Kh-22
The Kh-22 is a large, long-range anti-ship missile developed by MKB Raduga in the Soviet Union. It was intended for use against US Navy aircraft carriers and carrier battle groups, with either a conventional or nuclear warhead. After analyzing World War II naval battles and encounters in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Soviet military thinkers concluded that the era of large seaborne battles was over, that stand-off attacks would be the way to neutralize and incapacitate large battle groups without having to field a similar force against them. Substituting cruise missiles for air attacks, Soviet Air Forces and Soviet Naval Aviation commanders set about to convert their heavy bombers to raketonosets, or missile carriers, which could be launched against approaching enemy fleets from coastal or island airfields; the Kh-22 weapon was developed by the Raduga design bureau and used to arm the Tupolev Tu-22M. The Kh-22 uses an Tumanski liquid-fuel rocket engine, fueled with TG-02 and IRFNA, giving it a maximum speed of Mach 4.6 and a range of up to 600 km.
It can be launched in either low-altitude mode. In high-altitude mode, it climbs to an altitude of 27,000 m and makes a high-speed dive into the target, with a terminal speed of about Mach 4.6. In low-altitude mode, it climbs to 12,000 m and makes a shallow dive at about Mach 3.5, making the final approach at an altitude under 500 m. The missile is guided by a gyroscope-stabilized autopilot in conjunction with a radio altimeter. Soviet tests revealed that when a shaped charge warhead weighing 1,000 kg was used in the missile, the resulting hole measured 5 m in diameter, was 12 m deep. By August 2016, Russia was finalizing the trials of the Kh-32 cruise missile, a derivative of the Kh-22. Designed for use by the Tu-22M3 bomber, the missile is designed to climb to 40 km to the stratosphere after launch, transition to level flight perform a steep dive to the target; the advanced cruise missile is designed to target enemy ships, "radio-contrast targets" like bridges, military bases, electric power plants, others.
The Kh-32 has an inertial navigation system and radar homing head, making it independent of GPS/GLONASS navigation satellites. It has a range of 1,000 km and a speed of at least 5,000 km/h; the missile entered service in the same year. 32 Kh-22 missiles will be modernized to the Kh-32 level in 2018-2020. The first service-ready missiles were ready in 1962; the main launch platform is the Tu-22M'Backfire'. It was used by Soviet and Russian air forces on the Тu-22К and Tu-95К22. Two initial versions were built, the Kh-22 with a large conventional warhead and the Kh-22N with a 350–1000-kiloton nuclear warhead. In the mid-1970s this was supplemented by the Kh-22P, an anti-radiation missile for the destruction of radar installations. In the 1970s the Kh-22 was upgraded to Kh-22M and Kh-22MA standard, with new attack profiles, somewhat longer range, a datalink allowing mid-course updates. Kh-22E — a conventional variant for export. Kh-22M/MA — upgraded variants with Mach 3.3 speed and 600 km range. Weighs 5,780 kilograms, contains 960 kilograms of RDX.
Kh-32 — a radically upgraded conventional/nuclear variant of Kh-22 with Mach 5 speed and 1,000 km range. It features a new seeker head. Produced for the Tu-22M3 launch platform. Warhead weight has been reduced to 500 kg to improve range. RussiaRussian Air Force Iraq Soviet Union Ukraine423 scrapped after Ukrainian Tu-22M fleet's decommission. Gordon, Yefim. Soviet/Russian Aircraft Weapons Since World War Two. Hinckley, England: Midland Publishing. ISBN 1-85780-188-1. Http://airwar.ru/weapon/kr/x22.html New Kh-32 Antiship Missile Becomes Operational in Russia - part 1 Navy Recognition New Kh-32 Antiship Missile Becomes Operational in Russia - part 2 Navy Recognition
Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Site the Nevada Test Site, is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in southeastern Nye County, about 65 miles northwest of the city of Las Vegas. Known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, the site was established on January 11, 1951 for the testing of nuclear devices, covering 1,360 square miles of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a 1-kiloton-of-TNT bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat on January 27, 1951. Many of the iconic images of the nuclear era come from the NTS. NNSS is operated by Mission Support and Test Services, LLC. During the 1950s, the mushroom clouds from the 100 atmospheric tests could be seen for 100 mi; the city of Las Vegas experienced noticeable seismic effects, the distant mushroom clouds, which could be seen from the downtown hotels, became tourist attractions. St. George, received the brunt of the fallout of above-ground nuclear testing in the Yucca Flats/Nevada Test Site. Winds carried the fallout of these tests directly through St. George and southern Utah.
