Russia and the former USSR - 1960's onwards - Weather Modification
#9 - A summary of Russian and former USSR weather modification activity
Russian Federation / the former USSR
1960's
In 2006 the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) published its Weather Modification register (linked below) for that year, which is now deleted from its public website along with most of its weather modification data. The Russian Federation responded to the request for information in 2006 via Dr. Valery Stasenko at the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring which is based in Novovagan'kovsky Lane, Moscow and Dr. Valery Tapaskhanov from the High Mountain Geophysical Institute based in Lenin Avenue, Nalchik. The data published states that in 1960, hail suppression projects became operational.
In September 1969, Herbert S Appleman published a paper via the Air Weather Service of the USAF. "Large-scale hail-suppression efforts have been carried out for a number of years in Russia, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and smaller efforts in the United States and other countries. Results are contradictory. The Russian tests appear most promising, but it is generally agreed that further testing under scientifically controlled conditions is necessary before their conclusions can be accepted."
1980's
The WMO 2006 weather modification register also states that in 1986, precipitation redistribution, precipitation enhancement projects became operational. Aircraft and 'rockets' are used to deploy cloud seeding materials. The weather modification season starts in April and ends in October. Weather modification is also used for fog dispersal.
2008
In June 2008, Ian O'Neill published an article on the 'Universe Today' website which covers space and astronomy news and was originally sourced via ‘Reuters’. Titled "When Cloud Seeding Goes Wrong: Cement chunk falls from the sky", the article could very well contain dis-information as during 40 years of subject research I have never heard of 'cement' being used in weather modification activities. It could possibly be true that cement was used but it is unlikely. The Reuters article and O'Neill in his article states that "Russian air force planes dropped a 25-kg (55-lb) sack of cement on a suburban Moscow home last week while seeding clouds to prevent rain from spoiling a holiday, Russian media said on Tuesday. A pack of cement used in creating good weather in the capital region failed to pulverise completely at high altitude and fell on the roof of a house, making a hole about 80-100 cm (2.5-3 ft), police in Naro-Fominsk told agency RIA-Novosti."
Everybody on the planet knows that if you add moisture (water) to cement it solidifies so the likelihood of dispersing it out of an aeroplane is small as it would not serve its intended purpose of creating nuclei to provide a foundational structure for water droplets to form onto. The article states further that "Ahead of major public holidays the Russian Air Force often dispatches up to 12 cargo planes carrying loads of silver iodide, liquid nitrogen and cement powder to seed clouds above Moscow and empty the skies of moisture." Which is not how weather modification works. If you want to empty the skies above Moscow of moisture then you seed an area nearby which then attracts the atmospheric moisture to that area, there-by removing (redistributing) moisture from one area to another. In this case the target area would be surrounding Moscow and atmospheric moisture would be attracted away from the Moscow area and would fall as rain due to moisture accumulation in area's outside of Moscow. The capital city covers an urban area of about 5000 square kilometres (2200 square miles) and has a population in both urban and metropolitan areas combined of over 30 million people so it is not that hard to work out that 25kg of cement being 'dropped' from an aeroplane over the area would have no purpose in weather modification activity. Silver iodide however, flared off during kilometres of flight and creating millions of particulates to act as rain drop nuclei would serve the purpose.
The Reuters article states, regarding the clumped cement damage that "The homeowner was not injured, but refused an offer of 50,000 roubles (1,050 pounds) from the air force, saying she would sue for damages and compensation for moral suffering." You would think a Reuters correspondent would know where the '£' sign is on their keyboard and it would be handy to know if that is British pounds or Egyptian, Lebanese, Sudanese or Syrian pounds?
2009
In December 2009 the 'LA Times' published an article containing various statements without providing any source material for their claims. Anti Russia bias (the same applies to China's activity) is to be expected in western media and dramatical wording to show how 'bad' Russia is, is also to be expected, whilst at the same time western media covers western weather modification activity as if they are 'saving the world from an extinction level event'. Russia uses weather modification rarely and its operations were started decades after European and American operations. The LA Times article states "scientists are decades deep into research on bending the weather to their will", which is an established fact. "They’ve been at it since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin paused long enough in the throes of World War II to found an observatory dedicated to tampering with climatic inconveniences", which implies the 1940's. There is no evidence or source provided to back up that claim.
