Politico: It will be difficult for the US to predict a possible Russian nuclear strike

A Politico investigation has been published about attempts by US intelligence agencies to track preparations for a possible Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine.

The American publication has well-informed sources who said: the task is not easy, but doable – the West has certain methods to identify the initial signs of preparations for a nuclear war.

Politico, as told air force, refers to interviews with five US officials, past and present. They say the US is now stepping up intelligence, trying to see if the actions taken or reports by the Russian military could indicate the president’s decision to carry out a nuclear strike. And they fear that the warning may come to Washington too late.

The authors of the investigation recall recent statements by President Putin and Deputy Secretary of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, where they hinted at the possibility of using all possible means to protect “territorial integrity.” They cite experts who are convinced that Moscow can go for the use of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons.

The main difficulty when trying to predict the use of a tactical (not strategic) nuclear weapon is that such warheads can carry most Russian aircraft and conventional missiles. AT publications says:

“This means that if Putin or his commanders do not want the world to know about their intentions in advance, the US may not understand at what point Russia switched from a conventional weapon to atomic bombs.”

To track down possible signs of preparations for a nuclear war, US intelligence agencies are studying all available information, from commercially available satellite images to data obtained on the Internet or with the help of reconnaissance aircraft. Surveillance efforts include deploying additional US and allied intelligence assets in air, space and cyberspace, as well as more active use of commercial earth imagery satellites to analyze the movements of Russian units in the field.

Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave where Russia has installed supersonic missiles and systems that can be used for both conventional and nuclear strikes, is under special US scrutiny. Politico notes that several American BoeingRC-135 reconnaissance aircraft have been circling over the city for the past week. The publication says:

“US military commanders and intelligence experts are hoping that the first sign of Russia’s intention to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine will not be a mushroom cloud.”

According to one source, the Russian Federation has 23 types of weapons that are capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads. At the same time, some of them, such as Iskander missiles, are already being used in Ukraine.

However, Western intelligence agencies can understand that it is about the intention to use weapons of mass destruction, based on and not too obvious signs. For example, when certain units are sent to the battlefield, or all formations are withdrawn, except for those that are capable of taking part in a nuclear attack. The interlocutor of the publication describes one of the possible such scenarios:

“We might think, yeah, that’s not how they usually do things. They send that part into battle and pull the rest away. That’s not how they usually do it. It’s weird.”

The intelligence services, according to one official, are confident that Russia will not risk a full-scale nuclear war:

“They will never use strategic nuclear weapons. They will never launch an intercontinental ballistic missile and they will never supply a Tu-95 bomber with megaton-class warheads. What they will do is use short-range weapons. They have warheads that we call micronuclear charges with a capacity of tens to hundreds of tons.

However, other Politico sources claim that “nuclear preparation” may be deliberately open – so that the West understands where everything is going and makes concessions.

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