Putin claims new Russian nuclear weapons can bypass any missile-defense system
Russian President Vladimir Putin after delivering his annual address to the Federal Assembly at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow on Thursday.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called the simulated attack “cheesy,” adding, “We don’t regard that as the behavior of a responsible international player.”
The Putin presentation marked “a mix of old and new news,” said Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense think tank.
“This is an election speech he was making,” said Chalmers, noting that the United States and Russia have for decades had the ability to overwhelm each other’s defenses with a massive nuclear strike aimed at multiple cities – but with the deterrent factor that such a strike would be met in kind while missiles were still in the air.
Nonetheless, he and others said the new cruise missile, as described by Putin, reflects Russian fears about U.S. defensive capabilities.
The Trump administration last month released a Nuclear Posture Review that says the U.S. “now faces a more diverse and advanced nuclearthreat environment than ever before,” which it vowed to contain.
Some analysts said the Putin speech reflected an increasingly muscular posture by Moscow that is already playing out on the ground.
Thomas Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Putin’s speech demonstrates a desire to “come up with new and innovative ways to deliver nuclear weapons,” but also fit a larger pattern of menacing neighbors and NATO allies.
“This is an example of Russia being provocative,” Karako said. “We have to take that seriously.”
DEAR ABBY: Occasionally, married friends will come to my husband and/or me venting about their marital problems. We have been through a few rough patches during our 12 years of marriage, and during those times, we sought help from family, friends and counselors. Today I can honestly say we are happier than ever and willing to stick through the ups and downs.
We try to pass along the things that helped us, but a lot of times we’ll see one spouse wanting to work on improving the marriage and the other one oblivious or unwilling to do anything about it. I think our experience could help the spouses of our troubled friends see that things can work out by doing something about it, but I never know if or how to approach the subject with them. Should we keep our mouths shut and just be there for the unhappy friend, or is there a proper way to reach out to their spouse with an offer of support in situations like this? – TRULY WANTING TO HELP
DEAR TRULY WANTING: My advice would be to stay out of the line of fire. If you reach out to the unhappy spouse, who may be unaware that his or her marital problems were revealed to you, it will be regarded as intrusive. By all means tell the person asking your advice what worked for you, but leave it up to that person to convey it to his or her spouse.