In the wake of the first large-scale nuclear conflict, details of strike
and counter-strike have been elusive, as a total news blackout dampened
satellite communications.
Political and military observers believe that the main cause of the
conflict is the failure of the Russian wheat and potato crops last
summer. But the catalyst was Moscow's announcement that it could not pay
the Volga-Ural region's armed forces for a further six months.
Following his armed coup last week, General Anatoly Sergeyev has assumed
the role of military governor in the region in central Russia. His first
move was to block all tax revenue transfers to Moscow, threatening an
all-out crisis in the Russian economy.
On Sunday, the president of the Russian Federation, Igor Kerensky, gave
Sergeyev a 48-hour ultimatum to stand down. The general ignored the
threat, and conventional bombing raids against Volga-Ural began. It was
during one of these raids that a missile hit the chemical weapons store
near Tyumen late on Tuesday night, releasing VX and sarin nerve gases,
which killed more than 3,000 people.
Sergeyev, who had led the Russian forces in previous Chechen conflicts,
immediately retaliated, using his ageing force of Backfire-C nuclear
bombers for raids on Russian air bases around Moscow early Wednesday
morning. Many planes were lost but five bases were destroyed with
Hiroshima-sized tactical nuclear bombs, killing tens of thousands of
people in and around the bases. According to Kremlin sources, President
Kerensky ordered an escalation to strategic weapons. As former head of
Russian strategic rocket forces, he almost certainly recognised the
vulnerability of his meagre stock of missiles to further attacks.
Later on Wednesday, 14 Topol-M ICBMs were fired at air force and army
bases near cities in the Volga-Ural region. Yekatarinburg suffered the
greatest losses.
Early reports indicate a death toll in excess of 250,000, with more than
80,000 square kilometres of land contaminated by radioactive fallout.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council is tonight expected to
offer a mediation team to try to stabilise the ceasefire. Even if that
holds, it is already clear that the federation risks disintegration.
Kerensky agreed to the ceasefire with the Volga-Ural rebels only when
threatened with a further nuclear strike on Moscow by the Far East
Region military commander, Admiral Illya Kropotkin.
He has the Pacific Fleet's only operational Typhoon missile submarine
which was ordered to sea yesterday with its full complement of 20 RSM-52
multi-warhead missiles, giving Kropotkin the ability to destroy much of
western Russia.
Aid has already started to arrive in the region.
