Much as I love camping, I understand why so many recoil at the idea of spending their holidays sleeping in a field and sharing bathroom facilities with several hundred other people, plus the local spider population. But, having just enjoyed a week in Devon in a one-person tent, with an elderly terrier, I have to come out in praise of campsite cookery. Though we ate in some superb pubs, the meals that brought the most joy were the ones we threw together from the small village shops we passed. (Shout out to the Holne Community Shop and Tearoom for being so well stocked – and to the kind fellow shopper who gave me and the dog a lift back to the campsite with our loot.) It gave me pause for thought about the kind of meals you actually cook when camping … and by camping, I don’t mean sleeping in a van kitted out with a fridge and a cooker, nice as that looked while struggling with guy ropes. I mean when your only equipment is what you can carry on your back: ie a small gas stove or a disposable barbecue, a knife and a spork.
Joe Woodhouse has some lovely ideas here, and there’splenty of advice in this collection of recipes from the likes of Ben Tish and Melissa Hemsley. But, for me, the trick is always to focus on one key ingredient that doesn’t need to be kept too cool (this will, of course, vary depending on where you’re camping), and base all your meals around it until it runs out, at which point you’ll need to track down a new one. Ours, on this trip, were chorizo – the cured, rather than the cooking kind – and feta. With those two flavour bombs, and the olive oil, chilli sauce and salt that should be on everyone’s packing list anyway, you can make a feast from almost anything you find en route. Claudia Roden’s spicy potatoes from Rioja would have been ideal, as would Thomasina Miers’ piperade with baked eggs and crispy chorizo, though we might have had to lose a couple of the spices in favour of Tabasco.
A consultant at a south London hospital "contributed to... patients' irreversible lung damage, poor quality of life or premature death", a review has concluded.
Legendary ‘80s pop singer Bonnie Tyler has died at 75-years-old after weeks in the hospital. Tyler’s iconic ballad, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” reached No.1 on the charts in 1983 and she followed up on its success one year later with another hit, “Holding Out for a Hero.”
В шести регионах России на фоне топливного кризиса бензин стали продавать по четным и нечетным датам — в зависимости от номера машины. Власти объясняют это тем, что хотят справиться с очередями на заправках и продавать бензин справедливее. Кроме того, вслед за аннексированным Севастополем, в Нижегородской области собираются отпускать топливо по QR-кодам.
Публичный API уже обслуживал обычный поток запросов, но перед партнёрским запуском должен был быстро принять заметно больше трафика. Мы проверяли не рекордный RPS, а реакцию autoscaling: успеет ли система добавить инстансы до того, как пользователи увидят рост latency.
Компактные игровые консоли становятся все мощнее, но вместе с этим производители начинают искать новые способы выделиться. Простого увеличения производительности уже недостаточно — покупателям нужны необычные форм-факторы, новые сценарии использования или более доступные решения. Вместо очередных похожих устройств рынок расходится сразу по нескольким направлениям.
В этот раз мы рассмотрим три совершенно разных новинки. ONEXPLAYER X2 совмещает игровой ПК, планшет и мини-ноутбук. MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ делает ставку на производительность нового поколения и бросает вызов лидерам сегмента. Acer Nitro Blaze Link идет еще дальше — это стриминговая система без мощного железа внутри. Сравнивать их особенно интересно: каждое устройство предлагает собственное видение будущего портативного гейминга.
Создали единое окно доступа к 300+ генеративным ИИ-моделям, добавили новые образы в маркетплейс, обновили каталог ИИ-моделей, выпустили новую версию SELECTOS, а еще запланировали для вас несколько полезных вебинаров. В июле реализовали десяток обновлений — под катом раскрываем все детали.
It’s a first all-Czech Wimbledon women’s final after Karolina Muchova saved a match point in a dramatic final-set tie-break and Linda Noskova was nerveless against Marta Kostyuk
Gauff does hold a 6-1 lead in their head-to-head, by the way, but I’m not sure we can read too much into that, as none of those matches were on grass. Gauff, arguably the best competitor in the women’s game, has made an art out of “winning ugly” – the phrase made famous by her former coach Brad Gilbert – and has consistently found a way to come through three-setters during this tournament even when she’s not been at her best. She may well need all that fight to combat Muchova’s mix of power and touch – which is so dangerous on grass – especially if Gauff’s serve and forehand wobble, as they sometimes do. Gauff’s backhand, though, is brilliant. Will temperament + backhand or power + hands prevail? It’s going to be so fun finding out.
