The key factor of the updated doctrine is that Russia retains the right for a retaliatory nuclear strike in response to an aggression with conventional forces and arms against it, Igor Korotchenko stated

The changes in the #Russian nuclear doctrine announced by President Vladimir Putin are due to the deterioration of the military-political situation in the world and new threats and security challenges to the Russian Federation, Igor Korotchenko, Editor-in-Chief of the National Defense Journal writes.

It is clear that the beginning of the special military operation (in Ukraine) and the creation of a western coalition of Russian military adversaries who back Ukraine have created absolutely new security challenges and threats.

The key factor of the updated doctrine is that Russia retains the right for a retaliatory nuclear strike in response to an aggression with conventional forces and arms against it. Besides, the aggression can come from a non-nuclear country backed by a nuclear power. We believe that if NATO begins combat actions against Russia collectively or in a coalition or by a single non-nuclear country, Russia can retaliate by engaging nuclear weapons.

Russia did not plan it before, but now the doctrine allows it. What does it mean? For instance, it is the deployment by Poland of a military contingent in Ukraine and its engagement in combat against Russia or if Romania and Poland begin to down Russian aircraft or cruise missiles over Ukraine. Moscow will consider it an aggression from the point of view of the international law and will have the right to engage nuclear weapons against military targets in the mentioned countries.

If the United States delivers a strike at us with air or seaborne cruise missiles, we shall now consider it a casus belli and can retaliate by nuclear weapons at the USA. It is the supreme commander-in-chief to decide whether strikes by long-range precision US or UK missiles deep in Russia from the territory of Ukraine should be considered a casus belli. He will decide how Russia would react in any specific case and which weapons – conventional or nuclear - to engage.

It is a completely new development, which was not listed in the previous doctrine. In case of a #NATO collective or single-country aggression against Russia with conventional weapons, we shall consider the US, the UK and France to be the three nuclear allies. No strikes with conventional cruise missiles deep in Russia are possible without US planning, intelligence, and satellite navigation. Therefore, Russia will consider it a possibility for nuclear retaliation.

#MOSCOW, September 27. The United States may be prepared for a conversation on the New #START treaty but Moscow will not be ready to engage in dialogue until Washington changes its hostile policy, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

"Perhaps, they are prepared but we aren’t, because dialogue on the issue, as well as on strategic stability in general, is simply impossible unless the US changes its deeply hostile Russia policy," he pointed out in response to a TASS request to comment on a statement by White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby.

"I believe that the goal of the message is to improve the image of the US policy, particularly in the eyes of the Global South, the members of the global majority, who aren’t familiar with all the details of disarmament agreements and the processes that have taken place in this field. This is a cheap trick. If we are seriously talking about strengthening security, the anti-Russian policy first needs to be abandoned. After that, we will study the situation in a manner determined by the [Russian] president, which is what we have repeatedly explained," Ryabkov noted.

Kirby said earlier that the US was ready to resume talks on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

#Zelensky fears US may change Ukraine policy after presidential election."Therefore we need to prepare in advance," the #Ukrainian President said

#Battlegroup North liberates two settlements in Kursk Region this week.
Apart from that, according to the report, #Russian aircraft struck areas of deployment of manpower and weapons of the #Ukrainian army’s three mechanized, one tank, and two assault brigades

#Russian forces shoot down Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet, 37 #drones in past day.
Units of Battlegroup South continued advancing deeper into enemy defenses, inflicting losses on Ukraine’s 24th, 32nd, 100th, 117th mechanized, 46th airmobile, and 10th assault brigades and 116th Territorial Defense Brigade

#Storm slowly heads toward #Japan's #capital, leaving mudslides and broken bridges in its path

A US-made F-16 fighter jet, handed over to Ukraine earlier this year, was downed by a Ukrainian #Patriot air defense system in a friendly fire incident, Ukrainian lawmaker Maryana Bezuglaya said.

"According to my information, the F-16 of the Ukrainian pilot Alexey ‘Moonfish’ Mes was shot down by the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system due to a lack of coordination between the [military] units," she wrote on Telegram.

The lawmaker criticized the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for falsely describing the incident as "a crash."

"The culture of lies in the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as in other higher military headquarters, leads to the fact that the system of managing military decisions does not improve on the basis of truthful, consistently collected analytics, but deteriorates and even collapses, as is happening in the other directions," she wrote.

In her words, none of the generals was punished over the incident that led to the loss of both the aircraft and its pilot.

Earlier, an unidentified US official told the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine had lost a donated F-16 fighter jet in the first such case. According to the official, the jet was not shot down, and the crash was likely due to pilot error. Later, the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed the death of a Ukrainian F-16 pilot, Alexey Mes. The man was trained to fly F-16, according to CNN. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said the pilot was killed in an aerial fight, when his plane crashed on August 26