The Norwegian intelligence reports that “Russian ships, for the first time in 30 years, go to sea with nuclear weapons”. The report of course talks about the tactical nuclear weapons; it is well known that the strategic nuclear submarines are armed with SLBM strategic nuclear weapons. I could not find whether the yield of the weapons in question, or whether they are installed on torpedoes or cruise missiles, but those are the options. The difference between strategic and tactical nukes is that tactical nukes are what you use against the enemy’s battlefield assets; they are short-range and of limited yield. This is footage of a Soviet test of a low yield nuclear torpedo:

The Americans are apparently going to cross a Russian red line and send depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine, together with their Abrams tanks:

The timeline of that, however, is unclear, and there might not in fact be Ukraine by the time they do. On the other hand, it is not clear to me what the Russians are actually planning to do, as their rhetoric has been increasingly sharp and the additional recruits have not been deployed to the Ukrainian front in ways that would be consistent with the expectation of a large ground assault. In fact, the plan might be to conduct low-level but increased gradual offensive pressure, and have the larger army on standby in case of a larger geopolitical escalation, such as an open war with NATO that could include an offensive directed against Russia and Belarus. Also, a large deployed military is essential in case of a nuclear war, because it would give them a large available first-response force to aid in the rescue efforts; why that would be of the essence can be seen in the aftermath of the large earthquake in Turkey and Syria, because if you don’t have a large force of rescuers, the number of dead increases exponentially, and if you can’t aid the living (and now homeless and starving) they quickly get to be numbered among the dead. If you need to perform massive relocations, evacuations, feed millions of homeless, erect tents and improvised habitation for millions, having a million-strong army that already knows how to do all those things is very useful, and it’s the way to do it without alerting the enemy of your preparations. Also, having a large deployed army in the region bordering your known enemies is what you want to do in case of a possible nuclear war, because if your country is nuked, there is no time to recruit, arm and train men, and your borders can be easily overran by the enemy and your country occupied. Russian recruitment efforts seem to be aimed primarily at covering those precautions, as they don’t seem to be deployed in the war in Ukraine, which the Russian leadership sees as more-less a settled matter; they have the meat grinder set up, the Ukrops and the Western murderers have to travel a long way to reach the front line, they have their supply lines extended far, and the Russians can operate the meat grinder at very low cost to themselves at the moment, with the only annoyances being the vulnerability of the Belgorod area and Donetsk to Ukrop bombardment. They have dead and wounded, true, but the numbers are tolerable so far, and negligible in comparison to what would happen if they tried to take the whole of Ukraine, and have Poland and possibly America intervene. They are also killing the enemies quite effectively, and without having to invest effort in finding them and avoiding civilian casualties in the process. Going deep into Ukraine is guaranteed to change the numbers adversely, and it’s not obvious to me that anything of value could be achieved that way, since their main enemies, the Americans and the British, would remain unharmed, and the stupid neighbouring countries could be more easily manipulated into joining the war effort, thus increasing the intensity of warfare and the number of casualties. The way things are, the main enemies are suffering aggravated economic conditions which guarantee that they can’t do this in the long run; they are also depleting their weapons and ammunition faster than they can replenish them, and if the war itself remains of low intensity, their population will grow bored with it, and rebel against economic hardship without some patriotic defensive motivation that would keep them going. Basically, they will have a war of the kind where there are shortages of food, fuel and electricity, and there is increasingly less money to cover the costs, and there’s very little actual war going on. The entire layout is very favourable to the Russians and I see very little incentive for them to escalate this at great cost to themselves and at great propagandistic benefit to their enemies. However, I might be wrong in this, and I was wrong before when I thought they wouldn’t bother to go into Ukraine as there is nothing to be won there; the country is profoundly corrupt, it would be a money sink for Russia if they wanted to modernize it, and the people there are heavily indoctrinated with pro-Western and anti-Russian illusions which would make that entire quagmire impossible to manage. This assessment has not changed, but the Russians apparently weighed that against the danger of having a NATO dagger growing unchecked into Russia’s southern border with potentially deadly consequences, and decided to neutralize the threat, which for all intents and purposes had been accomplished by April last year, and everything since served the purpose of bleeding NATO and Ukraine further.