"Since then, they’ve melted away fog, dissipated the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl and called down rains fierce enough to drown unborn locusts threatening the distant north-eastern grasslands." Fog dissipation started in the 1960's, Chernobyl was in the 1980's so there is clearly no evidence of operations starting in the 1940's. Whether you agree with weather modification activity or not (I don't), using the technology to deal with radioactive fall out from a nuclear meltdown can hardly be described as a 'climatic inconvenience'. It's worth noting that California, where the LA Times is based, has had an active, yearly, weather modification programme since the late 1940's and early 1950's and their activity of redistributing atmospheric moisture for profit based hydro electric power generation has created extreme drought in area's which in the 21st century are burning. Have you ever heard of California using weather modification to put out those fires? No, you haven't, because they don't do it for that reason, they let the area's burn and peoples lives are lost and their property is destroyed. California's weather modification activity is never used for 'climatic inconveniences', it is used to create increased water/snow melt run-off to 'fuel' profit making hydro electric power stations, most notably done, in modern times, by the Northern California Power Agency.
The LA Times article continues, commenting on the proposed use of cloud seeding to minimise snowfall in Moscow, "The proposal has sent a shudder through Moscow just as the first dark, snowy days have fallen on the capital. It has also piqued the surrounding region, which would receive the brunt of the displaced snowfall, and has raised concerns among ecologists." This statement confirms that if you want to modify the weather over Moscow then you carry out operations over the 'surrounding region', you don't dump a 25kg bag of cement over Moscow. If ecologists are 'concerned' with Russian activity in 2009 then they also must be horrified and completely freaking out about western activity that stepped up its hail suppression operations in the early 1900's to protect wine makers crops.
There are quotes in the article allegedly made by Russian's regarding weather modification activities carried out for 'Victory Day' celebrations. There is a constant clear usage of quotation marks in the article, except when cement enters the 'statements' -- All it takes, he says, is sacks of cement, 500-grade, to be precise. Drop the powder down into the clouds, and they vanish. -- This statement does not appear with quotation marks and is in a stand-alone paragraph.
One paragraph stands out the most in this article "In much of the world, weather and cloud research is focused on preventing hailstorms, tornadoes, droughts and the like. Not that Russia is the only country that has used it to ensure sunny public holidays. In Beijing, clouds have been chased away from the Olympic ceremonies and other celebrations." Russia and China are the only countries mentioned in this article. Note, in reference to the rest of the world the dis-information statement that it is "weather and cloud research" and it is not termed correctly as weather modification activity. The rhetoric is clear, Russia and China use weather modification for party days and the rest of the world use it to save the world from ELE's. No mention of western profit forcing or alcohol production.
2010
Enter, the UK's military propaganda outlet, the BBC. The BBC was created as a military intelligence operation to deliver coded messages to troops and propaganda to its adversaries via its World Service 'shipping forecast' and other programmes during the 2nd World War. It is funded to this day by an enforced 'license fee' payment, where anyone in the UK wishing to watch live tv broadcasts has to pay approximately £150- a year. People aged 75 years and older do not have to pay. The UK is the only country in the world that forces citizens to buy a license to watch television. No training is given to receive the license, you just buy one. Licenses always require training. Citizens in countries that show BBC programming do not have to pay and are not required to have a license to watch the programmes. The UK has never exited warfare since the 2nd World War, it is currently at war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel and in eastern Europe on behalf of Ukraine as per 2024.
The UK's 'Oliver's Travels', a luxury firm based in Clapham, London offers 'blue sky' cloud seeding for events such as outdoor parties and weddings in the UK with a price tag of approximately US$ 100,000-. Something that is clearly only affordable and requested by pompous rich people.
In March 2010 the BBC published an article titled "Russian appeal of weather control". The article states "These seeded clouds never make it to Moscow, where millions are enjoying a nice sunny holiday or where guests might be dancing at a wedding under the clear blue sky. - Some might think that controlling the weather sounds a bit like science fiction." If you haven't read the summary published on this substack about the UK's weather modification activities since the 1940's then it is worth reading so a clear comparison can be made between what the BBC is saying and what the UK has been doing.
