Russia’s space nuclear weapon that does kill people but can paralyze global communication; what else can it do?

Russia’s space nuclear weapon that does kill people but can paralyze global communication; what else can it do?

    Sunday, February 18, 2024   No comments

The American newspaper "The New York Times" revealed concerns within the Biden administration after intelligence reports indicating that Russia was preparing to place a nuclear weapon in space. These concerns prompted US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to ask China and India to try to talk with Russia.

The newspaper says that American spy and intelligence agencies have discovered that Russia is working on a new type of space weapon that could threaten the thousands of satellites that keep the world connected, and that a launch is being prepared from Moscow to install a “nuclear weapon” in space that would cause a global catastrophe.

It is true that this weapon will not cause the destruction of humans, such as what would happen when used on Earth, but it will destroy satellites scattered in their various orbits, which will cause the collapse of global communications systems, and make everything from emergency services to cell phones to the regulation of generators and pumps It malfunctions, according to estimates by US agencies.

The newspaper adds: Debris resulting from the explosion will spread throughout low Earth orbit and make navigation difficult if not impossible for everything from Starlink satellites, used for Internet communications, to spy satellites.

US intelligence agencies believe that even if Russia were to place a nuclear weapon in orbit, US officials agree in their assessment that the weapon would not be detonated, but would remain like a time bomb in low orbit, as a reminder from Putin that if he was subjected to pressure sanctions or military resistance to his ambitions in Ukraine or elsewhere, it may destroy the economies of countries without targeting humans on the ground, according to what was reported by the New York Times.

The newspaper said that these estimates prompted US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to talk about them with his Chinese and Indian counterparts during the Munich Security Conference, which is currently underway.

 “Blinken’s message to China and India was clear: any nuclear explosion in space would destroy not only American satellites, but also those in Beijing and New Delhi,” the newspaper reports.

 Washington is counting on Beijing and New Delhi to exert the necessary pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, because the latter despises Washington and does not accept its intervention, especially since the escalation of tensions between the two sides since the invasion of Ukraine.

 Some intelligence officials have objected to sharing much of what the United States knows because details of the Russian program remain top secret, US officials said.

 But others argued that the United States needed to share enough to convince China and India of the seriousness of the threat.

 During the Munich meetings, the two men (the foreign ministers of China and India) took in the information, and the former repeated China's usual phrases about the importance of the peaceful use of outer space, the officials said.

 Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida and a member of the House Intelligence Council, said: “Relying on our biggest adversary to deliver messages to Moscow is not a great exercise, but in this case, if the reports are true, China will have a special interest in getting the message across.”

Israeli media report: Iran can produce 7 nuclear bombs within 3 months and has enough enriched uranium to produce 6 more bombs within a few months

Israeli media report: Iran can produce 7 nuclear bombs within 3 months and has enough enriched uranium to produce 6 more bombs within a few months

    Thursday, June 01, 2023   No comments

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted experts as saying that Iran can manufacture a nuclear bomb within 12 days, and has enough enriched uranium to produce 6 more bombs within a few months, “but this does not mean that it intends to do so and become a nuclear state.”

Yedioth said under the headline, “Iran has enough fissile material to make 7 atomic bombs in 3 months,” and that a week after revealing Iran’s progress in building a nuclear site that might be immune to bunker-busting bombs, and 5 years after the withdrawal of the former US president, Donald Trump, from the nuclear deal, an American nuclear expert estimates that Iran has the immediate ability to produce an atomic bomb, and if it used all its stock of enriched uranium, it could produce 7 bombs within a few months.

The American nuclear expert, David Albright, told the British magazine “The Economist” that satellite images show tunnels digging in the mountains near the Natanz nuclear site in central Iran, which may be at a depth of between 80 and 100 meters underground, which makes the mission of the GBU bombs difficult. -57, the main weapon of the US Army for the destruction of underground bunkers down to a depth of 60 meters.

Physicist Albright, the former chief US nuclear weapons inspector, estimated that the innermost part of the site could be used as a hall containing a small number of advanced centrifuges, which could quickly produce enough enriched uranium to the 90% level needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

The newspaper pointed out that the 2015 nuclear deal stipulates that Iran be a year away from producing enough material to make a bomb, but experts estimate that it may be able to do so immediately, and Albright believes that Tehran can enrich uranium by 90% required to produce a nuclear weapon within 12 years. just a day. To do this, it would need only three consecutive sets of advanced centrifuges and half of its current stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%.

In addition, according to estimates, Iran could enrich its uranium stockpile to the level of 90% to produce four atomic bombs within a month, and within another two months, use the low-enriched uranium to obtain material for two more bombs.