The problem, at this point, is that NATO doesn’t seem willing to write off their anti-Russian campaign, and as time goes on and they grow closer to defeat, we are approaching a critical point where both sides will be forced to do something. Russia will come to that point as the Ukrainian military crumbles, and they are forced by the logic of things to move forward. There must be a plan for doing this properly, as it will require additional forces in order to hold larger territory, and also they will feel compelled to rebuild the place like they did in Mariupol. The West, on the other hand, is emboldened by the Russian lack of response to past provocations, and they seem to have concluded that Russia will try to avoid escalation of the war to NATO countries to the point where they can do almost whatever they want, which is of course guaranteed to actually cause a Russian deep military response at NATO. The Americans think of the world in terms of a wolf pack, and they always interpret absence of attack as a sign of weakness and are encouraged by it to escalate, and they always interpret attack as a provocation that must be answered with total destruction of the enemy. The Russians have a completely different approach, which is a really bad match for the American one: they avoid conflict, which is misinterpreted as fear, and encourages further encroachments, and when the Russian military response finally comes, it comes so late in the game that it must be profound. Basically, the American approach is typical for a high-school bully who never had the profoundly educational experience of being left bleeding and half-conscious in a ditch, and the Russian approach is typical for someone who had extreme casualties in the previous conflicts and so tries to avoid this, much past the point where this actually encourages encroachment.

The Russians seem to be hoping to achieve the outcome where they keep the conflict boring and low-level for long enough that the economic tide crushes their enemies. In my opinion, this is not achievable and is in fact very dangerous, because the enemy will in fact have very good first-hand knowledge of the danger, and will react before the danger reaches a critical point. It is very obvious to me that the American plan in fact is to provoke a nuclear war of a kind that will leave them in a position that is relatively better than what they would have if their economy inevitably collapsed, and their geostrategic opponents were unharmed. They did the math and decided that a nuclear war would only kill off the least productive and useful parts of their society, and that they would recover first and resume the position of the world’s only superpower within a timeframe of decades. In my opinion, they miscalculated. It doesn’t take a genius to know that, since they historically always miscalculate, and in this case they have such poor understanding of the situation that miscalculation is absolutely inevitable. We already see the beginnings of this miscalculation with Russia, where they completely misunderstood the economics involved, and managed to produce the exact result they attempted to suppress.

To return to the point at hand, I think the Russians gave the Americans the possibility of winding down the conflict in Ukraine in a “boring” way, which is when the meat grinder runs out of Ukrainians, the Russians slowly walk to the Dniepr river as the new border, the Americans withdraw support from the Nazi regime in Kiev, and there’s some kind if a popular uprising against the Nazis there, and what’s left of Ukraine withdraws from war and licks its wounds in relative silence. Honestly, I don’t see this as a realistic outcome, which means we’ll have several rounds of tit-for-tat, until several tactical nukes go off in deep NATO territory as the last warning, which will shock the Western economy to such a point that it might actually prevent the all-out nuclear war, which is the second-best option, and for this I can actually see some reasonable probability, especially if the nukes really badly hurt the American assets in Europe. This limited nuclear conflict in Europe is the reason why I think it is wise to prepare; the damage from the nukes themselves might be negligible, but the panic and chaos would be devastating.

The US has “unleashed a total hybrid war” against Russia and is putting the two nuclear nations on a path to direct confrontation, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. It claims Washington’s demands for nuclear inspections in Russia are “cynical”, considering its “obvious” assistance in Ukrainian attacks against Russian strategic nuclear forces.

The allegations were part of the Ministry’s public comments on the status of the New START treaty, the last remaining US-Russian agreement on nuclear weapons reduction. According to US media, the Department of State notified the Congress last week that Russia was in “noncompliance” due to a refusal to facilitate inspections on its soil.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that was not true, since the treaty allows suspension of inspection. Washington was the first to start barring Russian monitors from doing their job in the US, it alleged. The ministry said that “created obvious unilateral benefits” for the US and prompted a response in kind by Moscow.

The 2010 treaty was signed in a different environment and is based on the notion that the US and Russia are equal partners who seek to build trust and improve global security through disarmament, as reflected in its text, the ministry explained. But now that Washington has declared the “strategic defeat” of Russia as its goal and ramped up tensions in all aspects of bilateral relations, there can be no “business as usual” with the US, according to the statement.

“Until Washington revises its hostile stance regarding Russia and drops the policy of increasing the threats towards our national security,” Moscow will consider any proposed gestures of goodwill under the nuclear treaty “unjustified, untimely and uncalled for.” (source: RT)

If I am not wrong, this means there are no more nuclear disarmament agreements left between America and Russia; America unilaterally departed from ABM and INF years ago, and START was the only one left, but it was close to expiring in a few years anyway and the necessary negotiations on its renewal haven’t even started yet, so it was obviously only a matter of formality.

