MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Moscow warns US leading world to brink of nuclear conflict

In addition to nuclear capabilities, Russia has been reportedly developing its “electro-optical warfare” laser weapon to disable foreign satellites

The US Government of President Joseph Biden and its allies are on the brink of a conflict with Russia which might reach nuclear proportions, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday.

In a comment posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website, Zakharova insisted “a direct armed conflict between nuclear powers” looked imminent in light of Biden's recent actions. “By provoking the aggravation of the Ukrainian crisis and unleashing a fierce hybrid confrontation with Russia, Washington and its allies are balancing dangerously on the brink of an open military confrontation with our country, i.e. a direct armed conflict between nuclear powers,” Zakharova said, according to the news service TASS.

“However, Japanese officialdom prefers not to notice such a destabilizing policy of its American sovereign” added Zakharova in response to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's statements that there was a real danger of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Zakharova spoke of “absolutely unacceptable attempts to distort for propaganda purposes the logic of restraint of official Russian comments on nuclear issues” and to present Russia “as a country that threatens with nuclear weapons” and insisted that “today the main nuclear risks are generated precisely by Japan's patron, the United States, under whose 'nuclear umbrella' Tokyo's representatives make their provocative remarks.”

As the armed conflict in Ukraine progresses, Iran is reportedly “preparing to provide Russia” with hundreds of drones, including armed ones, according to US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who hinted the unmanned aircraft were meant to replace Russian war losses. Sullivan said the delivery was supposed to be done “on an expedited timeline,” suggesting that some of the drones may have been handed over already. He also explained that Russian operators would be receiving training on how to pilot the unmanned aircraft this month.

Sullivan called the information “pretty newsworthy and noteworthy,” but offered no evidence or details about how the US reached its conclusion, although he insisted the US would help Kyiv to “effectively defend“ itself. Moscow and Tehran would not immediately comment on the US claims, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is to visit Iran on July 19 as part of the Syrian peace process known as the Astana talks.

Putin has also taken part recently in the launching of an ”electro-optical warfare“ laser weapon to disable foreign satellites, according to a The Space Review report based on Google Earth recent satellite imagery and documents from Russian industrial contractors.

The ”space security complex,“ as it is described in a 2017 document, is a ”special quantum-optical system“ to be used for ”electro-optical warfare,” according to Precision Instrument Systems (NPK SPP), a Russian scientific and industrial corporation, who was awarded the contract for the project by the Russian Defense Ministry. The project has been delayed several times and progress has been extremely slow, the report noted, citing a newsletter published by the contractors in 2016. The laser beams are routed via mirrors and enter the telescope through an opening on its side, after which they are reflected back, causing them to form an image of the targeted object in a detector.

While the telescope, along with a tunnel connecting it to the laser optical locator (LOL) located in Krona, is already in place, it is impossible to tell how much much internal hardware is installed, the investigation admitted.