Marked increases in cancers, such as leukemia, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, bone cancer, brain tumors, gastrointestinal tract cancers, were reported from the mid-1950s through 1980. A further 921 nuclear tests were carried out underground. From 1986 through 1994, two years after the United States put a hold on full-scale nuclear weapons testing, 536 anti-nuclear protests were held at the Nevada Test Site involving 37,488 participants and 15,740 arrests, according to government records; those arrested included the astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Kris Kristofferson, the actors Martin Sheen and Robert Blake. The Nevada Test Site contains 28 areas, 1,100 buildings, 400 miles of paved roads, 300 miles of unpaved roads, 10 heliports, two airstrips; the Management & Operating Contractor is Mission Support and Test Services. They manage and operate the NNSS for the NNSA; the Security Protective Force Contractor is SOC LLC as they provide the safeguards and security to the NNSS. The Nevada Test Site was established as a 680-square-mile area by President Harry S. Truman on December 18, 1950, within the Nellis Air Force Gunnery and Bombing Range.
The Nevada Test Site was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices from 1951 to 1992. Of those, 828 were underground; the site is covered with subsidence craters from the testing. The NTS was the United States' primary location for tests in the 500-to-1,000 kt range. 126 tests were conducted elsewhere, including most larger tests. Many of these occurred at the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands. During the 1950s, the mushroom clouds from atmospheric tests could be seen for 100 mi; the city of Las Vegas experienced noticeable seismic effects, the distant mushroom clouds, which could be seen from the downtown hotels, became tourist attractions. The last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site was "Little Feller I" of Operation Sunbeam, on July 17, 1962. Although the United States did not ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, it honors the articles of the treaty, underground testing of weapons ended as of September 23, 1992. Subcritical tests not involving a critical mass continued.
One notable test shot was the "Sedan" shot of Operation Storax on July 6, 1962, a 104-kiloton-of-TNT shot for Operation Plowshare, which sought to prove that nuclear weapons could be used for peaceful means in creating bays or canals. It created a crater 320 feet deep that can still be seen today; the site was scheduled to be used to conduct the testing of a 1,100-ton conventional explosive in an operation known as Divine Strake in June 2006. The bomb is a possible alternative to nuclear bunker busters. After objections from Nevada and Utah's members of Congress, the operation was postponed until 2007. On February 22, 2007, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency canceled the experiment. On December 7, 2012 the most-recent explosion was conducted, an underground sub-critical test of the properties of plutonium. In 2018, the State of Nevada sued the federal government to block a plan to ship "more than a metric ton" of plutonium to the site for storage. Testing of the various effects of detonation of nuclear weapons was carried out during above-ground tests.
Many kinds of vehicles, nuclear-fallout and standard bomb-shelters, public-utility stations and other building structures and equipment were placed at measured distances away from "ground zero", the spot on the surface under or over the center of the blast. Operation Cue tested civil defense measures; such civilian and commercial effects testing was done with many of the atomic tests of Operation Greenhouse on Eniwetok Atoll, Operation Upshot-Knothole and Operation Teapot at the NTS. Homes and commercial buildings of many different types and styles were built to standards typical of American and European cities. Other such structures included military fortifications and civil-defense as well as "backyard"-type shelters. In such a typical test, several of the same buildings and structures might be built using the same layouts and plans with different types of materials, general landscaping, cleanliness of the surrounding yard
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States, its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is a member of the U. S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U. S. counter-terrorism, counterintelligence, criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes. Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and the Russian FSB. Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency, which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad, the FBI is a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throughout the United States, more than 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and areas across the nation.