The 'USA Today' news outlet has been shown recently to publish false information via its 'fact-checking' service in regard to Ionospheric Heaters / Cloud Ionization Technology being used in Brazil. In October 2010 an article was published by the USA Today outlet via an Associated Press (AP) article. "Russia to seed clouds at 2014 Winter Olympics." The article states that clouds will be dispersed to avoid problems such as those experienced by Canada's winter olympics in Vancouver in 2010. No evidence, in 2014, was provided to confirm this activity had taken place. The AP article states that in Vancouver there was a problem due to warm weather and a lack of snow. Common sense tells you that if Russia dispersed clouds there would be no snow clouds available and due to sunshine, snow would melt due to the warmer weather which equates to the same issues as Vancouver had. The contradictory statements by the AP does not make sense. There is no mention of Canada's weather modification activity in the AP article. It is known that Canada had already started its weather modification activities by 1954 due to the statement by H.W.L. Absalom in the paper titled "Artificial production of precipitation" for the UK's Air Ministry (MOD) "Some reports of cloud-seeding in other countries are available (e.g., Canada , France, India, Israel, South Africa and United Kingdom), but are not considered to contain information which adds materially to that given in this memorandum." For those of you that are not familiar with Canada's programme, it is done mainly for hail suppression in the central/eastern area of Canada to circumvent insurance claims for hail damage. It is funded mostly by private insurance companies to mitigate claims. You are witnessing the consequences of Canada's atmospheric moisture redistribution programme in current times with the extreme fires in Western Canada.
2012
The World Meteorological Office (WMO) has removed many of its articles and information in relation to weather modification activities preferring to keep the subject obscured by only having a few remaining pages on its public website. The WMO claims "The page you’re searching for no longer exists; it has been moved, or the link is broken. - Please note that the WMO public website was relaunched in November 2023. Some pages may no longer exist. We apologize for the inconvenience." That is a lie, the WMO removed pages well before November 2023. If you are seeking WMO deleted pages use the Internet Archive, aka, The Way Back Machine. Re-Launching the site is an excuse for deleting evidential data.
A WMO, now deleted, academic paper from 2012, titled "25 Years of cloud seeding activity to modify weather conditions in cities" written by Koloskov, B.P., Korneev V.P., Beryulev G.P., Danelyan B.G. and Stasenko V.N. from the Agency of Atmospheric Technologies (Agency ATTEX, ROSHYDROMET) and the Central Aerological Observatory (CAO) states "During the last twenty to thirty years considerable work has been done in Russia on the development of methods and technical means to dissipate some forms of clouds and preventing or substantially reducing precipitation amount over protected areas. The practical objectives of cloud seeding activity were to reduce municipal expenses for snow removal and clearing the roads and streets in large cities, to create favourable meteorological conditions for carrying out social programs, sporting competitions or some other situations when the necessity may arise to reduce the rainfall. The first experiment on practical application of these opportunities was carried out to mitigate the consequences of Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (Beriulev et al. 1990). Since 1995 the organizations of ROSHYDROMET conducted more than 40 experimental projects on improvement of weather conditions in areas of the large cities – Moscow and St.Petersburg (Russia), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Astana (Kazakhstan) (Bedritsky et al., 1996, Belyaev et al., 1996, Korneev et al., 2003, Koloskov et al., 2007). The main purpose of these activities was the dispersal of clouds and reduction or prevention of precipitation over the protected areas."
2014
Try this experiment, take a shower and bring a bowl of cement powder into the shower with you, throw the cement into the air inside the shower, see what happens. During that experiment, picture Russian scientists crying with laughter, then afterwards write an essay on your results and the effects of propaganda on people who do not have critical thinking skills.
The Moscow Times reported in April 2014 stating that authorities could resort to cloud seeding to ensure blue skies for the May 9th Victory Day celebrations. Silver Iodide, Liquid Nitrogen 'or' cement particles can be released from planes into clouds, causing water molecules to 'coagulate' and release their precipitation before they reach Moscow. Coagulation means 'clumping together'. Rain does not work like that, they are individual droplets, hail and snow are individual frozen droplets. Hail can be huge in size due to increased frozen moisture attaching itself to the nuclei. Coagulated cement does not look like hail, it looks and behaves like cement. Have you ever seen melted hail that leaves lumps of solid cement on the pavement? No, you haven't.
2017
The Associated Press (AP) returns on the 9th of May with an article titled "Russia's anti-cloud program defeated on.." Keep in mind the 2008 Reuters article where it states the clouds 'over' Moscow are seeded. The AP article states "Sputnik (news-agency) says the technique involves specially equipped planes spraying dry ice and other reagents on clouds away from the area where clear skies are desired."
Let's now do another experiment, put cement powder into a 'spray' bottle and spray it out, what happens?
2019
UK readers of this article won't be able to access the linked youtube video as RT News is censored, banned and blocked in the UK, you'll need to use a VPN and set your server to a country that doesn't block Russian news outlets from being viewed by its citizens.
The video published by RT News on August 2019 shows a cloud seeding aeroplane that is used to "combat ravaging forest fires in Siberia."
