The Biden administration is following through in a big way on its past denunciations of nuclear rhetoric and threats coming from Russian leadership of the past months and year. The Kremlin is likely to see it as an ultra-provocative and unnecessary step, revealed in fresh New York Times reporting on Friday...
"The United States is wiring Ukraine with sensors that can detect bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and can confirm the identity of the attacker," the Times report says. The goal, according to the report, is for US officials to be made immediately aware of if a radioactive weapon detonates inside Ukraine, and to be able to identify Russian forces as the culprit.
NYT describes the measure as "the hardest evidence to date that Washington is taking concrete steps to prepare for the worst possible outcomes of the invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s second largest nation."
Interestingly, an elite team under an Energy Department organization which the Times calls "shadowy" has been tasked with deploying the sensors with the help of Ukrainian partners on the ground:
The Nuclear Emergency Support Team, or NEST, a shadowy unit of atomic experts run by the security agency, is working with Ukraine to deploy the radiation sensors, train personnel, monitor data and warn of deadly radiation.
In a statement sent to The New York Times in response to a reporter’s question, the agency said the network of atomic sensors was being deployed "throughout the region" and would have the ability "to characterize the size, location and effects of any nuclear explosion." Additionally, it said the deployed sensors would deny Russia "any opportunity to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine without attribution."
Further this would ensure that alternative or less conventional nuclear 'dirty bomb' deployment methods such as delivery by truck or boat could conceivably be more traceable (in addition to the more obvious: a mushroom cloud).
Russia last year on multiple occasions alleged the Ukrainians could be planning a small nuclear dirty bomb false flag attack, in order to draw in NATO forces directly into a ground war in Ukraine.
US officials and the Times report addresses this in saying "For instance, Moscow could falsely claim that Kyiv set off a nuclear blast on the battlefield to try to draw the West into deeper war assistance." With the sensors in place, officials say, "in theory... Washington would be able to point to its own nuclear attribution analyses to reveal that Moscow was in fact the attacker."
So now it seems the US is prepping for the eventually of a false-flag blame game, disturbingly enough. Already last year iodine pills had been widely distributed in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries.
Nuclear Emergency Support Team has meanwhile said in a statement that--
"If a nuclear emergency were to occur in Ukraine, whether a radiation release from a nuclear reactor or a nuclear weapon detonation, scientific analyses would be rapidly provided to U.S. government authorities and decision-making centers in Ukraine and the region to make actionable, technically informed decisions to protect public health and safety."
But it remains that Moscow says its nuclear doctrine hasn't changed. This includes the nuclear option in instances where the nation's survival is deemed under existential threat. The Kremlin has further repeatedly denounce what it calls Western media and officials' twisting Putin's words anytime he speaks on the matter of nuclear weapons.
Russian leadership has also asserted it doesn't intend to use tactical or strategic nukes in Ukraine; however, Putin's recently announcing "plans" to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus has certainly rattled the West. He described it along with sending nuclear-capable bomber aircraft as a necessary decision in response to the UK giving Ukraine armor-piercing shells containing depleted uranium.
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