Sydney Blumenthal

Scott Ritter: Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb and nuclear war

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Playing with Fire
By Scott Ritter
June 1, 2025


Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb has crossed the threshold when it comes to triggering a Russian nuclear response. How Russia and the United States respond could determine the fate of the world.

In 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that “The nuclear weapons remain the most important guarantee of Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and play a key role in maintaining the regional balance and stability.”

In the intervening years, western analysts and observers have accused Russia and its leadership of irresponsibly invoking the threat of nuclear weapons as a means of “saber rattling”—a strategic bluff to hide operational and tactical shortfalls in Russian military capabilities.

In 2020 Russia published, for the first time, an unclassified version of its nuclear doctrine. The document, called “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” noted that Russia “reserves the right to use nuclear weapons” when Moscow is acting “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.” The document also stated that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in case of an “attack by [an] adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions.”

In 2024 Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear doctrine to be updated to consider the complicated geopolitical realities that had emerged from the ongoing Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, where the conflict had morphed into a proxy war between the collective west (NATO and the US) and Russia.

The new doctrine declared that nuclear weapons would be authorized for use in case of an “aggression against the Russian Federation and (or) its allies by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state is considered as their joint attack.”

Russia’s nuclear arsenal would also come into play in the event of “actions by an adversary affecting elements of critically important state or military infrastructure of the Russian Federation, the disablement of which would disrupt response actions by nuclear forces.”

The threats did not have to come in the form of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the new 2024 doctrine specifically stated that Russia could respond with nuclear weapons to any aggression against Russia involving “the employment of conventional weapons, which creates a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity.”

Operation Spiderweb, the largescale assault on critical Russian military infrastructure directly related to Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrence by unmanned drones, has demonstrably crossed Russia’s red lines when it comes to triggering a nuclear retaliation and/or pre-emptive nuclear strike to preclude follow-on attacks. The Ukrainian SBU, under the personal direction of its chief, Vasyl Malyuk, has taken responsibility for the attack.

Operation Spiderweb is a covert direct-action assault on critical Russian military infrastructure and capabilities directly related to Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent capabilities. At least three airfields were attacked using FPV drones operating out of the backs of civilian Kamaz trucks repurposed as drone launch pads. Dyagilevo airfield in Ryazan, Belaya airfield in Irkutsk, and Olenya airfield in Murmansk, home to Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers and A-50 early warning aircraft, were struck, resulting in numerous aircraft being destroyed and/or heavily damaged.

This would be the equivalent of a hostile actor launching drone strikes against US Air Force B-52H bombers stationed at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, and B-2 bombers stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

The timing of Operation Spiderweb is clearly designed to disrupt peace talks scheduled to take place in Istanbul on June 2.

First and foremost, one must understand that it is impossible for Ukraine to seriously prepare for substantive peace talks while planning and executing an operation such as Operation Spiderweb; while the SBU may have executed this attack, it could not have happened without the knowledge and consent of the Ukrainian President or the Minister of Defense.

Moreover, this attack could not have occurred without the consent of Ukraine’s European partners, in particular Great Britain, France and Germany, all of whom were engaged in direct consultations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the days and weeks leading up to the execution of Operation Spiderweb.

The Ukrainians have been encouraged by Europe to be seen as actively supporting the Istanbul peace process, with an eye to the notion that if the talks failed, the blame would be placed on Russia, not Ukraine, thereby making it easier for Europe to continue providing military and financial support to Ukraine.

There appears to be a major role being played by US actors as well—Senator’s Lyndsay Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Sydney Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, made a joint visit to Ukraine in the past week where they coordinated closely with the Ukrainian government about a new package of economic sanctions linked to Russia’s willingness to accept peace terms predicated on a 30-day ceasefire—one of Ukraine’s core demands.

