Jubilation at Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb – but is this joy justified?
A web, or a trail to Armageddon?
Noel Wauchope, 3 June 25, https://theaimn.net/jubilation-at-ukraines-operation-spiderweb-but-is-this-joy-justified/#google_vignette
The news media is agog with the glorious success of drones sent deep inside Russia to damage 41 planes. Ukraine claims that these were A-50 surveillance planes, the supersonic Tu-160 and Tu-22 bombers, and the massive Tu-95s, which were developed to carry nuclear bombs and now launch cruise missiles.
The damage is estimated to be $7billion. The targets reached inside Russia included Belaya airbase over 4,000km) from Ukraine, and three other distant airbases. the complex operation was planned in secret, over 18 months.
It was such a clever operation, involving smuggling of drones into Russia and placing them inside containers, which were later loaded on to trucks. Remotely activated mechanisms opened the containers allowing the drones to fly out and make their distant attack.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the “absolutely brilliant” Ukrainian drone attack’ – “produced by Ukraine independently”.
Wow! We’re all delighted, aren’t we, at this surprise, this ingenuity, done all alone by Ukraine – such a demonstration of how the clever Ukrainians will beat the stupid boorish Russians?
There are just a few questions that I would like to see posed, in the corporate media.
I hardly know where to start. Can we believe that:
- This was done over 18 months completely without the knowledge of Ukraine’s European partners, in particular Great Britain, France and Germany, who were all consulting with Ukraine over that period, and especially in the last few weeks?
- Without the knowledge of the USA, while Senators Lyndsay Graham and Richard Blumenthal, in Ukraine in the past week where they coordinated intensely with the Ukrainian government?
- Why was this attack timed exactly at the time of the Istanbul peace talks between Ukraine and Russia?
- Did Zelensky not understand that this would at least cast a damper on those talks, upsetting Russia – a bit like the effect on USA if someone attacked US Air Force B-52H bombers and B-2 bombers ?
- Well, if Zelensky did understand that, was his intention to sabotage the talks, and provoke Russia into a retaliation, which might bring Europeand even the USA into the war?
The jubilation of the media seems to completely ignore Russia’s stated policy on its use of nuclear weapons, updated in 2024 – nuclear weapons would be authorised for use in response to “attack by [an] adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions”.
We don’t know how Russia will respond to this remarkable and unprecedented attack.
We don’t know how President Trump will respond.
What is clear is that the Istanbul peace talks have been wrecked, and a whole new phase now opens in the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It started out with the intention of a limited attack – the Russians still call it a Special Military Operation. Now Putin has no other option than to declare it a full scale war.
Nuclear policy was at odds with Lib philosophy: Paterson
Phillip Coorey, AFR, 3 June 25
Opposition finance spokesman James Paterson has put the Coalition’s nuclear power policy to the sword, saying lifting the moratorium on the energy source and leaving the rest to the private sector was more consistent with Liberal Party philosophy than building and owning generators.
The move, which cements last week’s deal to water down the policy as part of the new Coalition agreement, has killed off the prospect of nuclear power in Australia, at least in the medium term.
Clean Energy Investor Group CEO Richie Merzian said that because of time and cost, there was no appetite in the private sector to invest in nuclear power even if the moratorium was lifted.
But the Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood said nuclear power, especially small modular reactors, could be back in play within 20 years if the current policy of renewables firmed by gas and batteries doesn’t go as planned……….
The Coalition went to the last election promising to build and operate seven nuclear power plants – two small modular reactors and five large-scale plants – from 2035 onwards. The total system cost, which included the mix of nuclear, renewables and gas, was modelled at $334 billion.
Amid deep misgivings by Liberals about recommitting to the policy, last week, as part of a new Coalition agreement, Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud agreed that any ongoing commitment to nuclear energy be confined to lifting the moratorium.
The plan to build seven nuclear power plants would be subject to a review of all policies to be undertaken in the wake of the Coalition’s heavy defeat on May 3, but Paterson said on Monday the old policy was unlikely to ever be revisited.
“The answer for the Liberal Party going forward on this is probably not to take what we did to the last election, which is a government-initiated and managed and run program where taxpayers would finance and build them,” he said.
“But instead go for a more traditional Liberal approach, a more market-based approach, which is repeal the prohibition on nuclear power, and then leave it up to the energy industry to decide if they want to invest in nuclear.
………………………………. With Labor opposed to nuclear, that means the renewables rollout would continue unabated for another six years, making the economic case for nuclear less compelling.
“None of the investors in the CEIG, which is 50 per cent of new energy generation, are interested in nuclear in Australia, full stop,” Merzian said.
“That includes major investors who own nuclear assets overseas.”
The objection was not philosophical, but based on time and cost, he said.
“It’s too late to go down that route, it’s just a non-starter.”………………………….. https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/nuclear-policy-was-at-odds-with-lib-philosophy-paterson-20250602-p5m42i
1 This month
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