A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Kremlin’s top brass to draft proposals for possible nuclear testing, Russia’s ‘UVZ-76’—a popular shortwave radio station better known as the “Doomsday Radio”—came alive again, broadcasting three mysterious messages.
As per Telegram channel ‘UVB-76 Logi’, which monitors all broadcasts from the shortwave radio channel, the word “brainwash” was heard first, at 1:03 PM (Moscow time).
At 2:35 PM, the word “underbarrel” was heard, followed by the word “Krymokhrip” at 3:54 PM.
Also called ‘The Buzzer’, due to a buzzing noise that accompanies all of its obscure broadcasts since the 1970s, the recent fascination with the channel comes amid fears of a nuclear armageddon, primarily between the US and Russia, after the Cold War.
Despite the Russian Security Council discussion on nuclear test preparations at a test site in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, Putin has stated that Russia did not necessarily want to break the terms of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but would be forced to take appropriate action if any of the CTBT’s signatories decided to violate it.
Russia’s nuclear preparations follow US President Donald Trump’s decison to “start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis with other nations”.
“Russia is testing; China is testing, but they don’t talk about it … And certainly North Korea has been testing. Pakistan has been testing,” Trump had told reporters last week, in response to Russia’s tests of Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile, and Poseidon, an undersea torpedo.
Russia-US ties have deteriorated sharply over the past few weeks as Trump, frustrated with a lack of progress in ending the war in Ukraine, cancelled a planned summit with Putin, and imposed sanctions on Moscow for the first time since his second term began.
