Russian special military operation in Ukraine #40

Further details:

Russia to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, 03.25.2023.

Putin said that a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons will be built in Belarus by July 1.

MOSCOW, March 25 - RIA Novosti. Moscow and Minsk have agreed to place tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus, Vladimir Putin said in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin on the Rossiya 24 TV channel .

"From April 3, we start training crews. And on July 1, we are finishing the construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus," the president said.

The head of state stressed that Russia had already helped Belarus to re-equip aircraft. In addition, the Iskander missile system was handed over to Minsk. Putin stressed that the deployment of weapons would be without violating obligations under the NPT.

According to the President, the reason for such a step was the announcement of the UK on the supply of ammunition to Ukraine with depleted uranium. At the same time, Putin noted that Belarus had long asked to host Russian nuclear weapons on its territory. He added that Moscow is doing what the United States has been doing for decades.

"We do not transfer. And the United States does not transfer to its allies. In principle, we are doing everything that they have been doing for a decade. They have allies in certain countries and their carriers are trained, their crews are trained. We are going to do the same. Exactly Alexander Grigorievich (Lukashenko. - Approx. ed.) asked about this," the president said.

The head of state noted that the depleted uranium munitions that the West is going to transfer to Kiev do not belong to weapons of mass destruction, but they somehow create radioactive dust and are therefore considered very dangerous. According to him, if they are used, the sown areas will inevitably be polluted, which will create a danger for both local residents and the environment.

On Tuesday, British Deputy Defense Minister Annabelle Goldie said that London , in addition to Challenger 2 tanks, will transfer ammunition to the Armed Forces of Ukraine , including armor-piercing shells containing depleted uranium.

When shells with depleted uranium are used, radioactive dust settles on the ground, it is extremely toxic and cannot be decontaminated. The use of such ammunition can lead to outbreaks of cancer. US troops used depleted uranium during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, during the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would respond to such supplies accordingly.

Moscow sent a note to NATO countries last spring because of the supply of weapons to the Kyiv authorities. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that any cargo that contains military equipment for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for the Russian army. According to him, the United States and the alliance are directly involved in the conflict - not only by transferring weapons, but also by training personnel in the UK, Germany, Italy and other countries.

https://ria.ru/20230325/khranilische-1860641929.html

Nuks don't need to be in Belarus to prevent such thing. They are just easy targets to destroy their nuclear triad. With Finland in Nato their SSBN are also potential target to ukro drones now. We already saw how a civilian drone armed with a grenade can be dangerous. They better remove tupolevs and subs a bit in the east. owais.usmani likes this post wrote:

Norway has been in NATO for many years and borders Russia to the north. From Norway it is the closest to the Russian SSBN base. It is very dangerously close to NATO.

Drone with Starlink antenna brought down by EW

IRBM with nukes would be perfect for Belarus

For now Iskander will suffice

Su-30 with tactical boom-booms as well

But definitely not Tupolevs

ZSU-23-4

Interesting video... lots of upgrades of the vehicles focus on adding MANPADS or replacing the radar, but this seems to have add on armour plates on the hull and turret, I would expect to better protect it from small arms fire and light machine gun fire.

Also during the video where it was shooting the rounds seemed to explode high up in the air... either hits or perhaps air burst ammo?

Regarding the nuclear weapons in Belarus, this is clearly a response to the UK sending DU ammo to Kievs forces and amounts to Russia escalating to the level the US escalated to decades ago... the US has tactical nuclear weapons forward deployed to Germany and Italy and Turkey, so now it seems Russia is going to get some forward deployed nuclear weapons now too...

I would think the Su-30 would be the ideal platform to deploy such weapons from the air and Iskander from the ground.

Ukraine owes EU $132 billion - Bloomberg

Kyiv was ordered to pay the debt until 2027.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's public debt rose to 90% of the country's GDP.



After the end of the SMO, hopefully with the liberation of all territories, this will be the reason
why the west won´t lift the sanctions. They will claim that Russia is owing them the money now
and has to pay it back.

New post  JohninMK Today at 11:45 am

Top news if true  Cool

He'll clean up nicely for his day in court.

If that is a vid that is to prove anything, then I call that bullshit.
It is old material.
Very old actually.

Interesting video... lots of upgrades of the vehicles focus on adding MANPADS or replacing the radar, but this seems to have add on armour plates on the hull and turret, I would expect to better protect it from small arms fire and light machine gun fire

This is a general direction of all Shilka mods carried worldwide.
The case is that it's radar magnetron ages quite quickly, and was not produced since 80s.
Even in the 90s, modernization was a questionable case, as everybody who was able to do it, kept the magnetrons storage for themselves.
The only usable solution was replacing the radar with electrooptical head, and that is what have been done in most of the cases.
Adding a MANPAD was a common practice, too.

Here is a clear example, Polish MP Biała version.

AZOM is under full control of Wagner

Some progress in Marinka.