Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[magnkarl]

Nothing to see here..

 

[villa89]

4 hours ago, Genie said:

There can’t be many businesses on earth that could sustain £5-6 billion losses per year. 

Thats losing about £16.5m per day.

It's not really a business in the true sense of the word though. Its a semi state company and is an arm of the Russian government. It will be interesting to see how it plays out but my guess is that they will just keep selling the gas at a cut price rate as the Russian government needs the income. 

[tinker]

10 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

What's considerably more difficult is placing a fully functioning nuke on a ICBM, preparing the ICBM to fire, issuing the order to fire, firing before it's hit by conventional weapons, avoiding interception, reaching the target, detonating the weapon and THEN avoiding total annihilation.  

Russia making threats with nukes is as credible as a man sitting in a bath filled with petrol,  holding a carton of damp matches and then threatening to light one.  

 

I think your underestimating just how difficult it is to get a rocket out of our atmosphere and then dock it to a space station flying around the earth at 20,000 mph all with astronauts on board, some of them US citizens.....

Russia has Nukes and some of them are deliverable, the problem with stopping ballistic ones is speed and picking who's country are you going to shoot it down over? 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

22 minutes ago, tinker said:

I think your underestimating just how difficult it is to get a rocket out of our atmosphere and then dock it to a space station flying around the earth at 20,000 mph all with astronauts on board, some of them US citizens.....

Russia has Nukes and some of them are deliverable, the problem with stopping ballistic ones is speed and picking who's country are you going to shoot it down over? 

I don’t underestimate that at all.  

But you overestimate just how easy it is to deliver a viable nuke on target whilst also avoiding your own annihilation.  

Russia using nukes over Ukraine is simply preposterous.  It's akin to the UK using nuclear strikes rather than lose the Isle of Wight. 

 

[tinker]

55 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

I don’t underestimate that at all.  

But you overestimate just how easy it is to deliver a viable nuke on target whilst also avoiding your own annihilation.  

Russia using nukes over Ukraine is simply preposterous.  It's akin to the UK using nuclear strikes rather than lose the Isle of Wight. 

 

I was responding to a poster who was arguing that a strike by NATO on Russia would be a one way battle  and gave the impression there would be no risk to NATO. Which is clearly wrong and completely ridiculous given the fact Russia is a nuclear power and has undoubtedly got the ability to launch nuclear missiles, from land, sea and air.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

1 hour ago, tinker said:

I was responding to a poster who was arguing that a strike by NATO on Russia would be a one way battle  and gave the impression there would be no risk to NATO. Which is clearly wrong and completely ridiculous given the fact Russia is a nuclear power and has undoubtedly got the ability to launch nuclear missiles, from land, sea and air.

NATO has no reason to invade Russia.  Eradicating their military power would be easily achieved, 

Russia has absolutely reason to use nukes against NATO.  Its threats are to manipulate public support in both Europe and Russia.  

Nearly 3 years ago Putin promised that any country that interfered with the SMO would see a retaliation unseen in history. 

Since then NATO has provided planes, tanks, missiles, ammunition, training,   intelligence and much more. That's lead to the deaths of over 100,000 Russians.  

That's how meaningless their threat is. 

[tinker]

On 03/10/2024 at 16:50, Mandy Lifeboats said:

1. NATO is the largest and strongest military alliance in history.  It's larger and much better armed than Russia. 

2. Outside NATO there are several powerful countries (Australia, South Korea, Japan) which are aligned with NATO. 

3. Russia surrounded Ukraine on 3 sides. It had a much larger and better armed army.  Nearly 3 years later Russia has lost most of its professional soldiers, most of the Black Dea fleet, all of its Soviet era reserve stock, and half of its early warning patrol planes.  Russia has been invaded and they only hold a minority of eastern Ukraine.   That suggests they aren't a particularly good military. 

4. Russia is surrounded on all sides by NATO. 

5. The major Russian military base in Sevastopol has been eliminated and is virtually inoperable. 

6. The major Russian military base in St Petersburg is now within artillery range of NATO from 2 directions. 

7. The major Russian military base in Murmansk is supplied by a single road and railway which runs for hundreds of miles along Finland's border.  It runs through mountains and forests. It's undefended. 

8. Maintaining nukes take massive amounts of money.  Without massive amounts spent on them they are most likely inoperable.  Russia has little money to spend in this area.  

9. The latest Russian ICBM has proved disastrous. Most of the developers have been arrested for corruption.  It recently exploded without leaving the launch pad. 

10.  The ruble is effectively worthless against dollars , pounds and euros.  The ruble is devaluing against the yuan every day.  Russia's only real payment options are gas and oil.  Neither are easy to export during a war. 

11. Thousands of young Russians have fled the country.  Thousands more would leave at the first sign of NATO involvement. 

12. Decades of oppression in Poland and the Baltic States has left Russia with some very motivated neighbours. 

13. Finland has been preparing for a war against Russia for 80 years.  

Other than that...........Russia are in great shape. 

 

I'm a little confused as this was you posting, wasn't it? It does sort of point to how weak Russia is (their not weak from a nuclear capacity) and how strong NATO is in comparison.

If it did escalate via NATO and a Nuke was launched by Russia on say London, from a sub, are we sure that the USA would go all out, with Trump as the president? I'm not sure at all, we could launch our own strikes but would be at risk of becoming the sole target of Russia's nuclear arsenal, which is far larger than ours. Would France come to our aid? I'm not so sure.

As Tyson said, everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face.

Basically I don't trust Putin to care about Russians being wiped out and I wouldn't trust Trump to help us by launching Nukes against Russia if Putin did take a chance, what's he got to lose? 

[magnkarl]

5 hours ago, tinker said:

I'm a little confused as this was you posting, wasn't it? It does sort of point to how weak Russia is (their not weak from a nuclear capacity) and how strong NATO is in comparison.

If it did escalate via NATO and a Nuke was launched by Russia on say London, from a sub, are we sure that the USA would go all out, with Trump as the president? I'm not sure at all, we could launch our own strikes but would be at risk of becoming the sole target of Russia's nuclear arsenal, which is far larger than ours. Would France come to our aid? I'm not so sure.

As Tyson said, everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face.

Basically I don't trust Putin to care about Russians being wiped out and I wouldn't trust Trump to help us by launching Nukes against Russia if Putin did take a chance, what's he got to lose? 

China has it in their constitution to reciprocate any nuke fired by declaring war.

Putin isn’t going to risk war with China and India. Talk of Putin using nukes is just Russian propaganda. It won’t happen.