Rogue Russia: Nuclear poker
The Slow Newscast
Alice Sandelson
4.6 • 894 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In October 2022 the course of the Russia's war in Ukraine shifted. Intelligence from the USA and UK indicated that Russia could turn to a nuclear bomb to get on top of the war. This is the story of those six days in October, and just how close Putin really came to pressing the nuclear button.
Reporter: Giles Whittell
Producer: Ada Barume
Additional reporting: Nina Kuryata
Sound design: Dominic Delargy
Artwork: Lola Williams
Editor: Jasper Corbett
Slow Newscast Executive Producer: Matt Russell
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tortoise. |
| 0:09.8 | So Biden was at a, I think it was late October 2022, was at a fundraiser actually at Lackland Murdoch's house of old people, just to make it |
| 0:23.4 | even more interesting. |
| 0:25.6 | The Biden folks had a transcript always, or at least what they, what he did privately in |
| 0:32.5 | fundraisers was always released. |
| 0:34.8 | And he said there that we had gotten closer to a nuclear crisis than any |
| 0:41.2 | time since the Cuban missile crisis. They were very much aware that they were getting very, |
| 0:47.8 | very close to something that was very scary. So for the panicky ones, this was, you know, shit-in-your-pants moment. |
| 0:56.5 | But it could also be just a rhetoric, just a rhetoric that they used to frighten, to scare |
| 1:04.6 | the Western allies. |
| 1:07.9 | October 2022 was seven months into Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine, |
| 1:13.7 | 27 months till the inauguration of Donald Trump for a second term. |
| 1:18.8 | Trump has said he will end this war and there will probably be talks. |
| 1:23.1 | But where they go, unfortunately, is up to Vladimir Putin. |
| 1:27.8 | His army is making progress, unfortunately, is up to Vladimir Putin. His army is making progress. |
| 1:30.2 | Tanks, missiles, drones, horrifying losses, gradual advances. |
| 1:36.4 | There's almost a sense of inevitability about it. |
| 1:39.8 | But it didn't have to be like this. |
| 1:42.6 | Something happened in October 2022 that changed the way the war unfolded. |
| 1:47.9 | Something forged a piece of history, reshaped what Trump is now inheriting, and not in a good way. |
| 1:56.3 | What was it? |
| 1:57.7 | Well, the details, intercepted conversations, telltale movements, what was said in a |
... |
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