At an FBI field office, a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the Director of National Intelligence. Despite its domestic focus, the FBI maintains a significant international footprint, operating 60 Legal Attache offices and 15 sub-offices in U. S. consulates across the globe. These foreign offices exist for the purpose of coordination with foreign security services and do not conduct unilateral operations in the host countries; the FBI can and does at times carry out secret activities overseas, just as the CIA has a limited domestic function. The FBI was established in 1908 as the Bureau of the BOI or BI for short, its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, located in Washington, D. C. In the fiscal year 2016, the Bureau's total budget was $8.7 billion. The FBI's main goal is to protect and defend the United States, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state and international agencies and partners.
The FBI's top priorities are: Protect the United States from terrorist attacks Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes Combat public corruption at all levels Protect civil rights, Combat transnational/national criminal organizations and enterprises Combat major white-collar crime Combat significant violent crime Support federal, state and international partners Upgrade technology to enable, further, the successful performances of its missions as stated above In 1896, the National Bureau of Criminal Identification was founded, which provided agencies across the country with information to identify known criminals. The 1901 assassination of President William McKinley created a perception that America was under threat from anarchists; the Departments of Justice and Labor had been keeping records on anarchists for years, but President Theodore Roosevelt wanted more power to monitor them.
The Justice Department had been tasked with the regulation of interstate commerce since 1887, though it lacked the staff to do so. It had made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the Oregon land fraud scandal at the turn of the 20th Century. President Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to organize an autonomous investigative service that would report only to the Attorney General. Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the U. S. Secret Service, for personnel, investigators in particular. On May 27, 1908, the Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police department. Again at Roosevelt's urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation, which would have its own staff of special agents; the Bureau of Investigation was created on July 26, 1908, after the Congress had adjourned for the summer. Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds, hired thirty-four people, including some veterans of the Secret Service, to work for a new investigative agency.
Its first "Chief" was Stanley Finch. Bonaparte notified the Congress of these actions in December 1908; the bureau's first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the "White Slave Traffic Act," or Mann Act, passed on June 25, 1910. In 1932, the bureau was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation; the following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation before becoming an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935. In the same year, its name was changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI. J. Edgar Hoover served as FBI Director from 1924 to 1972, a combined 48 years with the BOI, DOI, FBI, he was chiefly responsible for creating the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, or the FBI Laboratory, which opened in 1932, as part of his work to professionalize investigations by the government. Hoover was involved in most major cases and projects that the FBI handled during his tenure.
But as detailed below, his proved to be a controversial tenure as Bureau Director in its years. After Hoover's death, the Congress passed legislation that limited the tenure of future FBI Directors to ten years. Early homicide investigations of the new age
Plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forms a dull coating when oxidized; the element exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen; when exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder, pyrophoric. It can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous. Plutonium was first produced and isolated on December 14, 1940, by a deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the 1.5 metre cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. First neptunium-238 was synthesized which subsequently beta-decayed to form this new element with atomic number 94 and atomic weight 238. Since uranium had been named after the planet Uranus and neptunium after the planet Neptune, element 94 was named after Pluto, which at the time was considered to be a planet as well.
Wartime secrecy prevented its discovery being announced until 1948. Plutonium is the element with the highest atomic number to occur in nature. Trace quantities arise in natural uranium-238 deposits when U-238 captures neutrons emitted by decay of other U-238 atoms. Plutonium is much more common on Earth since 1945 as a product of neutron capture and beta decay, where some of the neutrons released by the fission process convert uranium-238 nuclei into plutonium-239. Both plutonium-239 and plutonium-241 are fissile, meaning that they can sustain a nuclear chain reaction, leading to applications in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. Plutonium-240 exhibits a high rate of spontaneous fission, raising the neutron flux of any sample containing it; the presence of plutonium-240 limits a plutonium sample's usability for weapons or its quality as reactor fuel, the percentage of plutonium-240 determines its grade. Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 88 years and emits alpha particles, it is a heat source in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which are used to power some spacecraft.