At this point, the superpowers are not only in a state of cold war, they are very close to the state of declared war.

The Chinese sent at least one (probably several) “meteorological baloons” over America:

This doesn’t look meteorological to me, by any stretch of the imagination; it has a large antenna array which probably serves the purpose of monitoring the frequencies that would get absorbed by the atmosphere before they reached orbit, and probably amplifies and relays the results to a spy satellite in the geosynchronous orbit above. Considering how long it took the Americans to shoot it down, we can consider the north-American airspace basically undefended from ICBMs.

I recently read that the name of the city which the Russians call Artyomovsk, and the Ukrainians call Bakhmut, has the same etymological root as the word Baphomet – essentially, a corrupted version of Mohammad. The medieval Christians thought it’s a name of some demon from hell who brought forth a false religion to corrupt and deceive men, and the modern satanists adopted the name and seem to admire and worship this demon depicted like this:

For some reason, I find it incredibly funny that the Ukrainian Nazis, who dabble in all sorts of pagan and satanic nonsense, changed the name of the city to Baphomet, and are now performing massive human sacrifices there.

Andrei Raevsky, also known as The Saker, recently announced that he’s shutting down his blog by the end of February. It is very unlikely that the cause is related to his health, since he didn’t want to transfer it to anyone else, and he also made sure nothing really points to him personally. Since he previously said that he’ll close the blog if the international situation deteriorates to the point of a hot war between United States and Russia, my guess is that the real reason is to be sought in this direction. He probably has reasons to believe that shit is about to hit the fan, and since he lives in America he doesn’t want to be an obvious target for American repression. Considering how he didn’t give that much thought to what will happen to the blog archive, one can conclude that he thinks we’ll probably have more pressing issues in this timeframe, such as, for instance, a nuclear war.

Speaking of which, I have no recommendations regarding ways to prepare at this point. If I were to articulate my position logically, I would say it’s too late in the game for any radical changes of strategy, and, personally, I feel I’m leaving this world soon, and not preparing to live on canned beans in some bunker.

But, just in case, let’s go through the basics.

UK, America, Russia and China are the prime targets for massive nuclear attacks. Anything within those countries is a possible target, especially if it’s close to a command center, a military base, installation or a factory. American military bases in Europe used for coordinating and staging attacks in Ukraine are even more dangerous, as they are the prime targets in the first wave of expected strikes. Anyone who lives in this “red zone” should either leave or start cramming for the entrance exam for heaven.

The “orange zone” is everything that is likely to be covered by immediate nuclear fallout, or be cut off from sources of food, electricity, heating, water and other utilities. This means large urban centers in Europe, America, Russia and China, that don’t even have to be directly hit in order to become death traps. Also, agricultural areas that are likely to be covered in radioactive fallout (and depend on modern agricultural measures) are not going to be usable for growing food any time soon, so they are for all intents and purposes not going to be inhabitable. People in the red zone are running out of time and need to prepare for leaving the world. People in the orange zone will have more time, but not so much that I would recommend wasting precious time. Bring your affairs in order quickly and prepare to leave this world, because that’s where this is going. Regardless, everybody should perform their duties to their families and other people throughout this entire mess. Pray, focus on God, and help each other throughout this.

The “yellow zone” is anywhere in the world that is not directly hit by nuclear weapons or significant fallout, and will keep having basic services available throughout and after the nuclear exchange. It means the ability to generate electricity, have sustainable sources of drinkable water, and are already capable of growing food without access to artificial fertilizers, pesticides and other modern agricultural devices. The yellow zone will be safe until people from the orange zone start migrating away from the zone of death and into places where there is food. At this point, they will overrun everyone in the yellow zone.

The “green zone” are the places that have guaranteed survival in the long-term. I don’t know if there is such a thing; probably people who still hunt with spears and traps somewhere in the deep wilderness, and live in ways that don’t make them a target from the orange-zone predators. If you’re in the green zone, you probably don’t know what Internet is.

