Putin's 'Doomsday Radio' spews out weird coded messages as NATO leaders meet
Russia's 'Doomsday Radio' began broadcasting a series of cryptic messages as world leaders including Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump met at a crucial NATO summit
Vladimir Putin's bizarre 'Doomsday Radio' has started broadcasting dozens of mysterious coded messages today as NATO leaders met in The Hague to discuss the war in Ukraine.
World leaders including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and US president Donald Trump gathered for a summit in The Hague today with the European conflict high up on the agenda - and it appears the meeting sparked a reaction from inside the Kremlin. Russia's UVB-76 radio station, also known as 'The Buzzer', was first set up in the Cold War, and is typically activated at moments of high tension on the international stage.
Its broadcasts are thought to be related to a strategic communication test involving multiple military units, the start of a nuclear command-and-control exercise, or internal military readiness checks.They also might indicate training involving Russia's Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) or General Staff.
But they are not currently decodable without classified keys, and carry no meaningful content to the average listener. The station - and known as Dead Hand Radio or Judgement Day Radio - has existed since the Cold War more than 50 years ago, but its purpose remains classified.
One theory is that it is a 'dead man's switch', automatically triggering a military response possibly to nuclear attack. Today's splurge of messages equals the highest number sent in a short period since the end of the Cold War.
Among the translations of code words appearing in Russian in today's output are the words 'Narcissus, Blooming, Meticulous, Caviar, Cognac, Sweetness and Lisbon'. Other words were nonsensical.
Earlier this week, Doomsday radio broadcast the word Otniatiye - or 'taking away'. In its original Russian, the word mean to take away life, or hope. The station has previously been active this year around the time of telephone calls on the war in Ukraine between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
The signals it broadcasts can be sent without the internet or satellite. Its transmission tower is believed to be located northwest of Moscow, in a military zone classified during the Cold War.
NATO countries pledge to spend more at key summit
At the summit in the The Hague today, key NATO allies agreed to a significant boost in defence spending in the wake of Russia's military buildup and its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Last night, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that Britain will help bolster Ukraine's air defences by using £70million of seized Russian assets to pay for ASRAAM missiles.
He said: " Russia, not Ukraine, should pay the price for Putin's barbaric and illegal war, so it is only right we use the proceeds from seized Russian assets to ensure Ukraine has the air defence it needs.
"The security of Ukraine is vital to the security of the UK and the Euro-Atlantic area, and our support will never waiver.
"My message to President Putin is clear: Russia needs to stop its indiscriminate attacks on innocent Ukrainian people and return to the negotiating table.'
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BBC News
33 minutes ago
- BBC News
As Starmer's first year ends in crisis, now comes a bigger battle
By the time polls closed at 10pm on 4 July 2024, the Labour Party knew they were likely to return to government - even if they could not quite bring themselves to believe Sir Keir Starmer, reminiscing 10 months later in an interview with me, it was an "incredible moment". Instantly, he said, he was "conscious of the sense of responsibility". And yes, he confessed, a little annoyed that his landslide victory was not quite as big as Sir Tony Blair's had been in 1997."I'm hugely competitive," the prime minister said. "Whether it's on the football pitch, whether it is in politics or any other aspect of life."Sir Keir watched the exit poll with a small group of advisers as well as his wife, Victoria, and his two teenaged children. Even in that moment of unsurpassable accomplishment, this deeply private prime minister was caught between the jubilation of his aides and the more complex reaction of his children, who knew their lives were about to change back, the prime minister said, he would tell himself: "Don't watch it with your family - because it did have a big impact on my family, and I could see that in my children." It's important to remember how sunny the mood in the Labour Party was at that moment - because the weather then turned stormy with remarkable the prime minister marks a year in office next week - which he will spend grappling with crises at home and abroad - British politics finds itself at an inflection point, where none of the old rules can be taken for why exactly was Sir Keir's political honeymoon so short-lived? And can he turn things around? Where Sir Keir's difficulties began Many members of the new cabinet had never been to Downing Street until they walked up to the famous black door on 5 July to be appointed. Why would they have been? The 14 turbulent years of opposition for the Labour Party meant that few had any experience of was a deficiency of which Sir Keir and his team were acutely the leader of the opposition, he had spent significant time in 'Privy Council' - that's to say, confidential, meetings with civil servants to understand what was happening in Ukraine and the Middle East. He also sought knowledge from the White House. Jake Sullivan, then US President Joe Biden's National Security Adviser, told me that he spoke to the future prime minister "every couple of months" to help him "make sense of what was happening"."I shared with him our perspective on events in the Middle East, as well as in Ukraine and in other parts of the world," says Sullivan. "I thought he asked trenchant, focused, sharp questions. I thought he was on point."I thought he got to the heart of the matter, the larger issue of where all of these things were going and what was driving them. I was impressed with him." Domestic preparations were not as smooth. For some, especially on the left of the Labour Party, this government's difficulties began with an over-cautious election campaign. Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the trade union Unite, told me that "everyday people [were] looking for change with a big C. They were not looking for managerialism".It's a criticism with which Pat McFadden, a senior cabinet minister, having run the campaign, is wearily familiar. "We had tried other strategies to varying degrees in 2015, 2017, 2019, many other campaigns previously - and they'd lost."I had one job. To win." Breaking away from Corbynism Having made his name as a prominent member of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, Sir Keir won the party leadership in 2020 offering Labour members a kind of Corbynism without Corbyn. But before long he broke decisively with his the campaign this meant not a long list of promises, but a careful approach. Reassurance was the order of the day: at the campaign's heart, a focus on what Labour wouldn't do: no increase in income tax, national insurance or VAT. Yet a big part of preparing for government was not just the question of what this government would do, but how it would drive the government that, Sir Keir turned to Sue led the Partygate investigation into Boris Johnson, Gray was already unusually high-profile for an impartial civil servant. Her close colleagues were stunned when in 2023 she agreed to take up a party political role as Sir Keir's chief of staff."It was a source of enormous controversy within the civil service," says Simon Case, who until a few months ago as cabinet secretary was head of the civil Gray's task was to use her decades of experience of the Whitehall machine to bring order to Sir Keir's longstanding started work in September 2023, and the grumblings about her work began to reach me weeks, or perhaps even days, later. Those in the team she joined had expected her to bring organisational clarity. Tensions came when she involved herself in political questions too. Gray also deliberately re-prioritised the voices of elected politicians in the shadow cabinet over unelected about what exactly her role should be were never quite resolved, in part because Rishi Sunak called the general election sooner than Labour had spent the campaign in a separate office from the main team, working with a small group on plans for the early days in government. Yet those back in Labour HQ fretted that, from what little they gleaned, that work was inadequate.A few days before the election those rumours reached me. I WhatsApped a confidant of Sir Keir to ask what they had heard of the preparation for government."Don't ask," came the reply. "I am too worried to discuss it." A lack of decisive direction What is unquestionable is that any prime minister would have struggled with the backdrop Sir Keir Case described to me how, on 5 July just after Sir Keir had made his first speech on the steps of No 10, he had thwacked a sleepless new prime minister with "the heavy mallet of reality"."I don't think there are many incoming prime ministers who'd faced such challenging circumstances," he said, referring to both the country's economic situation and wars around the King's Speech on 17 July unveiled a substantial programme, making good on manifesto promises: rail nationalisation, planning reform, clean energy investment. But those hoping for a rabbit out of the hat, a defining surprise, were disappointed. In so many crucial areas — social care, child poverty, industrial strategy — the government's instinct was to launch reviews and consultations, rather than to declare a decisive cabinet secretary, Case could see what was happening — or not happening — across the whole of government. "There were some elements where not enough thinking had been done," he said. "There were areas where, sitting in the centre of government, early in a new regime, the prime minister and his team, including me as his sort of core team, knew what we wanted to do, but we weren't communicating that effectively across all of government."Not just communication within government: for us journalists there were days in that early period where it was utterly unclear what this new government wanted its story to made those early announcements, which did come, stand out even more: none more so than Chancellor Rachel Reeves's announcement on 29 July that she would means-test the winter fuel came in a speech primarily about the government's parlous economic inheritance. That is not what it is remembered for. Some in government admit that they expected a positive response to Reeves's radical frankness about what the government could and could not afford to do. Yet it sat in isolation - a symbol of this new government's economic priorities, with the Budget still three months Haigh, then the transport secretary, remembered: "It came so early and it hung on its own as such a defining policy for so long that in so many voters' minds now, that is the first thing they think about when they think about this Labour government and what it wants to do and the kinds of decisions it wants to make."The policy lasted precisely one winter. Sir Keir and his chancellor have argued in recent weeks that they were able to change course because of a stabilising was more direct about the U-turn. "If I'm being honest, I think the reaction to it since the decision was announced was probably stronger than we thought," he admits. 