Operation Spiderweb appears to be a concerted effort to drive Russia away from the Istanbul talks, either by provoking a Russian retaliation which would provide cover for Ukraine to stay home (and an excuse for Graham and Blumenthal to go forward with their sanctions legislation), or provoking Russia to pull out of the talks as it considers its options going forward, an act that would likewise trigger the Graham-Blumenthal sanctions action.

Unknown is the extent to which President Trump, who has been pushing for successful peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, was knowledgeable of the Ukrainian actions, including whether he approved of the action in advance (Trump appeared to be ignorant of the fact that Ukraine had targeted Russian President Putin using drones during a recent trip to Kursk.)

How Russia responds to this latest Ukrainian action is yet unknown; the drone attacks on Russian military bases came on the heels of at least two Ukrainian attacks on Russian rail lines that resulted in significant damage done to locomotives and passenger cars and killed and wounded scores of civilians.

But this much is clear: Ukraine could not have carried out Operation Spiderweb without the political approval and operational assistance of its western allies. The American and British intelligence services have both trained Ukrainian special operation forces in guerilla and unconventional warfare actions, and it is believed that previous Ukrainian attacks against critical Russian infrastructure (the Crimea bridge and Engels Air Base) were done with the assistance of US and British intelligence in the planning and execution phases. Indeed, both the Crimea bridge and Engels airbase attacks were seen as triggers for the issuing of Russia’s 2024 nuclear doctrine modifications.

Russia has in the past responded to provocations by Ukraine and its western allies with a mixture of patience and resolve.

Many have interpreted this stance as a sign of weakness, something which may have factored in the decision by Ukraine and its western facilitators to carry out such a provocative operation on the eve of critical peace discussions.

The extent to which Russia can continue to show the same level of restraint as in the past is tested by the very nature of the attack—a massive use of conventional weapons which struck Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrence force, causing damage.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to see this tactic being used in the future as a means of decapitating Russian strategic nuclear assets (aircraft and missiles) and leadership (the attack against Putin in Kursk underscores this threat.)

If Ukraine can position Kamaz trucks near Russian strategic air bases, it could do so against Russian bases housing Russia’s mobile missile forces.

That Ukraine would carry out such attack likewise shows the extent to which western intelligence services are testing the waters for any future conflict with Russia—one that NATO and EU members say they are actively preparing for.

We have reached an existential crossroads in the SMO.

For Russia, the very red lines it deemed necessary to define regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons have been blatantly violated by not only Ukraine, but its western allies.

President Trump, who has been claiming to support a peace process between Russia and Ukraine, must now decide as to where the United States stands considering these developments.

His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has acknowledged that under the previous administration of Joe Biden the United States was engaged in a proxy war with Russia. Trump’s Special Envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, recently acknowledged the same about NATO.

In short, by continuing to support Ukraine, both the US and NATO have become active participants in a conflict which has now crossed the threshold regarding the employment of nuclear weapons.

The United States and the world stand on the precipice of a nuclear Armageddon of our own making.

Either we separate ourselves from the policies that have brought us to this point, or we accept the consequences of our actions, and pay the price.

We cannot live in a world where are future is dictated by the patience and restraint of a Russian leader in the face of provocations we are ourselves responsible for.

Ukraine, not Russia, represents an existential threat to humanity.

NATO, not Russia, is responsible for encouraging Ukraine to behave in such a reckless manner.

So, too, is the United States. The contradictory statements made by US policy makers regarding Russia provide political cover for Ukraine and its NATO enablers to plan and execute operations like Operation Spiderweb.

Senators Graham and Blumenthal should be called out for sedition if their intervention in Ukraine was done to deliberately sabotage a peace process President Trump has said is central to his vision of American national security going forward.

But it is Trump himself who must decide the fate of the world.

In the coming hours we will undoubtedly hear from the Russian President about how Russia will respond to this existential provocation.

Trump, too, must respond.

By telling Graham and Blumenthal and their supporters to stand down regarding Russian sanctions.

By ordering NATO and the EU to cease and desist from continuing to provide military and financial support to Ukraine.

And by taking sides in the SMO.

