April 4, 2014
01:00 GMT: American military satellites reported that bombers in western Russia were being loaded with nuclear-capable cruise missiles. These bombers were soon being tracked as they headed west towards the NATO borders.
01:20 GMT: President Putin left Moscow, to be flown aboard the presidential Ilyushin Il-96-300PU to an emergency command bunker in Siberia, built in 2003, codenamed Duchess. "I saw very little of him, until the very end," later commented his Foreign Minister.
02:30 GMT: Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ordered all of its forces to mobilise, as commanders were told to prepare for war. The Pentagon moved the United States Armed Forces to DEFCON 2. In naval bases across the US, nuclear submarines were ordered to take to the sea. Learning of the Russian mobilisation, and the American response, the rest of NATO saw no alternative but to respond in kind. As most people in Europe slept, even the reluctant governments of France and Germany accepted the inevitable, and gave the order for full scale mobilisation.
03:30 GMT: American and British submarines in the Norwegian Sea reported that Russian submarines were leaving their bases en-masse and approaching the GIUK Gap, between Iceland and the United Kingdom. The Royal Navy and United States Navy received orders from Downing Street and the White House to prevent them from entering the North Atlantic.
03:30 GMT: Last ditch attempts to reach a settlement with Russia failed. The Ambassadors of Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, and Austria arrived at the Kremlin to be told that the President was engaged. In truth, he was hundreds of miles away. The Ambassadors reported back to their home countries that, in the words of the Swedish Ambassador, “all hope is lost. It will be a cold year.”
05:40 GMT: HMS Sutherland, a Type-23 frigate of the Royal Navy, fired several warning shots from her 4.5 inch gun over the bow of the Russian destroyer Admiral Levchenko, off the northern coast of Norway. The Russian warship turned back, for the time being.
08:00 GMT: People in Europe awoke to a Friday in which the world was falling apart. In London, news outlets reported that MIM-104 Patriot missile batteries were being assembled around the city by American engineers. The same was true in major German and Polish cities. The governments urged people to continue as normal, which most did. But those who experienced April 4 remember it as carrying constant tension. Schools across Europe reported no level of pupil absences out of the ordinary, while businesses functioned as normal. Regardless, the whole world was watching, and the people of Europe knew it.
12:00 GMT: Pope Francis gave an unplanned television address which was broadcast internationally, in which he pleaded for the nations of the world “to resolve their difference with humanity.” He told his audience of approximately 200 million people that “this world has seen too much suffering for too long. For so long we have had hope that peace can stay with us forever. Let us not put out that light.” The Pope’s statements received little comment from Western governments.
14:00 GMT: Initial reports placed approximately 130,000 Russian troops either in Belarus or near the borders with Estonia and Latvia.
15:30 GMT: Air Force Global Strike Command, United States Air Force, began scrambling nuclear-armed B-52s, B-1Bs, and B-2s from airfields across the continental United States.
16:00 GMT: The United States declared its airspace off limits to any Russian aircraft. Those Americans trapped inside Russia were advised to seek help at the US Embassy in a neighbouring country. Little other advice was given.
16:35 GMT: The Estonian government evacuated from the country, flying out of Tallinn to safety in London where they would form a government in exile. The Latvian government, far more stubborn, stayed put in Riga.
16:47 GMT: Against the advice of military experts and his senior staff, Prime Minister David Cameron informed them of his intention to remain in London “for the duration.” The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, was to evacuate to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire to preserve a functioning government. The Prime Minister ordered that valuable works of art begin to be evacuated from the cities and sent to secure bunkers in Wales. In a phone conversation with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen refused advice to leave Buckingham Palace. At the time, she was being presented with a planned speech to deliver to the British people in the event of war.
17:10 GMT: President Obama arrived at the Pentagon to be briefed by the Joint Chiefs, as well as other military experts, on the situation in Europe. They calculated that an open conflict was likely to start within “several hours.”
17:25 GMT: A firefight went off between British police and several unidentified armed men in Croydon, South London. The men were heavily armed with modern Russian weaponry and had been heading towards Whitehall before being intercepted. Seven officers were killed before the five men were brought down. Shortly after, police officers found themselves quickly sent away as the Secret Intelligence Service arrived on the scene.
17:35 GMT: The Federal Bureau of Investigation, acting in coordination with state police, began making several dozen arrests across the United States of known Russian agents in the country, their identities previously having been at the top level of CIA secrecy.
17:56 GMT: As President Obama left the Pentagon, he was fired upon by an unseen sniper. The sniper fired three rounds, all of which missed the President. One struck and killed Secret Service agent Thomas Wilson, a second struck White House Director of Communications and Assistant to the President Jennifer Palmieri in the left shoulder, severing her arm. The third harmlessly struck a wall. The President was swiftly evacuated in Cadillac One, heading to the White House. The perpetrator of the shooting was killed by Secret Service agents returning fire. The President would later face relentless criticism for holding the meeting in the Pentagon, rather than the White House where it was safer for him. He would justify his actions, claiming that it was far better for him to visit the Pentagon than for the heads of the military to be dragged away from their jobs at such a critical moment.
17:58 GMT: 32 Tu-95 bombers flying over Belarus and the Black Sea released their payloads; Kh-55SMs roared from their missile bays and headed towards multiple targets. They were immediately spotted. The Department of Defense ordered all forces worldwide to DEFCON 1.
18:00 GMT: A BBC News report included an interview with a Russian dissenter in Moscow, who made contact via Skype. At one point, the dissenter broke off the interview to look out of the window, as the feed began to turn to static. The last audible words to be heard before the feed was cut by Russian jamming was “The lights… the lights are all going out.”
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Peer one level conventional Warfare in Europe, the nightmare of generations is nigh upon us...