Plutonium isotopes are expensive and inconvenient to separate, so particular isotopes are manufactured in specialized reactors. Producing plutonium in useful quantities for the first time was a major part of the Manhattan Project during World War II that developed the first atomic bombs; the Fat Man bombs used in the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945, in the bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945, had plutonium cores. Human radiation experiments studying plutonium were conducted without informed consent, several criticality accidents, some lethal, occurred after the war. Disposal of plutonium waste from nuclear power plants and dismantled nuclear weapons built during the Cold War is a nuclear-proliferation and environmental concern. Other sources of plutonium in the environment are fallout from numerous above-ground nuclear tests, now banned. Plutonium, like most metals, has a bright silvery appearance at first, much like nickel, but it oxidizes quickly to a dull gray, although yellow and olive green are reported.
At room temperature plutonium is in its α form. This, the most common structural form of the element, is about as hard and brittle as gray cast iron unless it is alloyed with other metals to make it soft and ductile. Unlike most metals, it is not a good conductor of electricity, it has an unusually high boiling point. Alpha decay, the release of a high-energy helium nucleus, is the most common form of radioactive decay for plutonium. A 5 kg mass of 239Pu contains about 12.5×1024 atoms. With a half-life of 24,100 years, about 11.5×1012 of its atoms decay each second by emitting a 5.157 MeV alpha particle. This amounts to 9.68 watts of power. Heat produced by the deceleration of these alpha particles makes it warm to the touch. Resistivity is a measure of how a material opposes the flow of electric current; the resistivity of plutonium at room temperature is high for a metal, it gets higher with lower temperatures, unusual for metals. This trend continues down to 100 K, below which resistivity decreases for fresh samples.
Resistivity begins to increase with time at around 20 K due to radiation damage, with the rate dictated by the isotopic composition of the sample. Because of self-irradiation, a sample of plutonium fatigues throughout its crystal structure, meaning the ordered arrangement of its atoms becomes disrupted by radiation with time. Self-irradiation can lead to annealing which counteracts some of the fatigue effects as temperature increases above 100 K. Unlike most materials, plutonium increases in density when it melts, by 2.5%, but the liquid metal exhibits a linear decrease in density with temperature. Near the melting point, the liquid plutonium has high viscosity and surface tension compared to other metals. Plutonium has six allotropes and forms a seventh at high temperature within a limited pressure range; these allotropes, which are different structural modifications or forms of an element, have similar internal energies but varying densities and crystal structures. This makes plutonium sensitive to changes in temperature, pressure, or chemistry, allows for dramatic volume changes following phase transitions from one allotropic form to another.
The densities of the different allotropes vary from 16.00 g/cm3 to 19.86 g/cm3. The presence of these many allotropes makes machining plutonium difficult, as it changes state readily. For example, the α form exists at room temperature in unalloyed plutonium, it has machinin
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial and space warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the five branches of the United States Armed Forces, one of the seven American uniformed services. Formed as a part of the United States Army on 1 August 1907, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the U. S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947, it is the youngest branch of the U. S. Armed Forces, the fourth in order of precedence; the USAF is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. The Air Force articulates its core missions as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, command and control; the U. S. Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense; the Air Force, through the Department of the Air Force, is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense, is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Air Force components are assigned, as directed by the Secretary of Defense, to the combatant commands, neither the Secretary of the Air Force nor the Chief of Staff of the Air Force have operational command authority over them. Along with conducting independent air and space operations, the U. S. Air Force provides air support for land and naval forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field; as of 2017, the service operates more than 5,369 military aircraft, 406 ICBMs and 170 military satellites. It has a $161 billion budget and is the second largest service branch, with 318,415 active duty airmen, 140,169 civilian personnel, 69,200 reserve airmen, 105,700 Air National Guard airmen. According to the National Security Act of 1947, which created the USAF: In general, the United States Air Force shall include aviation forces both combat and service not otherwise assigned.
