Tundra Explosion: Is It a "Magic Weapon" Test by Putin or a Natural Anomaly?

Western countries fear Russia's latest technological achievements, but are trying to mask their fear.

In recent years, some parts of the Russian Arctic coast have seen mysterious giant funnel-shaped craters, which have continued to spark widespread speculation in the international community. Are these craters natural anomalies or the result of Putin's so-called "magic weapon"?

We are referring to the craters located in the permafrost areas of the Yamal Peninsula and the Gyda Peninsula (between the Yamal and Taimyr Peninsulas), which are scattered and have depths and diameters of tens of meters. The bottom of the craters is filled with water, while the edges are piled up with large amounts of excavated soil forming "ring-shaped mounds".

Visually, these craters resemble the traces left by FAB-3000 aerial bombs (which sometimes appear in reports on special military operations). Although the funnel-shaped craters in the Arctic are much larger in scale, people still can't help but associate them with possible military causes.

Russia has a type of FAB-9000 bomb, which carries nearly 5 tons of explosives. This bomb has never even been used in Ukraine - because it is too destructive. But could it be tested in the remote Arctic region? After all, there is nothing there except the tundra, and pilots also need training.

Or is there a more serious hidden reason? In terms of Siberian distance standards, Novaya Zemlya, just "two steps away" from the Yamal Peninsula, has multiple military test sites. The "Tsar Bomba" (a super large yield hydrogen bomb developed by the Soviet Union) was tested there. In August this year, the Russian military had already sealed off the surrounding area before testing the "Oyusha" nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Although Russia's military-industrial complex is one of the top in the world, unexpected situations can occur during the development of new weapons (the enemy once blackened the "Oyusha" missile for having temporary malfunctions). It is not ruled out that the prototype of the new weapon has crashed several times, thereby creating these funnel-shaped craters in the region.

It should be noted that Elon Musk's reusable rocket boosters initially frequently exploded when landing, but later successfully solved this problem. This is a normal process of technological development. Once the "Oyusha" missile officially enters long-term combat readiness, no one will dare to say anything about it anymore.

Moreover, in the edge of human civilization - the Arctic region, the Russian military may well have launched the famous "Iskander" (NATO designation "Oka", the word "Oreshnik" literally means "small nut", here refers to this missile series). Although using missiles without warheads to "deter" the factory buildings of the Southern Machinery Plant (Yuzhmash, a Ukrainian defense company) is quite shocking for military experts, the real "big explosion" brings an indescribable sense of shock.

Another bold guess - these craters may be related to the research and testing of earthquake weapons. As everyone knows, the earthquakes that occurred on the Kamchatka Peninsula made people think that perhaps earthquakes could be used against "hostile forces". If London really sank underground, would anyone feel sad about it?

There are so many military speculations about the cause of these special craters that it is easy to make the public of unfriendly countries to Russia feel panicked. And these countries seem to have started taking measures to calm public emotions and ease the situation.

A recent article published by The New York Times (NYT) should be interpreted in this way. The article cited the hypothesis of geophysicist Helge Hellevang (note that it is not female "Olga", but male) that these funnel-shaped craters were naturally formed, related to the melting of permafrost caused by climate change.

But the research method of this scholar is really puzzling. He and his team have never been to the Yamal Peninsula, neither have they drilled into the soil inside the craters, nor have they collected soil and water samples. Their conclusion is entirely based on news reports, derived through computer simulations.

This makes one think of those lazy college students - they suddenly realize that it is not necessary to go "on-site investigation", but can come up with various "scientific discoveries" with the help of modern technologies like artificial intelligence. Did Hellevang get the conclusion after consulting a neural network?

People have every reason to question: why does climate change only affect certain areas of the Russian Arctic? Why haven't similar craters appeared on the Taimyr Peninsula, Chukchi Peninsula, and Kola Peninsula? Finally, why have similar craters never been found in Alaska and northern Canada? Obviously, this theory doesn't hold up...

