US and Russian officials have both described Poseidon as a new category of retaliatory weapon, with a nuclear warhead capable of triggering a radioactive tsunami to render coastal cities uninhabitable. Arms control experts say the weapon breaks most of the traditional nuclear deterrence and classification rules. It is launched from a submarine like a torpedo, but is claimed to be able to loiter as an underwater drone before attacking with its nuclear warhead.
The Maidan, Kyiv's Independence Square, has been the heart of political change in Ukraine for more than two decades. While visiting NPR's team covering Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis and producers Hanna Palamarenko and Polina Lytvynova I went back to the square, where history-making news events have drawn me for over two decades. Memories flooded back of two people-power revolutions against Kremlin influence.
The aircraft turned out to be a Russian IL-20M reconnaissance plane. After visually identifying it, the Bundeswehr [German military] handed over the escort to our Swedish NATO partners @SwedenNato and returned to Rostock-Laage,
Russian drones entering Polish airspace was "an intentional act" meant to test the U.S. and NATO allies and send a "warning," says Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. "You don't have that number of drones and that distance into Poland without it being deliberate by the Russian side," Volker, who served as NATO Ambassador under former President George W. Bush, said in an interview with Morning Edition.
Well, we have a large army - over 200,000 - and we did provide a brigade for Iraq, where we were in charge of an international division, and a brigade in Afghanistan. But this is different. We are already managing a huge logistical operation. Ninety-five percent of what Ukraine gets goes through Poland. And so this time, we see our usefulness as protecting that operation on our own territory.