It shall be organized and equipped for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The Air Force shall be responsible for the preparation of the air forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Air Force to meet the needs of war. §8062 of Title 10 US Code defines the purpose of the USAF as: to preserve the peace and security, provide for the defense, of the United States, the Territories and possessions, any areas occupied by the United States. The stated mission of the USAF today is to "fly and win...in air and cyberspace". "The United States Air Force will be a trusted and reliable joint partner with our sister services known for integrity in all of our activities, including supporting the joint mission first and foremost. We will provide compelling air and cyber capabilities for use by the combatant commanders. We will excel as stewards of all Air Force resources in service to the American people, while providing precise and reliable Global Vigilance and Power for the nation".
The five core missions of the Air Force have not changed since the Air Force became independent in 1947, but they have evolved, are now articulated as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, command and control. The purpose of all of these core missions is to provide, what the Air Force states as, global vigilance, global reach, global power. Air superiority is "that degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another which permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea and special operations forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force". Offensive Counterair is defined as "offensive operations to destroy, disrupt, or neutralize enemy aircraft, launch platforms, their supporting structures and systems both before and after launch, but as close to their source as possible". OCA is the preferred method of countering air and missile threats since it attempts to defeat the enemy closer to its source and enjoys the initiative.
OCA comprises attack operations, sweep and suppression/destruction of enemy air defense. Defensive Counter air is defined as "all the defensive measures designed to detect, identify and destroy or negate enemy forces attempting to penetrate or attack through friendly airspace". A major goal of DCA operations, in concert with OCA operations, is to provide an area from which forces can operate, secure from air and missile threats; the DCA mission comprises both passive defense measures. Active defense is "the employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy", it includes both ballistic missile defense and air-breathing threat defense, encompasses point defense, area defense, high-value airborne asset defense. Passive defense is "measures taken to reduce the probability of and to minimize the effects of damage caused by hostile action without the intention of taking the initiative", it includes warning.
Ukraine
Ukraine, sometimes called the Ukraine, is a country in Eastern Europe. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kiev. Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic; the dominant religions in the country are Greek Catholicism. Ukraine is in a territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world; the territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, but its territory was split between Poland and the Russian Empire, merged into the Russian-dominated Soviet Union in the late 1940s as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1991 Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in the aftermath of its dissolution at the end of the Cold War. Before its independence, Ukraine was referred to in English as "The Ukraine", but most sources have since moved to drop "the" from the name of Ukraine in all uses. Following its independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. In 2013, after the government of President Viktor Yanukovych had decided to suspend the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement and seek closer economic ties with Russia, a several-months-long wave of demonstrations and protests known as the Euromaidan began, which escalated into the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that led to the overthrow of Yanukovych and the establishment of a new government; these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic component of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the European Union.
Ukraine is ranks 88th on the Human Development Index. As of 2018, Ukraine has the second lowest GDP per capita in Europe. At US$40, it has the lowest median wealth per adult in the world, it suffers from a high poverty rate and severe corruption. However, because of its extensive fertile farmlands, Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain exporters. Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia; the country is home to a multi-ethnic population, 77.8 percent of whom are Ukrainians, followed by a large Russian minority, as well as Georgians, Belarusians, Crimean Tatars, Jews and Hungarians. Ukraine is a unitary republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers: legislative and judicial branches; the country is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the GUAM organization, one of the founding states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. There are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older widespread hypothesis, it means "borderland", while some more recent linguistic studies claim a different meaning: "homeland" or "region, country"."The Ukraine" used to be the usual form in English, but since the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, "the Ukraine" has become less common in the English-speaking world, style-guides recommend not using the definite article.
"The Ukraine" now implies disregard for the country's sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. The Ukrainian position is that the usage of "'The Ukraine' is incorrect both grammatically and politically." Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites which include a mammoth bone dwelling. The territory is considered to be the location for the human domestication of the horse. Modern human settlement in Ukraine and its vicinity dates back to 32,000 BC, with evidence of the Gravettian culture in the Crimean Mountains. By 4,500 BC, the Neolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia culture flourished in wide areas of modern Ukraine including Trypillia and the entire Dnieper-Dniester region. During the Iron Age, the land was inhabited by Cimmerians and Sarmatians. Between 700 BC and 200 BC it was Scythia. Beginning in the sixth century BC, colonies of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and the Byzantine Empire, such as Tyras and Chersonesus, were founded on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea.
