Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[Jareth]

14 minutes ago, maqroll said:

900 bodies discovered near Kyiv. These are WW2 numbers, this is an historic war.

But Germany will enter a recession. **** the **** off, the decadent words removed. 

[Kingman]

Daily Reminder!.. The Chances of the Moskva getting towed by a Ukrainian in a John Deer are low but Never Zero!..

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

10 hours ago, KentVillan said:

One thing I do worry about is the tendency to want to humiliate Russia.

Its not just about Russia.  Unfortunately it's not just them,  China would have conceivably gone for Taiwan at some point but the canary in a cage that is Putin has nicely shown what happens to an economy such as Russia's.  I suspect China will not do it now.  

As for Russia,  hurt them so bad they re asses or they will do it again.  They are just child killers to the outside world and should be treated as such as a warning to others.  They are crying becasue of all the high tech weapons' being supplied to Ukraine,  they could just turn around but its their mindset we need to change.  Its a fork in the road for them (Russia),  keep it up for a few years and the world might just need to get rid as there might be no other option.  We don't know 80 % of what they have been up to in Ukraine,  I believe they have a lot lower to go yet.

[Genie]

The whole Moskva thing was weird.

Ukraine: We just blew up the Moskva

Russia: It was a fire onboard, nobody blew it up, and it’s still floating.

Russia: ok it sunk, but it wasn’t by Ukraine.

Russia: fires missiles into Kyiv and warns them against doing anything like “not” sinking their ships again.

Ukraine: Don’t look at us, we didn’t fire missiles at your boat.

 

[Hobsons Choice]

Anyone else have a horrible feeling that Russia is going to nuke Kyiv?

[sidcow]

6 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Anyone else have a horrible feeling that Russia is going to nuke Kyiv?

I'm starting to worry about that. They're looking more and more like a cornered rabid dog. 

[Genie]

11 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Anyone else have a horrible feeling that Russia is going to nuke Kyiv?

I still think it’s unlikely. I don’t think you announce it if really serious about it. They know if they do then Moscow will be wiped off the map also. 

[Hobsons Choice]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

I still think it’s unlikely. I don’t think you announce it if really serious about it. They know if they do then Moscow will be wiped off the map also. 

Hope you are right. Would they be subject to nuclear retaliation though? That would happen if it was Nato, but I still think the west would stop short of full nuclear release. And I think Putin believes that also.

[Mr_Dogg]

11 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Didn't realise Ukraine used to have around 800 Nukes. Unfortunately they agreed to dismantled and get rid of them in an agreement to become an independent state in the Yeltsin era.

The Soviet Union split up and they happened to have been keeping 800 nukes in Ukraine. So they had them but they hadn't independently developed them or even want them.

[Genie]

1 hour ago, HKP90 said:

Hope you are right. Would they be subject to nuclear retaliation though? That would happen if it was Nato, but I still think the west would stop short of full nuclear release. And I think Putin believes that also.

I think NATO can and will act on the basis that Russia are a threat to their members even though not attacking them directly, yet.

If Russia nuke Ukraine then all bets are off on what they do next. NATO act before they are hit imo.

Saying that, Russia are trying to play happy families at home. I don’t think they would do something that sees Moscow bombed. I think they’d scurry back saying their special operation was a complete success rather than instigate a reaction from NATO.

Edited April 16, 2022 by Genie

[bickster]

Russia has banned Boris Johnson and other UK government ministers from entering Russia

We should reciprocate and ban Boris Johnson and various government ministers from the UK

[Sam-AVFC]

Thankfully firing a nuke requires more than one lunatic to go along with it. Despite the ailing human condition, I have some hope there would be at least one person smart enough to not want to trigger the end of the world. This goes for any country with nukes.

[sidcow]

18 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Thankfully firing a nuke requires more than one lunatic to go along with it. Despite the ailing human condition, I have some hope there would be at least one person smart enough to not want to trigger the end of the world. This goes for any country with nukes.

I'm not sure about Russia. People just do what they're told,  no questioning. 

And I think if anyone was of a mind to stop Putins madness, they would have done it by now. 

[foreveryoung]

You can rule Nukes out, won't happen, they are doing there job as it is.

Putin has proved he is happy doing what he is doing with no Nato, intervention. He knows as soon as he sends one of the big ones over, the B2s will be over the Kremlin.

[Chindie]

12 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Didn't realise Ukraine used to have around 800 Nukes. Unfortunately they agreed to dismantled and get rid of them in an agreement to become an independent state in the Yeltsin era.

They had someone else's nuclear weapons on their territory that they had no control or capacity to operate or maintain themselves. That's a very different situation to actually 'having' nukes. They couldn't use them, they were operated by Russians. And nuclear weapons require specific maintenance and materials to remain operational - they have parts that expire, degrade, etc and require specific expertise and expensive, rare and complex to manufacture materials to keep usable.

The Americans have nukes in various countries at the moment. If the US stopped existing tomorrow, that wouldn't mean that those countries with American nukes in their territory were now nuclear powered states.

Ukraine didn't have nukes - at most they had some useless to them bargaining chips.

[foreveryoung]

2 minutes ago, Chindie said:

They had someone else's nuclear weapons on their territory that they had no control or capacity to operate or maintain themselves. That's a very different situation to actually 'having' nukes. They couldn't use them, they were operated by Russians. And nuclear weapons require specific maintenance and materials to remain operational - they have parts that expire, degrade, etc and require specific expertise and expensive, rare and complex to manufacture materials to keep usable.

The Americans have nukes in various countries at the moment. If the US stopped existing tomorrow, that wouldn't mean that those countries with American nukes in their territory were now nuclear powered states.

Ukraine didn't have nukes - at most they had some useless to them bargaining chips.

This is another reason I believe Russia would not launch Nukes. I'd  be shocked if any of them are actually operational.

[sidcow]

42 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

This is another reason I believe Russia would not launch Nukes. I'd  be shocked if any of them are actually operational.

I wouldn't go as far as that but i would bet quite a few would fail and they probably have less than claimed. But I would be absolutely shocked if none of them were operational. 

[Anthony]

6 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I wouldn't go as far as that but i would bet quite a few would fail and they probably have less than claimed. But I would be absolutely shocked if none of them were operational. 

Agree. Do they have 800 nukes? I really **** doubt it. Even if they have just ten, that's enough for horrific results.

[Awol]

2 hours ago, sidcow said:

I'm not sure about Russia. People just do what they're told,  no questioning. 

And I think if anyone was of a mind to stop Putins madness, they would have done it by now. 

Stanislav Petrov, the hero we never knew we needed. It’s OT so won’t nukesplain but here’s a link:  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Quote

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́в; 7 September 1939 – 19 May 2017) was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.[1] On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm.[2] His subsequent decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[3] is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in a large-scale nuclear war which could have wiped out half of the population of the countries involved. An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. Because of his decision not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike amid this incident, Petrov is often credited as having "saved the world"

 

[Awol]

13 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I wouldn't go as far as that but i would bet quite a few would fail and they probably have less than claimed. But I would be absolutely shocked if none of them were operational. 

Russia’s short range nuke Arsenal is extensive and modern. They’ve even got them in Kaliningrad so can reach most of Poland and a lot of Germany. It’s called the Iskander-M, NATO designation ‘SS-26 Stone’ if anyone want to check it out.