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Un experto de la televisión estatal rusa ha pedido que Gran Bretaña sea bombardeada «de vuelta a la Edad de Piedra» con ataques con misiles en las centrales eléctricas del país.
Yaakov Kedmi, un exdiplomático israelí nacido en Moscú, dijo que el nuevo misil hipersónico Zircon de Rusia debería desplegarse para acabar con 50 o 60 centrales eléctricas en el Reino Unido «en diez minutos», sumiendo al país en la oscuridad.
Kedmi, hablando en uno de los programas de entrevistas más vistos de Rusia, dijo que sería «exagerado» usar el misil Sarmat, que se dice que es capaz de transportar 12 ojivas nucleares, en Gran Bretaña.
En cambio, dijo, el Reino Unido debería ser el objetivo de los misiles Zircon de 6,670 mph.
El político Aleksey Zhuravlyov y otro propagandista de televisión, Dmitry Kiselyov, habían abogado antes por atacar a Gran Bretaña con el misil Sarmat, también conocido como Satan-2.
Yaakov Kedmi, un exdiplomático israelí nacido en Moscú, dijo que el nuevo misil hipersónico Zircon de Rusia debería desplegarse para acabar con 50 o 60 centrales eléctricas en el Reino Unido «en diez minutos», sumergiendo al país en la oscuridad.
Kedmi dijo en el canal de televisión estatal ruso Russia 1 que Gran Bretaña debería ser bombardeada «de vuelta a la Edad de Piedra» con ataques con misiles en las centrales eléctricas del país.
Es exagerado. Sarmat es demasiado bueno, demasiado grande para Gran Bretaña», dijo Kedmi en el canal de televisión estatal ruso Russia 1. «No hay necesidad de usar [such a big weapon’ for Britain at all.’
‘One or one-and-a-half launches from a multi-purpose submarine with Zircons will be enough.
‘About 50 or 60 of Britain’s power stations will be gone in ten minutes. And all of Britain will be back to the Stone Age.
‘Within ten minutes, nothing else is needed. It’ll be back to the Stone Age in ten minutes.’
Close Putin ally Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, has also warned that NATO countries can be destroyed within half an hour in a nuclear attack.
Despite his desire to destroy Britain, Kedmi, a regular on Russian state TV political talk shows, sent his youngest son to the London Business School.
Kedmi’s comments come after a Russian retired colonel last night gave an unusually frank assessment of Putin’s war in Ukraine and said that nuclear sabre-rattling – far from being threatening – actually ‘looks quite amusing’.
Mikhail Khodarenok, a former air defence commander and graduate of some of the Soviet Union’s top military schools, warned that Russia is in ‘full geopolitical isolation’, adding that: ‘However much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us.’
Nuclear sabre-rattling, he insisted, will do little to deter Russia’s enemies and in fact ‘actually looks quite amusing’ when the whole world is arrayed against the Kremlin.
Urging those around him to ‘maintain a sense of realism’, he warned that ‘sooner or later the reality of history will hit you so hard that you’ll regret it.’
Mikhail Khodarenok, a former air defence commander and graduate of some of the Soviet Union’s top military schools, gave an unusually frank assessment of Putin’s war in Ukraine and said that nuclear sabre-rattling – far from being threatening – actually ‘looks quite amusing’
Russian state TV hosts have discussed at length nuking the UK and New York City with Putin’s new intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Last month, Russia reported the first successful test launch of the Satan 2.
The Kremlin claims the unmatched 16,000mph missile, which has been in development for years, could destroy the UK, hit any target on earth and carry 12 nuclear warheads.
Putin said the launch will provide ‘food for thought for those who try to threaten Russia’ and will make his enemies ‘think twice’.
Russia has test launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile, its Defence Ministry announced on Wednesday
The threats to use strategic weapons comes amid fury in Russia over what is seen as Britain leading the West in providing weapons to Ukraine in a ‘proxy war’ against Putin.
Zvezda TV – a channel run by Putin’s defence ministry – has said Zircon’s speed ‘is so high that it prevents the opponent’s air defence system from detecting its impact in time.
‘In fact, its launch will be known only after the target has been hit.’
‘The whole world is against us’: Retired colonel gives damning assessment of Russia’s war in Ukraine on state TV as he urges Putin to ‘get out of’ the conflict
By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline
Russian state media’s trumped-up narrative of Putin’s glorious war in Ukraine was last night shattered by a retired colonel who gave an unusually frank and damning assessment of the situation on the frontlines and world stage.
Mikhail Khodarenok, a former air defence commander and graduate of some of the Soviet Union’s top military schools, used his platform on one of Russia’s most-watched talk shows to warn that the war is going badly and is likely to get worse, and that nuclear sabre-rattling – far from being threatening – actually ‘looks quite amusing’.
Ukraine, he said, will soon have mobilised more than a million soldiers who will be trained by the West and equipped with modern weapons, ready to fight and die to protect their homeland against Russia.
