IPAN members condemn dangerous escalation in Ukraine Russia war

The IPAN members meeting on 11 June, 2024 passed the following resolution.

This IPAN membership meeting notes with extreme concern the drone attacks made in late May on strategic early warning radar installations at Armavir and Orsk in southern Russia.

The attacks had the potential to open wide gaps in the Russian ability to detect incoming nuclear missiles at an early stage. By reducing the time available for the Russian authorities to decide on how to respond to signs of a nuclear attack, damage to the Armavir and Orsk installations threatened to drastically increase the possibility of a miscalculation that would be lethal to us all.

Although the decision to launch the drone attacks may have been made by Ukrainian authorities, we consider it inconceivable that these attacks were made without the active technical involvement of NATO personnel, and without the use of intelligence information supplied by NATO countries.

It is more than likely that Pine Gap played a role in gathering and providing intelligence for this Ukraine drone attack.

We therefore call on the Australian Government, as an ally of NATO, to express its alarm at these developments, and to seek assurances from the governments of the NATO countries and Ukraine that nothing similar will occur in future.