'Two-tier Keir' and his first UK crisis At the same time the chancellor stood up to announce the winter fuel cuts, news was unfolding of a horrific attack in about who had carried out the attack fuelled the first mass riots in this country since 2011, when Sir Keir had been the director of public prosecutions. Given the nature of the crisis, the prime minister was well placed to respond."As a first crisis, it was dealing with a bit of the machinery of government that he instinctively understood - policing, courts, prisons," Case says. Sir Keir's response was practical and pragmatic — making the judicial system flow faster meant that by mid-August at least 200 rioters had already been sentenced, most jailed with an average term of two in a way that was not quite clear at the time, the riots spawned what has become one of the defining attacks on the prime minister from the right: that of 'two-tier Keir'. The idea that some rioters were treated more harshly than other kinds of protesters had been morphed over time into a broader accusation about who and what the prime minister stood Keir had cancelled his family holiday to deal with the riots. Exhausted, he ended the summer dealing with questions about his personal integrity in what became known as 'freebiegate'. Most of the gifts for which he was being criticised - clothing, glasses, concert tickets - had been accepted before the election but Sir Keir was prime minister now. Case told me there was a "naivety" about the greater scrutiny that came with leading the more than that, there was a naivety in No 10 about how Sir Keir was seen. Here was a man elected in large part because of a crisis of trust in politics. He had presented himself as voters that he had followed the rules was to miss the point — they thought the rules themselves were bust. The political price of 'dispensing with' Gray By the winter of 2024, the sense of a government failing to get a grip of itself or a handle on the public mood, had grown. A chorus of off-the-record criticism, much of it strikingly personal, threatened to overwhelm the were personal ambitions and tensions at play, but more and more insiders - some of them fans of Gray initially - were telling me that the way in which Sir Keir's chief of staff was running government was structurally flawed, with the system simply not working announced in early October that she had resigned because she risked becoming a "distraction". In reality, Sir Keir had sacked her after some of his closest aides warned him he risked a mutiny if he did Gray was approached both for an interview and for her response to her critics but declined. To the end she retained some supporters in the cabinet including Louise Haigh. "I felt desperately sorry for her," she says."It was just a really, really cruel way to treat someone who'd already been so traduced by the Tories - and then [was] traduced by our side as well."Sir Keir appointed Gray. He empowered Gray. And he dispensed with Gray. This was the prime minister correcting his own mistakes - an episode which came at a high political price. A bridge on the world stage Yet on the world stage the prime minister continued to thrive, winning praise across political divides in the UK and Sullivan, Biden's adviser, was impressed by Sir Keir's handling of US President Donald Trump, describing the Oval Office meeting where the prime minister brandished an invitation from the King as "the best I've seen in terms of a leader in these early weeks going to sit down with the current president".It's an irony that it is Sir Keir, who made his reputation trying to thwart Brexit, who has found for the UK its most defined diplomatic role of the post-Brexit era — close to the US, closer than before to Europe, at the fore of the pro-Ukraine alliance, striking trade deals with India and others. And it has provided him with something more elusive too: a story — a narrative of a confident, pragmatic leader stepping up on the world stage, acting as a bridge between other countries in fraught risk, brought into sharp relief during the Israel-Iran conflict in recent days, is that Trump is too unpredictable for such a role to be a stable international arena has sharpened Sir Keir's choices domestically as well. Even while making welfare cuts that have displeased so many in his party, the prime minister has a clearer and more joined-up argument about prioritising security in all its forms: through work, through economic prudence, through defence of the yet, for plenty of voters Sir Keir has found definition to his government's direction too late. Labour's poor performance last month in the local elections plus defeat at the Runcorn and Helsby by-election were a blow to Sir Keir and his team. It's far from unheard of for a governing party to lose a by-election, but to lose it to Reform UK on the same night that Nigel Farage's party hoovered up councils across England made this a distinctively new political days afterwards, Paul Ovenden, Sir Keir's strategy director, circulated a memo to Downing Street aides, which I've called for a "relentless focus on the new centre ground in British politics".The crucial swing voters, Ovenden wrote, "are the middle-age, working class, economically squeezed voters that we persuaded in the 2024 election campaign. Many of them voted for us in 2024 thinking we would fix the cost of living, fix the NHS, and reduce migration… we need to become more ruthless in pursuing those outcomes".For more than 100 of Starmer's own MPs, including many of those elected for the first time in that landslide a year ago, the main priority was ruthlessly dismantling the government's welfare reforms - plunging the prime minister as he approaches his first anniversary into his gravest political crisis yet. The stakes were beyond high. For the prime minister to have faced defeat on this so soon after the winter fuel reversal raises questions about his ability to get his way on plenty else if this first year has done anything, it has clarified the is not just a prime minister and a Labour Party hoping to win a second term. They are trying to prove to a tetchy and volatile country that not only do they get their frustration with politics, but that they can fix it too. None of that will be possible when profound policy disagreements are on public Stormy Year: A year on from the landslide election win, the BBC's Henry Zeffman talks to insiders about the challenges Labour has faced in government (BBC Radio 4, from 30 June 2025)Top picture credit: PA and Getty Images BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.