These colonies thrived well into the 6th century AD. The Goths stayed in the area but came under the sway of the Huns from the 370s AD. In the 7th century AD, the territory of eastern Ukraine was the centre of Old Great Bulgaria. At the end of the century, the majority of Bulgar tribes migrated in different directions, the Khazars took over much of the land. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Antes were located in the territory of; the Antes were the ancestors of Ukrainians: White Croats, Polans, Dulebes and Tiverians. Migrations from Ukraine throughout the Balkans established many Southern Slavic nations. Northern migrations, reaching to the Ilmen l
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union with its satellite states, the United States with its allies after World War II. A common historiography of the conflict begins between 1946, the year U. S. diplomat George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow cemented a U. S. foreign policy of containment of Soviet expansionism threatening strategically vital regions, the Truman Doctrine of 1947, ending between the Revolutions of 1989, which ended communism in Eastern Europe, the 1991 collapse of the USSR, when nations of the Soviet Union abolished communism and restored their independence. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars; the conflict split the temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany and its allies, leaving the USSR and the US as two superpowers with profound economic and political differences. The capitalist West was led by the United States, a federal republic with a two-party presidential system, as well as the other First World nations of the Western Bloc that were liberal democratic with a free press and independent organizations, but were economically and politically entwined with a network of banana republics and other authoritarian regimes, most of which were the Western Bloc's former colonies.
Some major Cold War frontlines such as Indochina and the Congo were still Western colonies in 1947. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was a self-proclaimed Marxist–Leninist state led by its Communist Party, which in turn was dominated by a totalitarian leader with different titles over time, a small committee called the Politburo; the Party controlled the state, the press, the military, the economy, many organizations throughout the Second World, including the Warsaw Pact and other satellites, funded communist parties around the world, sometimes in competition with communist China following the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. The two worlds were fighting for dominance in low-developed regions known as the Third World. In time, a neutral bloc arose in these regions with the Non-Aligned Movement, which sought good relations with both sides. Notwithstanding isolated incidents of air-to-air dogfights and shoot-downs, the two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat. However, both were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war.
Each side had a nuclear strategy that discouraged an attack by the other side, on the basis that such an attack would lead to the total destruction of the attacker—the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Aside from the development of the two sides' nuclear arsenals, their deployment of conventional military forces, the struggle for dominance was expressed via proxy wars around the globe, psychological warfare, massive propaganda campaigns and espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, technological competitions such as the Space Race; the first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The USSR consolidated its control over the states of the Eastern Bloc, while the United States began a strategy of global containment to challenge Soviet power, extending military and financial aid to the countries of Western Europe and creating the NATO alliance; the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the Communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the conflict expanded.
The USSR and the US competed for influence in Latin America and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. The Soviets suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956; the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the closest the two sides came to nuclear war. Meanwhile, an international peace movement took root and grew among citizens around the world, first in Japan from 1954, when people became concerned about nuclear weapons testing, but soon in Europe and the US; the peace movement, in particular the anti-nuclear movement, gained pace and popularity from the late 1950s and early 1960s, continued to grow through the'70s and'80s with large protest marches and various non-parliamentary activism opposing war and calling for global nuclear disarmament. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, a new phase began that saw the Sino-Soviet split complicate relations within the Communist sphere, while US allies France, demonstrated greater independence of action.
The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, while the US experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, which ended with the defeat of the US-backed Republic of Vietnam, prompting further adjustments. By the 1970s, both sides had become interested in making allowances in order to create a more stable and predictable international system, ushering in a period of détente that saw Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People's Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union. Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979; the early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of KAL Flight 007 and the "Able Archer" NATO military exercises, both in 1983. The United States increased diplomatic and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was suffering from economic stag
