Will Kursk Invasion Lead to Nuclear War?

Aug. 24—In a lengthy post on Simplicius the Thinker dated Aug. 22, Simplicius reviews an Aug. 12 Financial Times article on the discovery of “new documents about secret Russian training involving unprecedentedly lowered tactical nuclear thresholds,” reportedly showing that the Russian navy, for example, has trained to target important locations in Europe with nuclear missiles. Among the elements that Simplicius highlights is this “truly eye-opening detail” which is “the claim that these secret internal Russian documents include plans for a potential nuclear ‘demonstration’ strike, if things really begin escalating.” The quote from FT is this: “The presentation also references the option of a so-called demonstration strike—detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area ‘in a period of immediate threat of aggression’ before an actual conflict, to scare Western countries. Russia has never acknowledged such strikes are in its [military-ed.] doctrine.”

This is entirely different from Russia setting up a nuclear test to get NATO’s attention. This “is particularly eye-opening because it is something far more aggressive and threatening,” Simplicius writes. “It would entail Russia not setting up a test, but actually live-firing a real tactical nuke from one of their many systems into a remote area. The simple acknowledgment that Russia even has such contingencies drawn up is fairly startling and clearly draws a heavy shadow over the now-escalating Ukrainian conflict, where NATO’s involvement continues to grow more out of control each day.”

As for Russia’s nuclear threshold, FT says the following: “Criteria for a potential nuclear response range from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers, such as the destruction of 20% of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines.”

Assuming the statement is accurate, it has implications, right now, as Simplicius notes. “An enemy incursion into Russian territory, one that does not even necessarily present an ‘existential threat’ to the sovereignty of the state, as we’ve previously believed? One can quickly see why this is more relevant than ever, given Ukraine’s recent Kursk incursion.”

And then there’s this: “A separate training presentation for naval officers … outlines broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike, including an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons.

“In short, it appears to suggest that if an invading force breaches Russia’s initial line of border defenses and seems to threaten a larger expansion into Russia, this could trigger potential tactical nuclear usage. This is precisely what’s happening in Kursk right now: Ukraine has already breached the border garrisons and continues to pile on more breakthrough reserves to go even deeper. The most noteworthy fact is not only that Ukraine potentially seeks to capture a nuclear power station in Kurchatov to carry out nuclear blackmail against Russia, but there were hints of other ulterior objectives, like capturing Russia’s nuclear storage site at 50.558061, 35.754448, called Belgorod-22 [in the Grayvoronsky District in the southwestern corner of the Belgorod Region—ed.]—though it’s claimed Russia has long removed the nuclear weapons stored there,” Simplicius writes.

Other, more sober analysts, say that Simplicius, who has been more often wrong that right in his analysis in his most recent commentary, while useful in showing the lunacy of current NATO strategy, misrepresents the far more likely result of NATO’s Kursk invasion. These analysts say that Russia will in short order crush both the invasion force, and shortly thereafter in a matter of weeks, place Ukraine’s resistance into a situation of total collapse. Under those circumstances, NATO will be faced with a decision, which will likely come before the point of the total collapse of Ukraine’s forces: Either orchestrate some wild escalation, including direct strikes on Russia’s command and control centers inside Russia, or some other spectacular target, using weapons systems already in Ukraine, or to force their Ukrainian puppets into meaningful negotiations to end the war, which will require the exit of their sock-puppet dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“The Kursk gambit, with all its fanfare in the media,” said a source, “could never succeed, at least from a military standpoint. All those scenarios about it pressing deeper into Russia are delusion, and in fact intended to cover for what it really is: A  military operation covering for terrorist deployment against innocent civilians and their property, and if allowed, against prime targets, such as the Kursk nuclear facility. This has been ignored in the media, but it is a fact on the ground. At least one third or more of the invasion force are terrorist mobile patrols whose targets are innocent Russian civilians. Until recently, this part of the operation was very successful. The intention was to wage a terror campaign to demonstrate that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russian government cannot protect Russian citizens. This is a pure Nazi strategy, and it were appropriate to compare their actions to the Waffen-SS deployments in World War II. It took a while for the Russians to catch on to this, but now they have. Besides assigning regular army units to fight the invaders, the Russian Armed Force are deploying Special Forces units, trained with anti-terrorist capabilities to mop up these Waffen-SS patrols.

“The Russians know that NATO is behind what is happening in Kursk,” said the source. “Zelenskyy is the theater cover for NATO. He may be a Hitler-like figure, even as a Jew, just as Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi [Netanyahu] is—both real nasty Nazis. Zelenskyy is NATO’s Hitler, and does what they say. There are reliable reports that the Russian Armed Forces may have already captured some NATO personnel wearing Ukrainian uniforms, directing this show. The Russians have been clear who they hold responsible for all that is happening, including for the strikes against the Russian homeland: NATO and the Americans.

“The Financial Times story is almost two weeks old now,” said the source. “It was published around the same time that Putin was stating that Russia reserves the right to retaliate for attacks against its homeland, when he was clarifying his ‘red lines’ that NATO keeps crossing. What the various media and blog sites have not covered, or not sufficiently reported, is that Putin also said that Russia would retaliate asymmetrically. What can that mean? Well. If I were stationed at the U.S./NATO base in Wiesbaden, Germany, I might be very worried right now. That is a likely prime target. Or a similar U.S./NATO base anywhere in Europe, or at the main NATO coordinating base of operation for their war against Russia on the Polish border, or maybe several of these.

“But I don’t think Russia needs to use nuclear weapons to completely take out such bases,” said the source. “They don’t have to use them. They have advanced weapons systems that could completely take out such facilities, and even entire cities like London and Berlin. No, Russia is not going to use nukes first, nor do they need them on the Ukrainian battlefield, where they are already winning. But, what if NATO uses tactical nukes, or some dirty bomb [a nuclear weapon improvised with a combination of radioactive nuclear waste material and conventional explosives] against Russian forces? What if they blow up a nuclear power plant in Russia? Well then, all bets are off. Then, reread those documents from the Financial Times, to see what your fate might be. Russia is not going to allow itself to be destroyed in some step-by-step escalation up the nuclear ladder. They will take preemptive action, first, and as that General [Apti Alaudinov] said to the Americans and to the NATO countries’ populations: ‘You will not like it.’ But for now, it were more likely that the collapse not just of the Kursk terror gambit but NATO’s entire war with Russia using Ukrainian bodies, could lead to the collapse of NATO, itself, especially if it is accompanied by a U.S. Presidency led by NATO-adversary Donald Trump.”