"The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin" - yeah, I don't think this is true

«Пока катимся вниз». Дипломат Палажченко и эксперт ООН по проблемам разоружения Баклицкий — о ядерной угрозе и шансах на выживание человечества — urbietorbi — сборник Павел Палажченко (Горбачев-фонд). Главными событиями последнего времени, вызвавшими опасения о смерти контроля над вооружениями и новой гонке вооружений, стали истечение срока действия договора СНВ-3 ...

Был рад поговорить с Павлом Палажченко про ядерное оружие, гонку вооружений, распространение и угрозу ядерной войны urbietorbi.online/articles/202...

Happy Orthodox Easter and also the International Day of Human Space Flight 🙂

👻

The ads I’m getting on Twitter lately are fascinating 2

Russia just banned Stanford by declaring it an undesirable organization

Coincidentally, Stanford is the alma mater of Russia's chief negotiator with the United States Kirill Dmitriev

www.rbc.ru/politics/10/...

Russia designates Stanford University as an “undesirable organization,” making it a criminal offense for Russian citizens to engage with it

For now, two points: reprocessing spent fuel does not yield weapons-grade plutonium (it remains reactor-grade). I’m also very skeptical about the claim that weapons-grade HEU could be covertly produced at Gronau within a month.

It’s not entirely clear why SVR is putting this out now (with the NPT RevCon approaching?) or what actions might follow. Previous claims about Ukraine didn’t lead to anything concrete (see my earlier thread) bsky.app/profile/bakl...

Press release ends by calling on the US and others to prevent the EU from acquiring nuclear weapons.

More specifically, it claims German specialists could covertly obtain enough weapons-grade plutonium for one device within a month (via hot cells in Karlsruhe, Dresden, Erlangen, and Jülich), and HEU within a week (at the enrichment facility in Gronau).

SVR points to spent nuclear fuel stored across these countries, alleging it could be diverted and reprocessed into plutonium for a nuclear device.

It also claims Germany, Italy, Czechia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain already have significant expertise relevant to nuclear weapons components.

According to SVR, the EU would rely on UK and French nuclear forces for now, while keeping the option to develop its own fully autonomous nuclear forces

SVR claims EU leadership plans to quietly build its own nuclear-industrial base and prepare public opinion for a political decision to acquire nuclear weapons.

SVR press release here svr.gov.ru/smi/2026/04/.... It directly points at Ursula von der Leyen and, presumably, the European Commission.

Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR) is again warning about nuclear threats. After claiming Ukraine is pursuing nuclear weapons, it now says the EU is too. Short thread 🧵

The ads I’m getting on Twitter lately are fascinating

Дмитрий Тренин избран президентом Российского совета по международным делам Подробнее на сайте

Link to the Kommersant article that broke the news www.kommersant.ru/doc/8552152

This will formalize the change of the guard in RIAC after Andrei Kortunov was removed as Director General and Academic Director in 2023 and 2025 respectively

Dmitry Trenin, formerly Director of Carnegie Moscow and now with Higher School of Economics and IMEMO, was elected to be the next President of the Russian International Affairs Council instead of the former foreign minister Igor Ivanov

Russia designates Tufts University as an “undesirable organization” making it a criminal offense for Russian citizens to engage with it

Nominee to head US nuclear forces sees no need for warhead tests The Navy admiral tapped as the new head of U.S. nuclear forces on Thursday ‌endorsed a finding by the Energy Department and Pentagon that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is safe and reliable and there is no ...

Nominee for U.S. Strategic Command chief says “we have the capabilities and sufficient testing to satisfy ourselves on the reliability and efficacy of our nuclear warheads” www.reuters.com/world/nomine...

Interesting!

Yes, Twitter is a mess - broken algorithms, blue checkmarks everywhere - but if you actually want to follow new developments and have your analysis seen, there is still no alternative…

I’ve been cross-posting my Twitter threads to Bluesky for a while, and so far it just doesn’t work as a real alternative. My latest thread: 3 reposts and 5 likes here vs. 24 and 59 on Twitter. Even with fewer followers, the gap is hard to ignore.

One other change: the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference, organized by the Center for Energy and Security Studies, got a shout-out in the document as a good example of track 1.5 format 15/15

On the brighter side of things, Moscow still supports the hotlines, notifications, de-targeting, and intergovernmental agreements on the prevention of nuclear war and dangerous military activities 14/15

In the absence of this “negotiation of purely technical measures is largely deprived of meaning, as, when detached from the broader military-political & strategic context, they are unable to provide meaningful added value in terms of de-escalation and reduction of tensions” 13/15

Risk reduction for Russia can only be achieved by “minimizing interstate conflict potential on the basis of equality, indivisible security, and the mutual consideration of interests” 12/15