My efforts to ready for publication two further installments of my Travel Notes have been interrupted by latest announcements and counter-announcements from Macron and other leaders in the West, on the one hand, and from Russian officials on the other hand. These should deeply worry anyone hoping for a rational resolution of the conflict surrounding Ukraine. To the contrary, they point to major escalation and the possibility of things spinning out of control.
Yesterday France officially announced that it has sent Foreign Legion troops to Ukraine. Their numbers are expected to reach 1500 and they are said to be artillery and reconnaissance specialists. The purpose of this announcement was to make legal the initial dispatch to Ukraine of several hundred of these troops over a month ago. The fact that the information is postdated matches the Russians’ claim today to have already ‘destroyed’ seven of the French Legionnaires on the Ukrainian battlefield not far back from the front lines.
The French and possibly other NATO troops are expected to be in support of the defense of the critically important city of Slavyansk which is the capital of the western part of Donetsk region and was at the center of the fighting during the “Russian Spring” of the summer of 2014. The entry of NATO troops directly and openly into the conflict is all by itself equivalent to admission that what the Russians have been saying about the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian defense lines is true.
However, this openly acknowledged entry of NATO troops into the conflict crosses all of Russia’s red lines. And now today the Russian Ministry of Defense on its Telegram account has released the statement that you will find below announcing preparedness exercises for the units of the Southern Military District which are responsible for use of tactical nuclear weapons.
As I remarked on these pages yesterday, the Russians will not slog it out on the ground with NATO forces after having paid dearly in the blood of their own troops to wipe out three successive iterations of the Ukrainian army that they first destroyed in the spring of 2022. They will annihilate these non-Ukrainian co-belligerents using tactical nuclear arms.
These developments take us back six months or more to the furore over an article published by the Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov in which he urged the Kremlin to make a nuclear strike against one or another of the NATO countries to sober up the West, to bring home to the superficial and essentially stupid leaders of the EU and the USA, the real risk of a full-blown nuclear war if they persist in seeking to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. That call by Karaganov was denounced not only by the wise men in Washington but also by many of Karaganov’s compatriots as unnecessarily provocative and dangerous.
However, thinking in Russia’s elites is changing with the times and with the nature of the challenges put up by the West. Last week, a far more restrained Russian expert on international relations than Karaganov, Dmitry Trenin, who for more than a decade led the Carnegie Moscow office, was also calling for the Kremlin to administer a wake-up call to Washington, Brussels, London and Berlin. Among the possibilities he named was for Moscow to announce resumption of nuclear arms testing.
Now we see that the Ministry of Defense has gotten the message from Russia’s elites and experts, and the tactical nuclear arms, of which Russia has a vast assortment, will be prepared for use.
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The foregoing is not all the bad news that has been pouring down on us. Another item, widely reported in Russia but apparently unnoticed in Western media, was the issuance yesterday by the Russian Ministry of Interior of arrest warrants against former Ukrainian president Poroshenko and current president Zelensky. Among other things, this means that if either of them appears close to the front lines for yet another photo opp, they may be snatched by Russian special forces and hauled off to Moscow.
The timing is surely related to the expiry of Zelensky’s constitutionally mandated term in office later this month given that the presidential elections that should have taken place in March were cancelled by him. However, the bigger dimension of this move is the clear indication by Moscow that it considers the Kiev regime illegitimate and will not negotiate with them. Nota bene, that the same logic will surely apply to any replacement president that Washington tries to slot into office in the coming weeks. Further arrest warrants against other former as well as present high Kievan officials may be expected in the coming days. Moscow is said to be preparing a tribunal to try the Ukrainian leaders in the near future, either in the courtroom or in absentia.
*****
Meanwhile, instead of dealing with these developments in a holistic manner, given that they are all interrelated, our major media drip feed some of the details to their readership and video audience, or they do what The Financial Times did this morning: the FT featured in the lead position of their online edition “Finland boosts war readiness in face of Russian aggression.” The given article, which is fairly long has only one sentence that is true – telling us that Finland has the longest border with Russia of any European Union or NATO country. All the rest was a pack of lies.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
Russian Ministry of Defense announcement today:
Russia: Exercises with missile formations
Military Summary Archive
On behalf of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, in order to increase the readiness of non-strategic nuclear forces to carry out combat missions, the General Staff has begun preparations for holding an exercise in the near future with missile formations of the Southern Military District with the involvement of aviation, as well as the forces of the Navy.
During the exercise, a set of activities will be carried out to practice the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons.
The exercise is aimed at maintaining the readiness of personnel and equipment of units for the combat use of non-strategic nuclear weapons to respond and in order to unconditionally ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state in response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials against the Russian Federation.
Source: https://t.me/mod_russia/38308
Gilbert Doctorow 
I have seen this story about France deploying Foreign Legion troops to Ukraine for the past week or so. In trying to verify this, it is peculiar that all of the sources point to that Asia Times article you mentioned. The Asia times article is sourced from a substack, (https://weapons.substack.com/p/france-sends-troops-to-ukraine?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2) I believe this is the asia times article author, (Stephen Bryen) substack. In both the asia times article and at the substack, there is no verifiable link confirming or providing a source for this information other than Stephen Bryens’ own statements. Further if you peruse the comments at the substack you will find that this author has previous unsubstantiated claims.
Earlier today, I again searched the internet for an additional source of the claim regarding the deployment of French Foreign Legion troops and again every source is the Asia times Article. I follow your site because you have probably the best insight of what mainstream Russia thinks and the information they are exposed to on a daily basis. I doubt this claim of these French Troops being deployed. I know it is widespread, I mean every reputable site I visit has carried it, either in the comments or in various articles, but source wise….everyone points to the asia times pointing to a substack that cannot be verified.
Have a nice day and thank you for what you do.
gem
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The fog of war — we know Zelensky lies, and we have no reason to trust either what the Russians say or what any Western government says. But it is absolutely clear that the French — like the US and the rest of NATO — are functionally belligerents in a war with nuclear-armed Russia.
One of the lessons of the conflict in the Ukraine so far is that the World War II approach of concentration of forces for an unstoppable attack is no longer viable — surveillance is too intense, and weapons are too accurate. Any big assemblage of forces will get destroyed. Tactical nuclear weapons would be the ultimate way of wiping out a concentrated advancing force.
It may be that the Russian announcement about a “training exercise” is simply a reminder to US/NATO that any idea they might have about sending in the cavalry in force would be doomed to failure. Hopefully, US/NATO recognition of this reality will mean that those tactical nukes never have to be used — because their use would open Pandora’s Box.
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Thank you for bringing the different strands of news together.
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What is particularly impressive is how well written this post is. It is tempting to say thank you. Although what you have written could not possibly have been more disturbing. It is also very tempting to say that Macron is a dangerously imbecilic freak who should be set aside by the French.
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Fortunately the French puppet isn’t a real boy, nor does he command an army. France now has a semi-defunct colonial police force.
With a few foreign mercenaries of similar ilk.
So his posturing abroad is the same as his word at home. Worthless.
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