Talk:Zapad 2009

Nuclear strike on Warsaw?
While a number of sources confirm that use of nuclear weapons was a part of this excercise, I cannot find a RS source about nuclear strike on Warsaw. Well, I did find The Times from 2021, which is reliable, but I worry about circular reporting - it is possible the writer of that article took that claim from Wikipedia at face value.

So far, most sources seem to trace the origin of the information about the use of nuclear weapons to an article in (reliable) Polish magazine Wprost here. The related part of the article reads: "According to PiS MP Karol Karski, the Russians also practiced launching missiles that could carry nuclear warheads. – No one confirmed it officially, but it was talked about behind the scenes of the last defense committee... "The use of separate aircraft from the air component of the strategic nuclear forces of the Russian Federation was also demonstrated," we also read in the government note." That report seems to be criticized in this academic source, but I don't have full access: /GB page blanked" It is often claimed that Zapad 2009 included a nuclear strike against Europe, but this claim comes from a single source, a report by the Polish magazine Wprost. A cable reporting on a NATO debriefing of the exercise shows how the frequent confusion between ‘nuclear’ and ‘nuclear-capable’ permits speculation to be reported as fact. " Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:01, 18 April 2024 (UTC) PS. That claim (about hitting Warsaw) was added in 2022: diff by User:Wiki-psyc citing (Daily Signal - not flagged as unreliable by the script I am using, but hardly an expert source); the source was removed by User:David Gerard but the claim remained, no longer supported by any source, sigh. PPS. Ru wiki does not say anything about the use of nuclear anything. I am looking for more reliable sources, but I am not seeing much outside media reports; the oldest include the claim in 2015 article in Polish newsportal onet.pl by journalist pl:Witold Jurasz (ur. 1975). Overall, the entire claim of nuclear strike on Poland seems to be treacable to a single news report, reliable but the article may want to clarify this. As for strike on Warsaw, that is even more dubious (I could not locate anything older then the 2015 mention in onet.pl), although in theory, all sources, including onet.pl, are reliable. I wonder if anyone can locate the offcial note mention by Polish politician in 2009 (Wprost)? I don't see anything relevant in the source that Gerard added recently as an external link. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:15, 18 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Update. Found a reliable English-language source for the strike on Warsaw from 2013: https://jamestown.org/program/what-do-the-zapad-2013-exercises-reveal-part-one/ Presumably there should be something older than this - I doubt this is the origin of that story. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:29, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Cold War Paranoia
Given the present level of anti-Russian hate being pushed online, can anyone be sure that the nuclear weapons information within this article can be trusted? 95.147.153.2 (talk) 14:45, 25 May 2024 (UTC)