in the previous week.
West Aims to Detect Russia's Military Move
It is also referred to as Russia's unsinkable aircraft carrier since it is situated between Poland and Lithuania, thereby giving the Kremlin a forward operating base inside NATO territory, it is home to roughly 500,000 people. In Kaliningrad, around 50 kilometers from Poland, Russia undertook a massive upgrade in 2018, according to Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert with the Federation of American Scientists.
The building could serve as a forward storage location that would be supplied with warheads from central storage sites in a crisis, he wrote at the time. The Iskander operational and tactical missile complexes, which are ballistic missiles with the ability to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads, were used in a simulated missile strike exercise that was conducted by the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Kaliningrad region in April, according to the military.
A military data sheet states that the RC-135V/crew W's of up to 30 people can detect, identify and geolocate signals throughout the electromagnetic spectrum and has "real-time on-scene intelligence gathering, processing and dissemination capabilities."
The flights around Kaliningrad are somewhat unusual, but not groundbreaking or alarming in and of themselves, according to Aram Shabanian, an expert on open-source intelligence gathering at the New Lines Institute in Washington, DC, who told Insider that they point to an increased interest in Russian military movements by high-level decision-makers in the United States.
This week, Politico cited five current and former US officials in its report that the US and its allies are growing more concerned. The report noted that Western intelligence agencies are stepping up efforts to detect any Russian military moves or communications that might signal that Vladimir Putin has ordered the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
The Russian president has suggested using nuclear weapons numerous times since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, notably in a speech on September 21 announcing military conscription in which he cautioned that such threats are not a bluff, as per Insider.
Putin is Feared Preparing for Nuclear Strike in Ukraine
While everything is going on, Western policymakers worry that Putin is getting ready to attack western targets including maritime communications cables and cyberspace. The US embassy in Moscow has warned all citizens to leave Russia immediately by any means necessary and said dual nationality will not be respected by Putin's officials.
Spies in the UK and the US believe there is very credible intelligence that Putin is preparing to escalate to try to turn the war in Russia's favor. Dual nationals might be drafted into the conflict in Ukraine, according to worries. Following his fake elections in eastern Ukraine, Putin plans to annex all four of the contested regions, but his military choices are limited in his futile conflict.
One concern is that Ukraine's counteroffensive could be stopped by a tactical nuclear strike west of the four regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia by creating a radioactive dead zone. Beleaguered Putin has reached the end of his rope and is now facing his terrible war, and the Russian people have realized how great their nation has been marginalized.
Putin's contentious force mobilization of 300,000 inexperienced reservists may have served as a diversion, though, to get the west to focus on Ukraine. And his next move to try and use Western backing for Kyiv against it may have been more foreshadowed by the major leaks in the Nord 1 and Nord 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
The two significant leaks that occurred close to the Danish island of Bornholm may have been caused by Russian spying by Moscow's covert submarine force, Mirror reported.
Related Article: Nord Stream Pipeline Leak: Russia Calls Sabotage Accusations 'Stupid,' New Videos Show Major Damage
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