Have in mind the erratic nature of war, and the fact that Gonzalo Lira basically saw that the West is going to hell and preventively escaped into Kharkov, Ukraine, in order to avoid the shit storm. He ended up under siege in a war zone, so that didn’t work out all that well, despite a very solid prediction of the problem. I’m saying that we don’t know what’s going to be hit in which order, and so trying to run away from trouble can actually land you in deeper trouble. The recommendation is to wait until you see the direction the tree is falling before you start running. The exceptions are certain places such as the UK, which have enormous targets on them, and are profoundly unsurvivable in the context of a nuclear war (and are barely survivable even now).

The standard preparations mean that you expect things to be whacked way out of normal, and you need battery lamps with lots of spare batteries, some sort of a radio to learn what’s going on when Internet goes out (you probably have it in your car), non-perishable food for the minimum of two weeks and several months if possible with some rationing, bottled water, bleach or other water purification substance, gas tank in the car constantly over 75% full, all your savings in form of gold and silver coins and bars, and enough local currency for immediate low-volume purchases (it’s likely to be worthless anyway in the long-term). Have a get-home backpack in the car in case you get stranded away from home and plan for the worst-case distance; you need to have water, food, clothes, swiss army knife, lighter, flashlight, smartphone and those stupid cloth masks that don’t do shit against covid, but which do work for basic air filtration in case of fallout. Have it in a dedicated backpack and put it in your car or with you whenever you’re going far enough from home that you would be have a long hike back.  Always have a sufficient amount of cash in your wallet; sufficient means enough to get you home, and to buy supplies along the way if possible; a hundred euros in 10/20 euro bills should do it. If you’re in red or orange zones, this means you. Such a precaution is useful even in peacetime, for instance having enough cash to have your car towed if it breaks down or you had an accident, and enough for taxi to get you home, and to buy food and a bottle of water along the way, if you’re a long way off. If a family member is separated from the family unit (in a nearby town or something), it is recommended that they have some gold and cash with them, because they might find themselves in a scenario where they have to bribe their way out. Don’t go overboard; a few small gold coins would probably suffice, no need to carry something that would make that person a target because they would act suspiciously. If you are on a vacation, consider what you would need to get yourself home in a scenario where you are stranded on some island, where the ferry is no longer working, and the roads are no longer passable. Also, consider a scenario where you would have to stay stranded for a long time – months, years, or the rest of your life. Don’t travel anywhere when there’s imminent danger of nuclear war or in its aftermath, because you need to expect all the long-distance traffic to be grounded. Never travel or be outdoors when there’s radioactive dust in the air. Never taste “black rain”, and wash it off you as soon as possible, and throw away all the clothes you were wearing. The “duck and cover” exercises are not stupid; the Americans in the 1950s knew their stuff, because if you’re in the fireball radius of a nuclear explosion, you’re dead and nothing can help you, but if you’re in the shockwave radius, which is immensely larger, the greatest danger you are facing comes from the broken glass that will form projectiles. The shockwave from the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion injured thousands of people, and it was way up there; that’s the most likely danger. Stay away from the windows, or other flimsy structures that might collapse on you, or form projectiles that will hurt you. Hiding under a desk or in a corner of a room, and covering your head with a piece of cloth, kneeling or sitting on the floor so you can’t fall or be thrown onto something hard and sharp, is a good idea. 99% of people in a nuclear blast zone are more likely to be injured by flying debris, or injured by infrared radiation if they are out in the open, than they are to be killed by radiation or immediately vaporized by the fireball. Don’t count on intentionally exposing yourself to the blast in order to put yourself out of your misery; chances are, you aren’t that lucky and you’ll just cause what you’re trying to prevent. Have in mind that there aren’t that many nukes in the post-START world, and each will be precious and aimed at the important strategic targets. If cities are to be targetted, it will be because they contain essential command/control or other military assets. You need to be exceedingly unlucky to even see a nuclear blast up close in a nuclear war, if you’re not in the heart of the red zone. The greatest danger will be the lack of electricity, lack of drinking water, lack of food refrigeration in big distribution centres which will cause collapse of the food supply, and poor sanitation and disease, combined with the collapse of health care and inability to find medications for chronic diseases and antibiotics to treat injuries. Radiation is dangerous, but it’s a secondary concern, unless you can actually see the “ashes” in the air and black rain. A hundred other things are more likely to kill you, but expect that the masses won’t know that and will panic, and this will be much more dangerous than fallout. If you’re in the fallout zone, hunker down in as deep concrete as possible for at least two weeks; then you can gradually extend exposure.

I don’t know how useful this will be, and I do hope that God has a less shitty way out for us than this, but it is what it is, and I’m telling you what I know.