BBC News
36 minutes ago
- BBC News
Labour didn't do enough thinking, ex-top official says
The Labour Party had not done "enough thinking" about some of its plans before taking office, the former top civil servant has Case told the BBC Sir Keir Starmer's top team "weren't good enough at communicating what [they] wanted to be done" in the early days of the Labour Case said he did not think it was "right to describe it as a chaos".Case, who served four prime ministers, was the most senior official in government from September 2020 to December 2024, when he stepped down on health grounds. The cabinet secretary role involves advising the prime minister, leading implementation of the government's policies and managing other high-level civil was in the role for the six months after Labour won the general election last year and was involved in the transition between early months were marked by riots following the stabbings of young girls at a dance class in Southport, a row over ministers accepting freebies, and Sue Gray leaving her role as Sir Keir's chief of his first interview about the early days of the Labour government, Case was asked whether ministers had done enough thinking about what they were going to do in told the BBC: "There were some elements where not enough thinking had been done."There were areas where, sitting in the centre of government, early in a new regime, the prime minister and his team, including me as his sort of core team, knew what we wanted to do, but we weren't communicating that effectively across all of government."He continued: "Definitely I would say, early on, we weren't good enough at communicating what wanted to be done and what that needed to be to everybody."But he added: "I absolutely don't think it is right to describe it as a chaos." 'Difficult' start Case said the scandal over gifts and hospitality, which unfolded in government in the summer of 2024, was a result of "naivety" on the part of Sir Keir and his said it was a "very difficult" period for the prime minister because it meant his "loved ones [being] pulled into politics".Speaking about his relationship with Sue Gray for the first time, Case said that it was a "very unusual" decision by Sir Keir to appoint her as his chief of taking up the role, Gray had spent decades as a civil servant and became a household name as the official appointed to investigate lockdown parties in Downing Street during Boris Johnson's said her move into party politics from the civil service "was a source of enormous controversy within the civil service".He said because Gray had arrived in Sir Keir's operation less than a year before the general election, it meant the team "wasn't sort of fully bedded in and tested" prior to entering was replaced by Morgan McSweeney, who was previously chief adviser to the prime minister and masterminded Labour's general election said the prime minister's decision to replace Gray with McSweeney "was a very good appointment" because "I could see right from the first day of having conversations with him how sharp a political operator he was". In a separate interview with the BBC, cabinet minister Pat McFadden also suggested for the first time the prime minister had sacked Sue Gray as his chief of her departure was announced by Downing Street in October 2024, it included a statement from Gray saying that she had "chosen to stand aside".McFadden said: "I think it's a great shame it didn't work out, but after a few months the prime minister decided it wasn't working out and made the change."He added: "One thing I think that people have learnt about Keir Starmer is if he thinks something isn't working out or is not right, he will make the necessary change."The interviews with Case and McFadden feature in Starmer's Stormy Year, a BBC Radio 4 documentary available on BBC Sounds and on Radio 4 on Monday at 11am.