And here they come to a big cheer from the crowd, not that it’s quite as warm as the red-hot weather, with the current temp around 33C, and not that Gauff can properly hear it either, because she’s got her headphones – and game face – on.
Renewed attacks the largest since an interim memorandum was signed this June, with Trump saying fragile truce is ‘over’
The US and Iran traded retaliatory strikes on Thursday as US president Donald Trump threatened to escalate the conflict unless Iran stopped attacking ships in the strait of Hormuz.
Iran responded to the latest round of attacks by targeting US-allied Kuwait and Qatar and accused the US of striking near its sole nuclear power plant.
Весь мир с упорством достойным лучшего применения пытается использовать большие языковые модели, они же искусственный интеллект, в разных сферах деятельности человека. Не везде получается хорошо, но где-то отлично - например генерация кода на различных языках программирования. Злые люди поговаривают что ИИ скоро заменит программистов, но мы то тут на Хабре знаем правду.
Преамбула
У меня есть друг который работает сетевым администратором. Когда заходит разговор о том что ИИ заменит всех айтишников, он улыбается и говорит что это не про его профессию. Он говорит что ИИ плохо выполняет задачи с которыми он работает - многое надо делать руками в прямом смысле слова. У меня появилась идея проверить универсального ИИ агента - сможет ли он справиться с типовыми задачами сетевого администратора. Генерировать конфиги сетевого оборудования по промту или диагностировать проблему по логам эти задачи не выглядят как вызов для ИИ. Я выбрал задачу которая на мой взгляд более сложная - сбросить пароль на маршрутизаторе. Тут и подключение по COM-порту, работа с ROMMON и специфические тайминги. Да и ранее я не встречал решений которые автоматизируют этот процесс.
Вайб-кодинг появился в начале прошлого года скорее как шутка, но к середине этого года уже стал нормальным способом делать приложения и сайты. Суть такая: ты описываешь задачу обычными словами, а нейросеть пишет код. Потом ты смотришь, что получилось, и просишь что-то поправить: добавить функцию, изменить дизайн, исправить ошибку или объяснить, почему что-то не работает.
В этой статье разберем восемь полезных инструментов для вайб-кодинга: четыре нейросети, которые умеют писать код, и четыре среды, где с ними удобнее всего работать. Ещё покажем простой пример, как сделать приложение с нуля, дадим готовые промпты, разберём частые ошибки и расскажем, как пользоваться такими инструментами из России без VPN.
Versatile Essex-born hitmaker known for Rhinestone Cowboy, It Only Takes a Minute and many more had been living with Alzheimer’s disease
Brian Potter, one of the most versatile and successful British producers and songwriters of his generation, has died aged 87. He had been living with Alzheimer’s disease in recent years, his daughter told Billboard.
Working with American songwriting partner Dennis Lambert, the Essex-born Potter was behind an astounding array of 1970s hits spanning pop, soul, soft rock, country and beyond. The best-known include Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy, a US No 1 in 1975; It Only Takes a Minute, a barnstorming disco hit for Tavares and later Take That; Player’s super-smooth Baby Come Back, another US No 1; and Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got), one of the biggest hits for soul-poppers the Four Tops.
Deaths and injuries up as critics condemn administration’s ‘appalling’ plan to gut federal disaster management system
The number of US chemical accidents is rising just as the Trump administration guts protections against the disasters, a new analysis of federal data by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit found.
The report found the number of chemical accidents, explosions, fires and other emergencies that release chemicals into the atmosphere was up by at least 51% since 2021. Deaths and injuries were up at least 20%.
Airports have had to use gazebos to shield passengers from sun as they wait to be processed, says Alexander Zinell
The boss of 14 Greek airports has called for a serious overhaul of the EU’s new border checks after having to erect gazebos for passengers queuing outside.
