On the menu today: As of this writing, it is not 100 percent definitive that Russian military forces have used thermobaric weapons in Ukraine, but those weapons are indisputably deployed on Ukrainian soil, and reporters in Kyiv are describing explosions powerful and bright enough to light up the night sky, like lightning; human-rights groups keep gathering evidence of Russia using cluster bombs and hitting civilian targets such as schools and kindergartens; meanwhile, Russians bid farewell to the stock market, and a Russian finance professor foresees widespread economic calamity overtaking his native country.
Russia’s Thermobaric Rage
On Saturday, a CNN team south of Belgorod, Russia, near the Ukrainian border, reported that it had seen a Russian thermobaric multiple-rockets launcher. Thermobaric rockets “are filled with high-temperature, high-pressure explosive. They are sometimes called ‘vacuum bombs’ because they suck in the oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a powerful explosion and a large pressure wave that can have enormous destructive effects.”
The same day, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted that Russia “has now deployed TOS-1 launchers to the outskirts of heavily populated areas. Thermobaric weapons against civilian targets have zero military purpose; it would be a war crime aimed at terrorizing & slaughtering people into submission.” Other Ukrainians posted a video of a TOS-1 launcher rolling through the streets of Tokmak, in southeastern Ukraine.
There are two models, the TOS-1 and the TOS-1A. The Russians describe exactly what the TOS-1 can do on a weapons-export site: “The TOS-1A heavy flamethrower system is designed for providing fire support to infantry and tanks, defeating enemy manpower from open and closed firing positions in a variety of offensive and defensive combat, as well as disabling light armored vehicles and transport. Combined target destruction is achieved through effects of high temperature and overpressure.” The fired rockets can be incendiary or thermobaric.
On Monday, Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, told reporters after meeting with members of the Congress that Russian forces had already used the thermobaric bomb in their invasion.
Yesterday, at the United Nations, U.S. ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield declared that, “Russia has bombed residential apartment buildings. It has bombed sacred burial grounds. It has shelled kindergartens and orphanages and hospitals. Russia has spurred mass hunger and caused so many to flee their homes — the latest UN estimates are marching toward a million people. . . . We have seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine, which have no place on the battlefield. That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs, which are banned under the Geneva Conventions.” Her office later clarified that the use of those weapons against civilians is banned under the Geneva Conventions; the conventions permit the use of thermobaric weapons against military targets.
But yesterday, an unnamed “senior defense official” said he had nothing to add on thermobaric weapons beyond what was said in Tuesday’s background Pentagon briefing, which revealed: “We do assess that they have launcher systems that could be used for a thermobaric weapon, but we cannot confirm the presence of a thermobaric weapon, and we cannot confirm the use of a thermobaric weapon.”
Wednesday night, reporters on the ground in Kyiv shared videos of blasts intense enough to light up the sky — “almost like lightning.”
This morning, Ukrainians have posted videos of two parts of an either abandoned or captured Russian TOS-1A thermobaric MRL system — the launcher and the reloading vehicle.
This morning, while visiting NATO ally Estonia, British defense secretary Ben Wallace said, “How far (Russian President Vladimir Putin) will go, what weapons he will authorize to achieve his ultimate aim, is unknown but we’ve seen the use of massive amounts of artillery. We’ve seen the deployment of thermobaric artillery weapon systems and we worry how broad those could go.”
In short, Western defense authorities are certain that Russia deployed thermobaric weapons into Ukraine including in urban areas, but no one is as certain as the Ukrainians that the Russians have used thermobaric weapons yet. But it is fair to assume that Russia didn’t bring those weapons at least 150 miles into a war zone to use them to light campfires.
The U.S. military has its own thermobaric weapons; it used them against the mountain caves of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
In addition to deploying weapons in urban areas that should never be used against civilians, there is ample evidence that the Russians are indiscriminately bombing cities and towns. On Sunday, Amnesty International confirmed “that a 220mm Uragan rocket dropped cluster munitions on the Sonechko nursery and kindergarten in the town of Okhtyrka in Sumy Oblast, where local people were seeking safety from the fighting.”
That appears to be the fourth Russian attack on a school in the conflict so far: “On 17 February, during increased shelling along the line of control, Russian-backed forces struck a kindergarten in the town of Stanytsia Luhanska, wounding three civilians. On the evening of 25 February, a missile damaged School No. 48 in Mariupol, blowing in windows and pockmarking the walls with metal fragments. And, on 26 February, an explosive weapon, most likely an artillery shell, hit the second story of a kindergarten in Chernihiv, starting a fire that was likely detected by VIIRS environmental satellite sensors.” Amnesty International says that so far, there is no evidence of any military activity in any of those buildings.
Videos show considerable damage to residential buildings in the suburbs of Kyiv.
In the aforementioned Tuesday background briefing, a senior defense official said, “We’ve seen the same video that you have but we have not assessed that it is definitive with respect to the use of cluster munitions. So we are not in a position to confirm the use of cluster munitions at this time.”
Russians, Get Ready to Shift Back to a Soviet-Style Economy
You know Western economic sanctions are hitting hard when the Kremlin isn’t even trying to put on a brave face and boast that they aren’t having an impact. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted yesterday that the Russian economy was facing “serious pressures and a serious blow.” On the Russian equivalent of CNBC, they’re talking about the stock market in the past tense, offering a darkly funny funeral toast: “Dear stock market, you were interesting. Rest in peace, dear comrade.” The Moscow stock exchange remains closed for the fourth straight day.
Russian finance professor Maxim Mironov, who is based in Spain, offers a stark [and profanity-laden] look at what awaits Russians in the coming weeks and months. Here’s the version in English, courtesy of Google translate:
Very soon, the Russians will face a shortage of basic products. I’m not talking about all kinds of iPhones, the import of which has already been banned, but about food, clothes, cars, household appliances, etc. Russia is very strongly integrated into world trade. And already the largest operators refuse to send containers to Russia. But even if a miracle happens and Russia finds someone who is ready to send containers to Russia for three meters, the question is how to pay for it? Export earnings will decrease significantly, as all buyers will try to abandon Russian goods.
We see that even non-sanctioned oil companies cannot find buyers for their oil. Gazprom, the main exporter of gas, is already under sanctions, that is, it is generally unclear how it will receive foreign exchange earnings. . . . All these factories — automobile, aviation, household appliances, etc. actively use imported components. That is, in the coming months, we will face the shutdown of entire industries with all the ensuing consequences. . . . Unemployment, respectively, a fall in tax collection and, as a result, problems with the payment of salaries to state employees. Planes even within Russia will also soon stop flying. After all, almost all of them are imported, and the West has already been banned from supplying spare parts. Therefore, we will soon see a massive decommissioning of aircraft. The Internet as we knew it will also be shut down.
In Russia, the share of imported seeds is almost 40 percent. And for potatoes, the share of imported seeds is 90 percent. That is, of course, farmers will come up with something over time, but at least in the short term, we should expect a shortage of basic agricultural products and a sharp rise in prices.
He also points to the Russian auto manufacturer Avtovaz suspending operations at two plants due to the continued shortage of electronic components.
Russians, you’ve got to ask yourselves: Is following Vladimir Putin into devastating ruin worth it? What’s the point of annexing the devastated wreckage of Ukraine in the name of Russia, if what’s left of Russia is an impoverished, hungry, desperate, verge-of-failing state?
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, NATO will not be lending fighter jets to Ukraine.