Nuclear weapons

In this photo taken from video on Monday, June 10, 2024, and released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, a pilot sits in a cockpit of a MiG-31 fighter jet of the Russian air force during joint Russian-Belarusian drills intended to train the military to use tactical nuclear weapons. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Russia, Belarus drill to train troops in tactical nuclear weapons

Second stage of training aimed at cautioning the west about ramping up aid for Ukraine

 

FILE - Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at an event commemorating the 110th anniversary of Xinhai Revolution at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 9, 2021. A new Pentagon report on China’s military power says Beijing is on track to significantly increase its nuclear weapons arsenal by 2030 and is “almost certainly” learning from Russia’s war in Ukraine. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

China rapidly escalating nuclear weapons arsenal, Pentagon says

Report to congress says Beijing ‘almost certinly’ learning lessons from Russia/Ukraine war

 

A view of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant and the Dnipro river on the other side of Nikopol, Ukraine are shown on August 22, 2022. Canada is dusting off and updating emergency protocols to deal with fallout from a possible tactical nuclear exchange in Europe or the spread of radiation across the ocean from a Ukrainian power plant explosion. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Evgeniy Maloletka

Nuclear threat from Ukraine war prompts Ottawa to update catastrophe plans

Feds updating a highly secret plan to ensure it can continue to function in a severe crisis

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. (Dmitry Astakhov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russia suspends only remaining major nuclear treaty with US

Move could lead to end of global ban on nuclear weapons tests in place since the end of the Cold War

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. (Dmitry Astakhov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during the annual meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights via videoconference in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Putin denies Western accusations of nuclear sabre-rattling

Russian leader says country’s nuclear doctrine based on the so-called ‘launch on warning’ concept

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during the annual meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights via videoconference in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
President Joe Biden speaks at an IBM facility in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on Thursday Oct. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Biden: Nuclear ‘Armageddon’ risk highest since ‘62 crisis

US president says threat real because Putin’s military is ‘significantly underperforming’

President Joe Biden speaks at an IBM facility in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on Thursday Oct. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
FILE - This image taken with a slow shutter speed on Oct. 2, 2019, and provided by the U.S. Air Force shows an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile test launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Major shifts in U.S. nuclear weapons policy seem much less likely, and while President Joe Biden may insist on certain adjustments, momentum toward a historic departure from the Trump administration’s policy appears to have stalled. The outlook will be clearer when the Biden administration completes its so-called nuclear posture review – an internal relook at the numbers, kinds and purposes of weapons in the nuclear arsenal, as well as the policies that govern their potential use. The results could be made public as early as January.(Staff Sgt. J.T. Armstrong/U.S. Air Force via AP)

Angst over China, Russia lessens chance of U.S. nuke policy changes

Momentum away from the Trump administration’s policy appears to have stalled

FILE - This image taken with a slow shutter speed on Oct. 2, 2019, and provided by the U.S. Air Force shows an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile test launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Major shifts in U.S. nuclear weapons policy seem much less likely, and while President Joe Biden may insist on certain adjustments, momentum toward a historic departure from the Trump administration’s policy appears to have stalled. The outlook will be clearer when the Biden administration completes its so-called nuclear posture review – an internal relook at the numbers, kinds and purposes of weapons in the nuclear arsenal, as well as the policies that govern their potential use. The results could be made public as early as January.(Staff Sgt. J.T. Armstrong/U.S. Air Force via AP)