Alexander Zinell, the chief executive of Fraport Greece, joined a growing chorus of critics calling out “fundamental flaws” in the entry-exit system (EES), which requires non-EU passengers to have their fingerprints and photo taken at the start of their trip and verified every time they leave or re-enter the Schengen zone.
Switzerland international poised to sign from Freiburg
Guimarães wants to leave and is target for Arsenal
Newcastle have agreed a £51.5m deal with Freiburg that should mean the versatile Switzerland midfielder Johan Manzambi swaps the Bundesliga for the Premier League.
The 20-year-old, who has shone during this summer’s World Cup, is expected to sign a long-term contract at St James’ Park but the transfer will not be finalised while Switzerland remain in the tournament. Manzambi, who has been widely coveted this summer, is struggling with a minor knee injury and Murat Yakin, Switzerland’s head coach, is unsure as to whether he will recover in time for the quarter-final against Argentina on Sunday.
Democrat Graham Platner ended his bid last night for U.S. Senate. And, prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump has been enlisted to help get answers in the July Fourth weekend death of Nolan Wells.
Justin Bieber attends the NHL draft in Buffalo, New York, on June 26, 2026. —Bruce Bennett—Getty Images
For the first time ever, the FIFA World Cup final will feature a star-studded halftime show.
In what is being compared to a Super Bowl spectacular, the performances are set to be broadcast live to millions of soccer fans.
The 2022 final in Qatar was the most-watched in FIFA World Cup history, attracting 1.5 billion viewers around the world. This year’s final in New Jersey is expected to break those records.
Curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, the halftime show will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has promised “a historic moment for the World Cup and a show befitting the biggest sporting event in the world.”
With the World Cup underway in its three host countries—Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.—here’s what you need to know about the final’s hotly-anticipated halftime show.
Fireworks go off at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 final match between Argentina and France at Lusail Stadium on Dec. 18, 2022. —Richard Heathcote––Getty Images
When is the World Cup final halftime show—and how can I watch it?
The show will take place during the FIFA World Cup final which is set to start at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 19.
It’s happening at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which is temporarily being called the New York New Jersey Stadium due to the World Cup’s rules on endorsements.
In the United States, viewers will be able to watch the show live on Fox Sports, with the match airing on the FOX network.
Spanish-language viewers can watch through NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service with a Premium or Premium Plus subscription. The match will also air on Telemundo.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced a free World Cup final watch-party for 50,000 New Yorkers.
“You don’t need to drop thousands of dollars to watch the World Cup final. And you don't need to be a professional to play in the World Cup. You just need to head to Central Park,” Mamdani said.
Kaká, Hugh Evans, Founder & CEO of Global Citizen, Shakira, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino appear at the announcement of the FIFA World Cup final halftime show in New York City on on May 14, 2026. —Noam Galai––Getty Images
Who is performing at the FIFA World Cup halftime show?
On July 8, it was announced that Justin Bieber will co-headline the halftime show with Madonna, Shakira, and BTS.
The news comes after Canadian pop star Bieber made his big return to the stage at California's Coachella music festival earlier this year.
Burna Boy, Gustavo Dudamel, and the PS22 Chorus featuring Coldplay are also set to perform.
Co-headliner Shakira, who also led the line-up for the tournament’s opening ceremony in Mexico City on June 11, serves on the advisory board of the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund. Shakira and Nigerian singer-songwriter Burna Boy partnered up for this year’s official World Cup anthem, “Dai Dai.”
Shakira is no stranger to either the World Cup or halftime performances. In 2010, she cemented her place in soccer culture with Waka Waka, the chart-topping anthem of that tournament. A decade later, she headlined the Super Bowl halftime show alongside Jennifer Lopez.
Madonna also has experience leading a halftime event, as she famously headlined the 2012 Super Bowl show.
BTS, the seven-person K-pop group who recently returned to the scene following a three-year hiatus to complete mandatory military service obligations, will be taking the night off from their global tour to perform at the soccer event of the year.