Wales Online
38 minutes ago
- Wales Online
No-one to lose PIP or Universal Credit as Government gives in to rebels
No-one to lose PIP or Universal Credit as Government gives in to rebels DWP Secretary Liz Kendall said those in the system would stay in the system Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer People who currently receive the personal independence payment (PIP) will continue to do so after the Government made concessions to Labour rebels on controversial welfare reforms. A letter from Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to MPs said adjustments to universal credit would also see incomes protected. The announcement comes after crisis talks with backbenchers, with some 126 MPs within the party signing an amendment that would halt the legislation in its tracks. Sir Keir Starmer's Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill has its second reading on Tuesday, the first opportunity for MPs to support or reject it. A spokesperson for Number 10 said: 'We have listened to MPs who support the principle of reform but are worried about the pace of change for those already supported by the system. This package will preserve the social security system for those who need it by putting it on a sustainable footing, provide dignity for those unable to work, supports those who can and reduce anxiety for those currently in the system. 'Our reforms are underpinned by Labour values and our determination to deliver the change the country voted for last year.' The Government's original package restricted eligibility for the personal independence payment (PIP), the main disability payment in England, and limited the sickness-related element of universal credit. Existing claimants were to be given a 13-week phase-out period of financial support in an earlier move that was seen as a bid to head off opposition by aiming to soften the impact of the changes. In her letter, the Work and Pensions Secretary said: 'We recognise the proposed changes have been a source of uncertainty and anxiety. We will ensure that all of those currently receiving PIP will stay within the current system. The new eligibility requirements will be implemented from November 2026 for new claims only. Article continues below 'Secondly, we will adjust the pathway of Universal Credit payment rates to make sure all existing recipients of the UC health element – and any new claimant meeting the severe conditions criteria – have their incomes fully protected in real terms.' She said a ministerial review would ensure the benefit is 'fair and fit for the future' and will be a 'coproduction' with disabled people, organisations which represent them and MPs. 'These important reforms are rooted in Labour values, and we want to get them right,' she said. The change in Pip payments would protect some 370,000 existing claimants who were expected to lose out following reassessment. If the legislation clears its first hurdle on Tuesday, it will then face a few hours' examination by all MPs the following week – rather than days or weeks in front of a committee tasked with looking at the Bill. The so-called 'reasoned amendment' tabled by Treasury select committee chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier had argued that disabled people have not been properly consulted and further scrutiny of the changes is needed. She said: 'This is a good deal. It is massive changes to ensure the most vulnerable people are protected… and, crucially, involving disabled people themselves in the design of future benefit changes.' While the concessions look set to reassure some of those who had been leading the rebellion, other MPs remained opposed before the announcement. Speaking to the PA news agency before the concessions were revealed, Rachel Maskell said: 'As the Government is seeking to reform the system, they should protect all disabled people until they have completed their co-produced consultation and co-produced implementation. 'I cannot vote for something that will have such a significant impact … as disabled people are not involved, it is just a backroom deal.' One MP said that ministers would need to 'go back to the drawing board' to make the Bill acceptable. Another said they expected the legislation would get through second reading if the Government conceded the key sticking points relating to existing Pip claimants, the health element of universal credit and a policy consultation. 'It would need to be in the Bill, not just a commitment,' they said. Speaking in the Commons on Wednesday, Sir Keir told MPs he wanted the reforms to reflect 'Labour values of fairness' and that discussions about the changes would continue over the coming days. He insisted there was 'consensus across the House on the urgent need for reform' of the 'broken' welfare system. 'I know colleagues across the House are eager to start fixing that, and so am I, and that all colleagues want to get this right, and so do I,' he said. 'We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness. That conversation will continue in the coming days, so we can begin making change together on Tuesday.' There was a mixed reaction among charities to the prospect of concessions. Learning disability charity Mencap said the news would be a 'huge relief to thousands of people living in fear of what the future holds'. 'It is the right thing to do and sends a clear message – cutting disability benefits is not a fair way to mend the black hole in the public purse,' director of strategy Jackie O'Sullivan said. But the MS Society urged rebels to hold firm and block the Bill, insisting any Government offer to water down the reforms would amount to 'kicking the can down the road and delaying an inevitable disaster'. Head of campaigns at the charity, Charlotte Gill, said: 'We urge MPs not to be swayed by these last-ditch attempts to force through a harmful Bill with supposed concessions. The only way to avoid a catastrophe today and in the future is to stop the cuts altogether by halting the Bill in its tracks.' The Tories described concessions as 'the latest in a growing list of screeching U-turns' from the Government. Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: 'Under pressure from his own MPs, Starmer has made another completely unfunded spending commitment. Article continues below 'Labour's welfare chaos will cost hardworking taxpayers. We can't afford Labour.'