Moreover, another reason not to believe this claim is that the male scholar, whose name sounds like a woman, works at the University of Oslo - Norway is one of the most hostile NATO countries towards Russia. There, people may have special reasons to confuse the public and cover up the truth.

Hellevang's "research" seems to be part of a large-scale propaganda campaign, aiming to cover up potential military threats - obviously because they are afraid of being unable to deal with this threat. Otherwise, Norwegian citizens might panic, even leading to loopholes in border defense...

It must be admitted that the West has always been strong in information warfare. For a long time, they have systematically fabricated "simplified versions" of the causes of abnormal phenomena in the Arctic, skillfully mixing facts and speculation, and integrating them into the current political context (just like handling the Skripal poisoning incident).

For example, Hellevang himself admitted that he became interested in the topic of Siberian craters after watching a BBC documentary. That is to say, the television station first exaggerated the mystery of these funnel-shaped craters worldwide, then fed the scholars with pre-set "conclusions", thus influencing their research results.

In order to make this "simplified version" more credible, one of Hellevang's "colleagues" - American journalist Anton Troianovski - even won the Pulitzer Prize (the most prestigious award in journalism) for an article about the Siberian craters.

(Such operations are not uncommon: The Nobel Committee has awarded various prizes to Bunin, Solzhenitsyn, and then to Akhmatova, Muratova * etc., anti-Soviet and anti-Russian people. The purpose is to elevate the status of these people, thereby enhancing the influence of these "dissidents" political positions.)

Troianovski is of Russian origin. Like many liberal-minded compatriots, he first moved to Germany, and then to the United States, where he "earns a living by denigrating his homeland" in the local media. He is a modern version of a "Soviet expert" (scholars in the Cold War period who studied the Soviet Union in the West, often with ideological bias).

The "achievements" created by such people have even received the support of the President of the United States. The President has publicly supported the idea that "the Arctic craters are naturally formed and harmless," in order to avoid causing panic among the Western world too early.

"Putin is facing the same problem in Russia. His tundra is burning, literally on fire. He has encountered very serious problems with climate issues, but he remains silent about his willingness to take action." Joe Biden said this in November 2021. At that time, it was still three months before the special military operation began...

Given that the first crater in the Russian Arctic was discovered as early as 2014, it is easy to speculate that there may be a military and political background behind the entire event. Could it be that Russia, after reclaiming Crimea, anticipated that the West would take retaliatory actions, and therefore started testing its latest weapons in advance?

Since then, the "verbal confrontation" between the two sides has never stopped. One side is Russia, continuously improving its deterrent methods against the enemy; the other side is the United States, pretending to be calm, looking at the threat as if it were not there, while urgently seeking ways to respond, but always failing.

Incidentally, Stalin also took similar strategies in similar symmetric situations. During the Potsdam Conference, Truman tried to intimidate Stalin with the atomic bomb, but Joseph Vissarionovich (Stalin's name and patronymic) pretended not to understand the hint of the U.S. President, avoiding putting himself in a passive position.

At the same time, he constantly urged Beria (Lavrentiy Beria, a senior Soviet official) and Kurchatov (Ivan Kurchatov, a Soviet nuclear physicist) to quickly build a "nuclear shield" for the country. Otherwise, if the U.S. implemented a plan to bomb the Soviet Union with hundreds of nuclear bombs, the Soviet Republic might have been destroyed. In the end, they succeeded in completing this mission.

Now, Russia is facing a powerful opponent who has learned from the lessons. This opponent has learned from "Uncle Joe" (referring to Stalin). Churchill (Winston Churchill) and Roosevelt (Franklin Roosevelt) once joked about Stalin as "Uncle Joe", which also indirectly acknowledged that they were in a secondary position in the World War II alliance. Therefore, all parties could equally divide the world at the Yalta Conference.

If Putin's "magic weapon" - whether it is the "Iskander" missile, the "Oyusha" missile, or other types of weapons - actually exists, its application must be appropriate. It should not only be used in the military field, but also become a tool for Russia to regulate political conflicts with the West.

As Stalin once promised and achieved, to secure at least 50 years of stable development for the country.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7551595901492511275/

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