2020
The western media rhetoric changes in 2020 by no longer stating it is 'Russia' carrying out cloud seeding, it is now 'Putin' clearing the skies. 'The Australian' news outlet (search: 'Putin shows off new weapons at Victory Day parade') claimed the cloud seeding for victory day cost $2.3 million. Even if that is Australian dollars that would still equate to approximately US$ 1 million. So 1 days worth of Russian weather modification costs a million US dollars, yet a million US dollars worth of weather modification in the USA would get you about 2 months worth of weather modification. There is something suspiciously propaganderist about the Australian statement.
The UK's 'Times' news outlet reported on the 24th of June 2020 (nearly 7 weeks after the event from the 9th of May) that "Putin clears the skies to bask in Victory Parade." So to be clear, according to the Times, the weather modification is being carried out for 'Putin' to bask in sunshine and its no longer for the actual Victory Day celebration.
On the 26th of June the 'Engineering & Technology' (E&T) news outlet ramps up the rhetoric by claiming the Victory Parade is "largely perceived in the West as another blatant gesture of sabre-rattling", when in fact it has been celebrated since 1945 to recognise the end of the 2nd World War and the defeat of the Nazi Reich. Maybe we should consider then, that western 'air-shows' that showcase military aircraft and weapons conventions that showcase military tech are also 'sabre-rattling' displays, but by the West and not the East. The E&T article goes further by stating that Victory Day weather modification activities are over-riding what "God or Nature" intended, which makes you wonder how E&T feels about the much older weather modification activities in the USA and elsewhere, which would also then, go against what God or Nature intended. The article states further the Victory Day celebrations are a "megalomaniacal display of military strength", which we know the USA would never do as proven by the WMD that was found in Iraq proving the USA and UK military does not carry out illegal wars, based on false intelligence community claims, in which innocent women, men and children die and are then classed as collateral damage.
On the 10th of July the UK's 'Daily Mail' news outlet reported that "Russia is seeding clouds in Siberia to fight wildfires that have been burning across the country for weeks, reducing them to 1/3rd of their size." which should be compared to Canada's cloud seeding programme to mitigate insurance claims which is causing wild fires in western Canada due to drying out the forests and American cloud seeding programmes, for profit making hydro power schemes, that are causing drought and forest fires in the Western USA area's.
The 'MSN' site published a 'News 18' article on the 10th of July, also covering the forest fires and the cloud seeding being done to deal with it, but that article has since been deleted from its website.
On the 26th of September the 'Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty' Ukrainian Service, published an article titled, "Cloud Seeding in Crimea precipitates environmental concerns". 10 out of 10 for the precipitation pun, but you do have to wonder what the Ukrainian RFE Service thinks about Western weather modification activity, such as the programmes in the Alpine region of Europe to mitigate hail damage to wine crops used in alcohol production. Do they have any environmental concerns about that? Is the Crimean drought natural drought or has it been caused by Western weather modification activity carried out as a means to provide a 'blue sky' clear view over the battlefield causing Russia to mitigate the consequences of the atmospheric moisture redistribution by utilising cloud seeding to return atmospheric moisture to the area? It is well known that weather modification is banned for use in military activities by a UN Charter, but so are illegal wars based on false WMD claims and that didn't stop anyone from doing it did it? UN Charters are not stopping the genocide of Palestinians are they? How are UN Charters working out in the Sudan?
*I would like to thank my colleague 'Rush Anbott' for their help in disseminating the propaganda from the facts in writing this article*
Source
WMO 2006 weather modification register
https://antiweathermodification.weebly.com/russia.html
1969
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0696619.pdf
2008
https://www.universetoday.com/15189/when-cloud-seeding-goes-wrong-cement-chunk-falls-from-the-sky/
https://www.reuters.com/article/2008/06/17/us-russia-weather-idUSL1760049120080617
2009
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-dec-08-la-fg-moscow-snow8-2009dec08-story.html
2010
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8587725.stm
https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/research/2010-06-10-russia-cloud-seeding-olympics_N.htm
2012
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/documents/OBS.Koloskov_Russia.pdf
2014
2017
https://apnews.com/8c9d2e8d3d8e46f9a78cdede88f229f2
2019 - banned in the UK
. you tube . com / watch ? v = OojGojlUGV8
2020
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/06/best-of-the-weeks-news-260620/
deleted page - https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/russia-seeding-clouds-to-bring-rain-to-contain-devastating-wildfires-in-siberia/ar-BB16zYt4
https://www.rferl.org/a/cloud-seeding-in-crimea-precipitates-environmental-concerns/30857666.html
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