Batting aside repeated interruption from propagandist Olga Skabeyeva that the army will be mostly made of conscripts, Khodarenok insisted that how an army is recruited is irrelevant – what really matters is willingness to fight, and Ukraine ‘intends to fight to the last man.’
Russia’s position on the world stage is no better, he added, pointing out that ‘we are in full geopolitical isolation, and that, however much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us. And it’s that situation that we need to get out of.’
Khodarenok’s remarks, broadcast to millions of Russians who until now have been spoon-fed a narrative of their military’s prowess and Ukraine’s weakness, mark a stunning break with the state-sanctioned narrative and puts him at extreme odds with the Kremlin stooges stood to either side of him.
Mikhail Khodarenok, a former Soviet air defence commander, has given a full and frank assessment of Russia’s military failings on state TV – warning that ‘the whole world is against us’
Ukrainian solders examine the wreck of a Russian tank in an image taken on an unknown date at an unknown location, but released by the country’s defence ministry on Monday
A local resident looks at a destroyed Russian tank next to a residential house in the village of Mala Rogan, east of Kharkiv
Russia’s offensive across Ukraine has all-but ground to a halt, except for an attempted pincer movement around Ukrainian troops at Severodonetsk in the east, and an ongoing assault on the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol
Speaking on Skabeyeva’s evening talk show – which toes the Kremlin line so tightly that she has become known as the ‘iron doll of Putin TV’ – Khodarenok urged his fellow panellist to wean themselves off of ‘information tranquilisers’ and look objectively at the situation.
First of all, he said, rumours of a ‘moral and psychological breakdown in the Ukrainian armed forces which are allegedly on the verge of some kind of crisis in morale’ are ‘to put it mildly, is false’.
‘The situation… is that the Ukrainian armed forces are able to arm a million people,’ he added, who will be equipped with western weapons and trained how to use them by armies that are part of NATO. ‘So a million armed Ukrainian soldiers needs to be viewed as a reality of the very near future,’ he said.
Batting aside objections from Skabayeva that most of those men will be conscripts, he insisted that what really matters isn’t how an army is recruited but its willingness to fight.
‘A desire to protect one’s homeland, in the sense that it exists in Ukraine, it really does exist there, they intend to fight to the last man,’ he said. ‘Ultimately victory on the battlefield is determined by a high level of morale among personnel, which sheds blood for the ideas which it’s prepared to fight for.’
On the world stage, Khodarenok added, things hardly look better. ‘We are in full geopolitical isolation,’ he said, adding that: ‘However much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us.’
Nuclear sabre-rattling, he insisted, will do little to deter Russia’s enemies and in fact ‘actually looks quite amusing’ when the whole world is arrayed against the Kremlin.
Urging those around him to ‘maintain a sense of realism’, he warned that ‘sooner or later the reality of history will hit you so hard that you’ll regret it.’
It is hardly the first time that Khodarenok has voiced concerns. Even before the war started, he wrote that Ukrainians would fight like hell to defend their country and that Russia was walking into a longer, bloodier, and far more costly conflict than it was preparing for.
It is not even the first time he has spoken out on state TV. Ahead of Putin’s Victory Day speech on May 9, he warned that a rumoured mass mobilisation of troops would not solve the problems Russia’s military is facing.
But his latest remarks are the lengthiest, most in-depth analysis of the corner that Moscow has backed itself into and seems intended to spark a conversation about how exactly the country gets itself out again.
What remains unclear – however – is whether anyone, and in particularly those in the Kremlin, are listening to him.
He spoke out after repeated briefings from western intelligence agencies said that Russia’s offensive in the Donbass has stalled and that a path to Ukrainian victory is now emerging.
In a sign of growing desperation in the Kremlin, military sources said last night that Putin is now micro-managing the war effort – taking decisions that are typically left to colonels as his battleplan falters.
General Valery Gerasimov is also said to be making similar tactical decisions, micro-managing the war in minute detail which would normally be overseen by a colonel.
‘We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision-making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or a brigadier’, said a Western military source, according to The Guardian.
The same source said that Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) had been ‘battered’, adding: ‘If Putin is doing the job of a brigade commander’ then ‘he could be delving into a force that could be as small as 700 to 1,000 soldiers’.
Putin’s soldiers have so far failed to achieve their military objectives in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have been attempting to mount a breakthrough in order to encircle Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region.
Ukrainian troops have posed with a border marker on the frontier with Russia having counter-attacked to the north of Kharkiv and pushed Putin’s army out of the country, the regional governor said today
It is thought the footage was filmed Sunday to the north of the town of Ternova, around two miles from the Russian border, which Ukrainian troops had captured the day before
Officials believe Putin’s decision to take personal control of on-the-ground troop movements could be contributing to the military failures.
Radio jamming has forced Moscow to send more battalion leaders to the front line in order to communicate with their troops, only for Ukrainians to take advantage by killing Russia’s generals – with 12 confirmed dead.