—Eva Marie Uzcategui—Getty Images
Why has Global Citizen partnered with FIFA—and how is Chris Martin involved?
The FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund aims to support grassroots programs in more than 200 countries, expanding access to education and soccer.
The initiative is “aiming to raise $100 million to expand access to quality education and football [soccer] opportunities for children worldwide.”
Global Citizen has previously partnered with governments, businesses, and entertainers on large-scale fundraising efforts, such as the Stand Up for Ukraine event launched in 2022.
Martin became involved after he reached out to the initiative during the previous World Cup.
“Four years ago, at the time of the Qatar World Cup, Chris Martin called me and said, ‘wouldn’t it be amazing if we could do a halftime show for the World Cup, because it is this moment that brings all of humanity together,’” explained Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans.
When asked whether Martin himself would perform at the halftime show, Evans did not confirm either way, but said that the audience is in “for some big surprises.”
Хакер приходит в общественную столовую и с возмущением обнаруживает, что солонку на столе может открутить кто попало. Помните эту старую хохму?
Когда в новостях вспоминают о кибератаках на розничные сети, то обычно говорят про слитые базы данных, DDoS и шифровальщиков. Но что, если злоумышленник войдет в магазин с ноутбуком в рюкзаке и внимательно посмотрит по сторонам?
На связи Иван Глинкин, руководитель отдела прикладных исследований в Бастионе. Сегодня расскажу вам историю про Хакера в супермаркете, который получил доступ к конфиденциальным данным, прослушал переговоры сотрудников и даже инициировал возврат денег на чужую карту.
Под катом вас ждет собирательный образ российского ритейла и результат нескольких прогулок по магазинам с одной целью: взглянуть на привычные вещи глазами исследователя безопасности, который видит в магазине не только полки и кассы, но и поверхность атаки.
Итак, приходит Хакер в магазин и обнаруживает:
• Кассы-трансформеры и терминалы самообслуживания — лицо современного ритейла и его ахиллесова пята.
• Кнопки вызова сотрудников — радиопередатчики с фиксированным кодом, который можно перехватить и воспроизвести.
• Беспроводные трубки стандарта DECT, которые до сих пор используют в торговых залах.
• Терминалы сбора данных — Android-устройства без пароля, с доступом к настройкам Wi-Fi.
• Сетевые провода, которые приглашают к знакомству с внутренней сетью.
Софту всё чаще приходится интегрироваться с LLM. И тут быстро всплывает неприятная деталь: модели хорошо пишут текст, но не всегда стабильно возвращают данные в строгой структуре.
Даже если явно попросить ответ по JSON Schema, модель может добавить пояснение, пропустить поле или вернуть не тот тип. Нативный structured output у части провайдеров есть, но он работает не везде и не одинаково.
В новом переводе от команды Spring АйО разбираем, как в Spring AI 2.0 решается эта проблема.
(Third Man) Following the superb No Name, White continues his fan service with stripped back songs and nasty, anarchic riffs – though it all ends up feeling a little samey
It’s a strange thing to say about one of the most prolific artists of his – or any – generation, but: Jack White has been undergoing something of a career renaissance of late. After firmly establishing himself as one of the most beloved and defining figures of 21st-century rock with his early-00s blues duo the White Stripes, White seemed to get bigger and bigger over the next decade-plus, releasing albums with well-liked side projects the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, dropping a couple of fine solo albums, and helping spark the music industry’s vinyl revival with his label and pressing plant Third Man Records.
But, at some point in the mid-2010s – around the release of his third solo album, 2018’s Boarding House Reach, let’s say – White’s influence and celebrity seemed to be outweighing his actual output, with rising pop stars like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo naming him a prime influence. Record plants the world over became backed-up, thanks to pop stars releasing dozens of gimmicky vinyl variants of their own albums, resulting in months-long delays for indie artists – hardly a problem White was responsible for (and likely one he himself was annoyed by), but certainly the result of a craze he had helped spark. At the same time, all the quirks and codes of White’s output – the specific colour schemes and sometimes arcane guiding opinions – threatened to overwhelm the immediacy and sharpness that had once been the core of White’s actual music.
