West races to procure Soviet arms – media

NATO nations have reportedly looked to some ex-Warsaw Pact states to build USSR-standard munitions for Ukraine

The US and its NATO allies have been scouring behind the former Iron Curtain – searching in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries – to find factories that can build ammunition for Ukraine’s Soviet-standard weapons, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Even as they send billions of dollars’ worth of modern weaponry to Kiev, Western bloc governments can’t build the Soviet-type artillery shells and other munitions on which Ukraine’s military still relies, the newspaper said. As a result, they have turned to Bulgaria and other countries that were formerly in the “Soviet orbit” to help produce the weaponry that Ukraine needs to battle Russian forces.

The search has required secrecy to avoid “political fallout and Russian retaliation” because, as in the case of Bulgaria, the local populations are largely pro-Russian, the Times said. Revelations last summer that Sofia was supplying weapons to Ukraine, despite strong opposition, ignited political uproar.

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EU member ‘secretly’ supplied Kiev with arms & fuel – media

The report cited the addition of a new production line at a plant in Kostenets, Bulgaria, that will soon resume making 122-millimeter artillery shells for the first time since 1988. Another state-run Bulgarian arms factory, located in the small town of Sopot, will also be ramping up output to supply Ukrainian forces.

Brokers with US-supplied cash are also looking to plants in Serbia, Romania and Bosnia and Herzegovina as possible suppliers of Soviet-type shells, according to the report. Luxembourg has tapped an arms maker in the Czech Republic to procure arms for Ukraine.

The scramble for Soviet weapons comes amid struggles by NATO members to produce ammunition fast enough to replace the shells that are being fired off each day in Ukraine. Kiev is burning through weaponry at a rate “many times higher” than its Western allies can produce it, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned earlier this month.


READ MORE: Ukraine conflict spurs shady US arms trade

The UK government has formed a secret task force to find suppliers of Soviet-type weapons for Ukraine. Both the US and the UK have funded deals using brokers to help former Eastern Bloc manufacturers and their governments hide their involvement in the conflict, the Times said. In one case, the British paid a Romanian broker to buy artillery shells from a Pakistani arms maker. As it turned out, the Pakistani supplier failed to deliver the munitions.

Possible cause of Ohio train crash revealed

A wheel bearing overheated moments before the train derailed, causing a hazardous chemical spill, a preliminary NTSB report says

A faulty wheel bearing may have been responsible for the derailment of a train carrying toxic vinyl chloride through East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this month, a preliminary US government report has found. The resulting chemical spill has reportedly killed livestock, fish, and pets.

Released on Thursday, the report from the National Transportation Safety Board noted that a trackside detector transmitted an alarm message to the train’s crew as they passed through East Palestine on February 3. The detector flagged that one of the bearings on the first carriage to derail was some 253 degrees Fahrenheit (112 Celsius) higher than ambient temperature.

The train engineer had already been decelerating, but slowed the train and brought it to a stop with the assistance of an automatic emergency brake after receiving the alarm. When the crew noticed fire and smoke coming from the 23rd car of the 149-car train, they moved the locomotive to safety a mile away and alerted the authorities.

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Some 38 cars derailed in total, with 11 of them carrying toxic chemicals. As the temperature of one intact tank of vinyl chloride began to rise, the report states that the responders decided to carry out a controlled burn of the chemicals to avoid a possible explosion. Five tanks of vinyl chloride – 115,580 gallons – were burned this way.

The report did not conclusively blame the derailment on the defective bearing, nor did it suggest that venting and burning the vinyl chloride was the correct course of action. The NTSB’s investigation is ongoing, and further reports are expected.

As a cloud of dense and toxic smoke rose over the town, locals in East Palestine criticized President Joe Biden for refusing to issue a disaster declaration. While Biden sent Environmental Protection Agency and Health and Human Services officials to the location to declare it safe, residents have complained of rashes, nausea, and headaches, as well as dead pets, livestock and fish.

With President Joe Biden in Ukraine and Poland this week, former president Donald Trump visited East Palestine on Wednesday, where he praised local emergency workers and handed out food and water. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – who initially blamed the crash on Trump-era railway deregulation – traveled to the scene on Thursday.

US expands probe of cancer risks at ICBM bases

The Air Force has pledged to conduct a comprehensive assessment of a possible link between missile jobs and lymphoma cases

The US Air Force has launched an investigation of cancer risks for service members at the country’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) installations, formalizing and expanding a probe that was spurred by a report last month of lymphoma cases among missileers who had worked at a Montana base.

General Thomas Bussiere, commander of US ICBM forces, approved a comprehensive study of cancer risks at missile bases in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota, the Air Force announced on Wednesday. A US Space Force officer reportedly revealed last month that 36 missileers who had been stationed at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base as far back as 25 years ago had been diagnosed with cancer, including ten cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

“Air Force Global Strike Command and our Air Force takes the responsibility to protect airmen and [Space Force] guardians incredibly seriously, and their safety and health continues to be my priority,” Bussiere said in a statement. “We also continue to be committed to remaining transparent during this process and we pledge to continue to maintain an open dialogue with members, their families and stakeholders throughout this process.”

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US Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, said NHL cases among former missileers appear to be far higher than the national average. He noted that only around 400 airmen work in Malmstrom’s 150 Minuteman III missile silos. NHL is considered a rare cancer in the US, with an average of just 19 new cases diagnosed annually per 100,000 people. The former airmen are well below the median diagnosis age of 67, he added.

Missileers can be exposed to a variety of toxins and chemicals, such as radon, asbestos, lead and polychlorinated biphenyls. Health concerns date back to well before the Minuteman era. Military.com noted that from 1975 to 1979, there were 125 leaks of propellant from Titan II missiles at bases in California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Kansas. One such leak killed two airmen and forced the evacuation of a small Kansas town.

The Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) said an investigation of cancer concerns at Malmstrom in 2001 found no increased rates of NHL among missileers. “However, we acknowledge time has passed,” the AFMS said, adding that it has a responsibility to re-examine possible health risks to service members.


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