Choose Ukraine and trigger a nuclear war.

Choose Russia and save the world.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer with extensive experience in arms control and disarmament, and an expert on US-Russian relations. His work can be found at ScottRitter.com. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Highway to Hell: The Armageddon Chronicles, 2014-2025, published by Clarity Press.

https://scottritter.substack.com/p/playing-with-fire

Emails on Hillary Clinton’s rape of Libya reveal French government’s crimes; Where are the trials for Clinton and Sarkozy?

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“…an April 2011 email sent to Hillary with the subject line ‘France’s client and Qaddafi’s gold’ tells of less noble ambitions.The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind:

  • to obtain Libyan oil,
  • ensure French influence in the region,
  • increase Sarkozy’s reputation domestically,
  • assert French military power, and to
  • prevent Gaddafi’s influence in what is considered ‘Francophone Africa.’

Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves, estimated at “143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver,” posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency.

[from the email]’… this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.'”

Hillary’s Dirty War in Libya: New Emails Reveal Propaganda, Executions, Coveting Libyan Oil and Gold
By Brad Hoff
Global Research, January 05, 2016
Levant Report 4 January 2015

The New Year’s Eve release of over 3000 new Hillary Clinton emails from the State Department has CNN abuzz over gossipy text messages, the “who gets to ride with Hillary” selection process set up by her staff, and how a “cute” Hillary photo fared on Facebook.

But historians of the 2011 NATO war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of the truly explosive confirmations contained in the new emails: admissions of rebel war crimes, special ops trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of protests, Al Qaeda embedded in the U.S. backed opposition, Western nations jockeying for access to Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and concern over Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves threatening European currency.

Hillary’s Death Squads

A March 27, 2011 intelligence brief on Libya, sent by long time close adviser to the Clintons and Hillary’s unofficial intelligence gatherer, Sidney Blumenthal, contains clear evidence of war crimes on the  part of NATO-backed rebels. Citing a rebel commander source “speaking in strict confidence” Blumenthal reports to Hillary [emphasis mine]:

Under attack from allied Air and Naval forces, the Libyan Army troops have begun to desert to the rebel side in increasing numbers. The rebels are making an effort to greet these troops as fellow Libyans, in an effort to encourage additional defections.

(Source Comment: Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting…).

While the illegality of extra-judicial killings is easy to recognize (groups engaged in such are conventionally termed “death squads”), the sinister reality behind the “foreign mercenaries” reference might not be as immediately evident to most.

While over the decades Gaddafi was known to make use of European and other international security and infrastructural contractors, there is no evidence to suggest that these were targeted by the Libyan rebels.

There is however, ample documentation by journalists, academics, and human rights groups demonstrating that black Libyan civilians and sub-Saharan contract workers, a population favored by Gaddafi in his pro-African Union policies, were targets of “racial cleansing” by rebels who saw black Libyans as tied closely with the regime.[1]

Black Libyans were commonly branded as “foreign mercenaries” by the rebel opposition for their perceived general loyalty to Gaddafi as a community and subjected to torture, executions, and their towns “liberated” by ethnic cleansing. This is demonstrated in the most well-documented example of Tawergha, an entire town of 30,000 black and “dark-skinned” Libyans which vanished by August 2011 after its takeover by NATO-backed NTC Misratan brigades.

These attacks were well-known as late as 2012 and often filmed, as this report from The Telegraph confirms:

After Muammar Gaddafi was killed, hundreds of migrant workers from neighboring states were imprisoned by fighters allied to the new interim authorities. They accuse the black Africans of having been mercenaries for the late ruler. Thousands of sub-Saharan Africans have been rounded up since Gaddafi fell in August.

It appears that Clinton was getting personally briefed on the battlefield crimes of her beloved anti-Gaddafi fighters long before some of the worst of these genocidal crimes took place.