Bjørge Lillelien’s famous rant after 1981 clash stemmed from Norwegian obsession with English football
What do Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper and Lady Diana have in common? On 9 September 1981 they were all beaten by Norway.
At least that is according to the iconic Norwegian radio commentator Bjørge Lillelien. His triumphant, giddy and slightly unhinged rant after Norway beat England 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier has gone down in Norwegian folklore. It has also attained something of a cult status abroad, with the Observer declaring it in 2002 the greatest bit of commentary ever.
Crude jokes about the Maga luminary are exploding online – less than a year after conservatives were suppressing any slander against him
Ten months since his assassination, Charlie Kirk’s name and likeness are still proliferating online. Just not the way the far-right activist would have wanted.
Audio of the gunshot that killed him has become a TikTok meme, as have ironic reposts of the apparent AI-slop song We Are Charlie Kirk, which was originally created as a posthumous tribute. He was the butt of a crude joke during the Netflix roast of the Hollywood star Kevin Hart in May. The next month, a viral tweet encouraged people to take “a shot” in his honor on Juneteenth. And a trend known as “Kirkification” has emerged, in which internet pranksters superimpose his face on to unlikely images, such as the Mona Lisa, a woman in a bikini, or Jeffrey Epstein.
Africa’s largest refugee population has seen rations and healthcare slashed as funding levels drop
The skies are gloomy over the wattle-and-mud houses of Kiryandongo refugee settlement, home to more than 167,000 people. Spread across an undulating plateau, the crowded camp, 120 miles (200km) north of Uganda’s capital, Kampala, draws new arrivals every day as conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan add to the displacement toll.Of nearly 50,000 refugees who have arrived in Uganda since January, more than 1,000 have come to Kiryandongo.
Known for its progressive refugee policies, which include granting freedom of movement, land to cultivate, and the right to work and open a bank account, Uganda is home to 2 million refugees – the largest refugee population in Africa – who live in 13 settlements across the country.
Two American allies, Germany and Japan, already have permission to build the American interceptors, a license that President Trump says he will also grant to Kyiv.
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin oversees the joint Russian-Belarusian nuclear weapons drills along with Belarusian President, via a videolink in Moscow on May 21, 2026. | POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Key takeaways
Ukraine is increasingly launching drone strikes deep into Russia and threatening Russian-annexed Crimea, both steps that many once feared would result in nuclear retaliation from Moscow.
Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats aren’t as effective as they used to be, in part because it’s not clear what using a nuke would actually accomplish or whether it would be worth the risk.
The question now is whether Russia really has any “red lines,” or if there’s still a point where Vladimir Putin could reach for the nuclear codes out of desperation.
When did Ukraine’s allies stop being scared of Russia’s nuclear weapons?
At this week’s summit in Turkey, NATO leaders strongly backed Ukraine’s growing campaign of strikes deep into Russian territory, primarily targeted at that country’s energy infrastructure, meant to bring the costs of war home to Russian citizens and compel their government to stop the invasion. On one night this week, Ukraine launched more than 400 drones into Russia.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the prospect of strikes inside the borders of the world’s biggest nuclear power would provoke warnings from the Kremlin about the catastrophic consequences of crossing Russia’s “red lines,” along with hand-wringing from the US about the prospect of nuclear escalation. The prospect of direct combat between two nuclear powers was the reason the US resisted international calls to impose a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine back in 2022; made the Biden administration reluctant to provide long-range capabilities like HIMARS rockets, ATACMs missiles, and F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine; and then, after finally providing them, restricted their use to Ukrainian territory.
But now, as one western official put it to the Financial Times, the sheer frequency of Russia’s past nuclear threats during the conflict have “devalued the currency.” Putin has been making notably fewer of these threats recently, even the attacks inside Russia have accelerated. Russia’s “red lines” are now being crossed with stunning regularity. Ukrainian drones regularly strike not just military or industrial targets but cities including Moscow.
And since last year, the US has not only gotten out of the way but has been providing intelligence to facilitate this campaign. In Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, a campaign targeting key bridges and rail links has led to food and fuel shortages. On the battlefield itself, the grinding offensive has been thrown into reverse; the Russians lost roughly 400 square miles of territory in April and May.