The news comes after Ukrainian soldiers became the country’s first to reach the Russian border after retaking Kharkiv from occupation.
Ukraine’s ministry of defence said on social media that the 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of its military had reached the border with Russia, marking the closest Ukrainian soldier’s have come to their neighbour since it was invaded on February 24.
On Monday, one of Putin’s top propagandists has declared Russia’s offensive in the Donbas region has failed as incredible pictures show the inside of the steel plant at Azovstal which has been under siege for much of the war.
Russian intelligence officer and commander Igor Girkin took to his Telegram channel to summarise the situation for Russian forces in Ukraine and said their intention was ‘so obvious’ that Ukraine Armed Forces have been able to resist.
Meanwhile, incredible photos have been shared of the inside of Azovstal steel works – which has been under siege in Mariupol for months – after wounded Ukrainian soldiers were evacuated.
Girkin, who has spoken frankly about the difficulties facing Putin’s forces in recent weeks as their invasion of Ukraine drags on, shared a detailed summary of their progress, or lack thereof, on his Telegram channel, adding that the failure to make headway was not a surprise.
He wrote: ‘With regret I must say that the widely advertised […] la operación para derrotar al grupo de Donetsk del enemigo ha FALLADO.
‘En más de dos semanas de feroces hostilidades (que han costado enormes pérdidas a ambos bandos) sólo se han alcanzado éxitos tácticos. Ni una sola localidad grande ha sido liberada.
Girkin dijo que tal vez se podrían lograr algunos «éxitos tácticos locales» antes de una contraofensiva de las fuerzas ucranianas, pero dijo que era poco probable que la región de Donbas se «liberara por completo», y agregó: «Es probable que la UAF ni siquiera sea alejada de las afueras de Donetsk. Y no puedo decir que este resultado sea inesperado para mí. Todo lo contrario.’
Se produce cuando Rusia dijo el lunes que había aceptado un esfuerzo de evacuación de los búnkeres debajo de la planta sitiada en Mariupol a un centro médico en la ciudad de Novoazovsk, controlada por Rusia.
Un hombre examina las ruinas de su casa en el pueblo de Mala Rogan, al este de Kharkiv, después de que las tropas ucranianas recuperaran el área de manos de las fuerzas rusas en los últimos días.
Las tropas ucranianas pasan junto a las ruinas de un vehículo ruso destruido junto con proyectiles de artillería desechados en una aldea al norte de Kharkiv que ahora ha sido recapturada por los hombres de Kiev.
Mientras el soldado era evacuado, se compartieron imágenes increíbles en línea que mostraban el interior de la planta el día de hoy.
Una foto muestra a un soldado ucraniano parado bajo un haz de luz en la planta siderúrgica ahora destruida mientras se evacuaba a las fuerzas heridas.
Los combates en Azovstal en Mariupol en ruinas han simbolizado la resistencia ucraniana durante la invasión rusa de casi tres meses. La mayoría de los civiles que habían buscado refugio en la gran planta de la era soviética fueron evacuados a principios de este mes.
«Para salvar vidas, toda la guarnición de Mariupol está implementando la decisión aprobada por el Comando Militar Supremo y espera el apoyo del pueblo ucraniano», dijo el Regimiento Azov en una publicación en las redes sociales.
En un video adjunto, uno de los comandantes superiores de la unidad, Denys Prokopenko, dijo: «Lo principal es darse cuenta de todos los riesgos, ¿existe un plan B, está totalmente comprometido con ese plan que debe permitir cumplir con las tareas asignadas y preservar la vida y la salud del personal?’
‘Este es el nivel más alto de supervisión de tropas. Más aún cuando tu decisión está avalada por el más alto mando militar.
Prokopenko no explicó qué acción estaban tomando los defensores. El video fue publicado horas después de que Rusia dijera que había accedido a evacuar a los soldados ucranianos heridos a un centro médico en la ciudad de Novoazovsk, controlada por Rusia.
Ucrania estima que decenas de miles de civiles murieron en Mariupol durante los meses de asedio de las fuerzas rusas que destruyeron el puerto del Mar de Azov, una ciudad de alrededor de 400.000 habitantes.
Los últimos defensores, incluidos muchos heridos, resistieron durante semanas en búnkeres debajo de Azovstal, una de las plantas metalúrgicas más grandes de Europa.
«Se llegó a un acuerdo sobre el retiro de los heridos», dijo el Ministerio de Defensa de Rusia en un comunicado.
«Se ha abierto un corredor humanitario a través del cual los militares ucranianos heridos están siendo trasladados a un centro médico en Novoazovsk».
La viceministra de Defensa de Ucrania, Hanna Malyar, dijo anteriormente a la televisión ucraniana: «Cualquier información puede dañar los procesos que se están llevando a cabo… Dado que el proceso está en marcha, no podemos decir qué está pasando en este momento».