Al-Qaeda and Western Special Forces Inside Libya

The same intelligence email from Sydney Blumenthal also confirms what has become a well known theme of Western supported insurgencies in the Middle East: the contradiction of special forces training militias that are simultaneously suspected of links to Al Qaeda.

Blumenthal relates that “an extremely sensitive source” confirmed that British, French, and Egyptian special operations units were training Libyan militants along the Egyptian-Libyan border, as well as in Benghazi suburbs.

While analysts have long speculated as to the “when and where” of Western ground troop presence in the Libyan War, this email serves as definitive proof that special forces were on the ground only within a month of the earliest protests which broke out in the middle to end of February 2011 in Benghazi.

By March 27 of what was commonly assumed a simple “popular uprising” external special operatives were already “overseeing the transfer of weapons and supplies to the rebels” including “a seemingly endless supply of AK47 assault rifles and ammunition.”

Yet only a few paragraphs after this admission, caution is voiced about the very militias these Western special forces were training because of concern that, “radical/terrorist groups such as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC and its military command.”

The Threat of Libya’s Oil and Gold to French Interests

Though the French-proposed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 claimed the no-fly zone implemented over Libya was to protect civilians, an April 2011 email sent to Hillary with the subject line “France’s client and Qaddafi’s gold” tells of less noble ambitions.

The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, ensure French influence in the region, increase Sarkozy’s reputation domestically, assert French military power, and to prevent Gaddafi’s influence in what is considered “Francophone Africa.”

Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves, estimated at “143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver,” posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency. In place of the noble sounding “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine fed to the public, there is this “confidential” explanation of what was really driving the war [emphasis mine]:

This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).

(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.)

Though this internal email aims to summarize the motivating factors driving France’s (and by implication NATO’s) intervention in Libya, it is interesting to note that saving civilian lives is conspicuously absent from the briefing.

Instead, the great fear reported is that Libya might lead North Africa into a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency.

French intelligence “discovered” a Libyan initiative to freely compete with European currency through a local alternative, and this had to be subverted through military aggression.

The Ease of Floating Crude Propaganda

Early in the Libyan conflict Secretary of State Clinton formally accused Gaddafi and his army of using mass rape as a tool of war. Though numerous international organizations, like Amnesty International, quickly debunked these claims, the charges were uncritically echoed by Western politicians and major media.

It seemed no matter how bizarre the conspiracy theory, as long as it painted Gaddafi and his supporters as monsters, and so long as it served the cause of prolonged military action in Libya, it was deemed credible by network news.

Two foremost examples are referenced in the latest batch of emails: the sensational claim that Gaddafi issued Viagra to his troops for mass rape, and the claim that bodies were “staged” by the Libyan government at NATO bombing sites to give the appearance of the Western coalition bombing civilians.

In a late March 2011 email, Blumenthal confesses to Hillary that,

I communicated more than a week ago on this story—Qaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombing—though underlining it was a rumor. But now, as you know, Robert Gates gives credence to it. (See story below.)

Sources now say, again rumor (that is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi has adopted a rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The incident at the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be raped is likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further confirmation.

Not only did Defense Secretary Robert Gates promote his bizarre “staged bodies” theory on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” but the even stranger Viagra rape fiction made international headlines as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice made a formal charge against Libya in front of the UN Security Council.

What this new email confirms is that not only was the State Department aware of the spurious nature of what Blumenthal calls “rumors” originating solely with the rebels, but did nothing to stop false information from rising to top officials who then gave them “credence.”

It appears, furthermore, that the Viagra mass rape hoax likely originated with Sidney Blumenthal himself.

 Note

[1] The most comprehensive and well-documented study of the plight of black Libyans is contained in Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa (publ. 2012, Baraka Books) byMaximilian Forte, Professor Anthropology and Sociology at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec.

The original source of this article is Levant Report
Copyright © Brad Hoff, Levant Report, 2016
http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillarys-dirty-war-in-libya-new-emails-reveal-propaganda-executions-coveting-libyan-oil-and-gold/5499358