Russia has hardly given up, continuing to pound Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, with missiles and drones. But the fears of nuclear escalation seem to have notably diminished.
“We repeatedly oversell the risk of escalation,” said Maria Snegovaya, a prominent Russian political analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, at a panel discussion in Washington this week hosted by the Washington-based think tank the Quincy Institute. “During the Biden administration, many said that if Ukraine strikes deep into Russia’s territory, Russia will escalate,” Snegovaya said. “Ukraine now strikes into Siberia, over 2,500 kilometers deep into Russia, and we don’t see that escalation.”
But does that mean Russia’s leader was always bluffing, or, as a war he refuses to stop seems to turn against him, is there still a risk of Putin reaching for the launch codes out of desperation?
Why hasn’t Russia gone nuclear?
There are a few potential reasons why Russia hasn’t acted on its nuclear threats. For one, detonating a nuclear weapon so close to its borders carries risk of radioactive fallout reaching Russian territory. That’s an experience Russia knows better than most countries; parts of Western Russia are still struggling with elevated radiation levels decades after the Chernobyl meltdown in what was then Soviet Ukraine.
James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment, also notes that Ukraine and its allies have managed escalation via “salami slicing” — gradually taking more and more aggressive steps, none of which seemed sufficient on their own, to warrant a truly catastrophic response from Russia.
“If, in some hypothetical world, it would have been possible to give Ukraine on day one, everything we ended up giving them by the end of the Biden administration, that would have been really escalatory,” said Acton. The months of delay that seemed to precede every new weapons system and capability delivered to the Ukrainians understandably enraged Ukrainians — who have never taken Putin’s threats particularly seriously and have watched some of their own cities razed to the ground with conventional weapons — but it may have helped prevent a far more destructive conflict.
Then there’s the question of just what using nuclear weapons would accomplish. Much of the concern in Ukraine has focused on the possibility of Russia using so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons, smaller warheads meant to gain a military advantage on the battlefield rather than destroy an enemy city. But on Ukraine’s long, sparsely manned frontline, where much of the fighting is increasingly carried out by unmanned drones, there aren’t many obvious targets for a tactical nuke. A nuclear blast would do little beyond irradiating parts of the “new Russia” that Putin, after all, hopes to one day control.
As far back as 2023, the FT reported that, according to Russian officials, “Putin has already gamed out the possibility of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine and has come to the conclusion that even a limited strike would do nothing to benefit Russia.”
It remains possible to imagine a scenario where Russia uses nuclear weapons for strategic purposes, rather than tactical advantage. It could threaten to detonate a nuclear weapon, or actually detonate one, in a Ukrainian city, unless Kyiv agrees to cede the rest of the territory claimed by Russia. Some experts have long argued that Russia has an unofficial “escalate to de-escelate” strategy, under which it would use nuclear arms preemptively to force its enemies to back down.
But that would be an extraordinarily risky and unprecedented move — even for Putin, who has seemingly backed down from the nuclear ledge before. At one point, in the fall of 2022, when Ukrainian forces were on the move in southern Ukraine and had a chance to break through toward Russian-annexed Crimea, US intelligence agencies believed that the possibility of Russia using its nuclear weapons was as high as 50 percent. But the US, UK, and France all warned Russia during the 2022 crisis that they would respond with military force if Russia used a nuke. They made it clear the response would be limited to conventional weapons, but there’s no guarantee it would stay that way.
The messaging didn’t only come from Russia’s adversaries. Xi Jinping warned Putin that he would lose Chinese support if he used nuclear weapons — no small thing given Russia’s increasing economic reliance on China.
Does Russia still have a nuclear breaking point?
Not everyone believes we’re out of the woods, however. George Beebe, director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute, is concerned that Ukraine’s backers have become dangerously blasé about the risk of escalation. “It is profoundly threatening to Russian national security when the impression arises in the West that Russia actually has no red lines, it will never retaliate, no matter what,” he said at this week’s panel. “That’s an extraordinarily dangerous set of circumstances.”
He noted that Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, as well as early warning radars — both core elements of Russia’s nuclear deterrence — raise the risks of retaliation. And, while Russia has not responded to the attacks on Crimea with nuclear force, it’s significant that Ukraine is not actually currently threatening to retake control of the territory. Given the literally religious significance with which Putin has imbued the peninsula and how central it is to his political legitimacy, he might resort to desperate measures to keep it. Back in 2022, Elon Musk was so worried about Russian nuclear retaliation over Crimea that he cut Starlink internet access to Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine.
Even if Putin himself rattles the nuclear saber less than he did early in the war, there are still voices in Russia calling for the nuclear option. In a recent essay, Sergey Karaganov, one of Russia’s most prominent and well-connected foreign policy analysts, wrote that “the use of nuclear weapons is a great sin. But the de facto refusal to use them is an unforgivable, deadly, and criminal sin, because it paves the way for the expansion and escalation of the world war unleashed by the West.” He called for starting with nuclear tests, followed by conventional strikes on military targets in Europe, followed by escalation to the “next level”. He concludes that “a nuclear war — God forbid — can be (easily) won, especially against a crowded and morally weak Europe.”
For the moment, Putin appears to believe that, despite the extraordinary cost in lives and rubles of the ongoing war, he will eventually grind Ukraine down through sheer manpower superiority. If he feels Russia’s situation is not actually that desperate, he may not feel it’s necessary to resort to desperate measures. For one thing, it’s not clear whether Putin is receiving accurate information about how things really look on the battlefield. But if the war started worsening to the point it could not be ignored, and the chaos within Russia itself reached a level where he believed his regime was under real threat, that could change.
Notably, however, even Beebe said he is less concerned in the short term about Russian nuclear weapons use than in conventional attacks on NATO territory. This type of escalation is increasingly a concern in the Baltic countries and Poland, and while not as grave a threat as nuclear war, wouldn’t certainly pose an unprecedented test for NATO.
Nuclear war: What is it good for?
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once nearly gave then-joint chiefs chairman Colin Powell an “aneurysm” by asking, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” Likewise, if it turns out that nuclear weapons are too risky for Russia to use even when its own capital is being attacked, one could ask: What’s the point of having the world’s largest nuclear arsenal?
“We’ve found out, by an absolutely terrible experiment, that nuclear weapons are pretty much unusable,” said Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russia’s nuclear forces at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.
That’s not to say that nuclear weapons have been a non-factor in this war. They’re a big part of the reason why the US and other Western countries didn’t send their own troops in to help Ukraine, and a big part of the reason why Russia has held off on direct attacks against NATO countries. (Unattributable acts of sabotage and other “gray zone” tactics are another matter.)
But it’s still notable that the world is currently witnessing the first protracted, high-casualty, conventional war involving a nuclear power in decades – one in which nuclear threats have been very much in play since the beginning. And yet, that power seems unwilling or unable to use its weapons. Coming at a moment of heightened concern over nuclear proliferation, this could have implications far beyond this war for what role these weapons play in 21st century warfare and foreign policy.
For one thing, nuclear weapons may not be that much of a deterrent against conventional attacks, particularly those carried out by long-range missiles or drones. (Just ask nuclear-armed Israel or Pakistan, both of which have been repeatedly attacked.) It may also turn out that just being a nuclear power doesn’t automatically give you the ability to compel or coerce non-nuclear countries if they don’t believe you’re actually willing to use them. (Recall, also, President Donald Trump’s threats in April to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization,” which has not managed to keep Tehran in line.)
The good news is that wars fought under the nuclear shadow may still be less likely to escalate to the nuclear level than we feared. The bad news is that, without that fear, we may see more of those wars. As this war demonstrates, you don’t need nuclear weapons to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
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The number of US chemical accidents is rising just as the Trump administration guts protections against the disasters, a new analysis of federal data by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit found.
The report found the number of chemical accidents, explosions, fires and other emergencies that release chemicals into the atmosphere was up by at least 51% since 2021. Deaths and injuries were up at least 20%.
