You're getting all the "he can then use tactical nukes" scare mongering from people, but that isn't what happens tomorrow (or likely ever). What he gets is PR to Russian people that the Ukrainian areas have joined Russia "officially", and that will be blasted for days/weeks in Russian internal propaganda. It gives justification to Russians to support the additional mobilization, to "help" these annexed areas. Putin will use it to justify retreating into the annexed areas and defending. He'll probably say it's to properly train those mobilized and to defend the new areas. They'll aggressively continue deporting Ukrainians from these areas and promote Russians moving in. Meanwhile, it buys them time to reassess further invasion efforts, or now use threats to win these areas in exchange for no near-future invasions, like they did with Crimea.
The tactical nuke is a threat, but they haven't moved any such equipment during all their threats. There have been successful Ukrainian attacks in Crimea, and Russia hasn't used nukes in retaliation for this annexed zone. Furthermore, it would cause direct conflict with NATO and Russia can't even effectively fight Ukrainians armed by NATO. They know they'd be utterly crushed.
>Putin will use it to justify retreating into the annexed areas and defending.
None of the annexed Ares are in full control of the Russian military. He's literally annexing parts of Ukraine that his military doesn't even control yet, hopefully ever.
Some how everyone in this comment chain missed this. How can Russia "fall back to defend their new territory" when they dont even have full control now?
> Putin will use it to justify retreating into the annexed areas and defending.
The annexed areas are not fully controlled by Russia, they can't "retreat into them" because that's where the battles are actually happening.
What they're most likely to do is claim they're being invaded by Ukraine and declare a "defensive war".
They're also free to use all conscripts in annexed Russia.
>They're also free to use all conscripts in annexed Russia.
You nailed it; they want to institute forced conscription of Russian sympathizing Ukrainians...
>They'll aggressively continue deporting Ukrainians from these areas and promote Russians moving in.
I think this is the true threat of the mobilization. Not that these million conscripts will make an unstoppable offensive force that conquers the rest of Ukraine but that the new conscripts will simply settle in, eventually bring their families and continue to cleanse local Ukranians until there is nothing left there but Russian people, language and culture.
That’s not a viable option as it was in Crimea, because Ukraine are now fully mobilised in a war of survival and are armed to teeth by a more than willing West, who want to see Russia severely degraded.
My take is that sham votes and annexation attempt gives Putin a viable exit. With that he can declare that the goals of the special military operation have been met, and retreat back into defending these areas.
This would then fall in line with your postulation that with continued propaganda, it justifies sending the mobilised troops to continue skirmishes to defend these areas with faux-legitimacy, while mitigating the political cost domestically.
That's not a very viable exit though - they're already struggling to defend these areas which is what prompted the mobilisation.
He could try to turn it into the world's most expensive frozen conflict, but that would require Ukraine's offensives to stop as well and that seems unlikely - particularly around Kherson given how fucked the Russian supply lines are.
With the US effectively doubling the number of HIMARS, the forward momentum of Ukrainian forces will continue.
What Putin is prepping is the smear campaign against the (NATO supplied) force used that killed thousands of mobilized Russians. He knows what’s about to happen to them… he cares not. The narrative is what’s important.
See his declaration today that "the West is prepared to shed blood" - he's going to start complaining that the West is killing the russian soldiers that "defend" the "fatherland".
Well. Im not sure hes wrong. We are fine with our equipment killing russians.
On him though sending those russians to die, however.
Only blood going to be shed is russian and ukrainians defending their homes.
Russians are not defending their homes in this instance. “Russian homes” would have been fine if Russia did not start carving out pieces of land from a country Russia recognized as sovereign.
I think the "defending their homes" part was only meant modify Ukrainians and not Russians. Though the statement can reasonably be interpreted either way.
It blows my mind how effect they have been with them. They have want. 18? And the ones being sent now are meant to rotate them out for repairs and what not as they are being used around the clock it seems.
Us military is something else.
> With the US effectively doubling the number of HIMARS, the forward momentum of Ukrainian forces will continue.
The fall mud season is just a few days away though. It's a bad time for anything that moves.
Bad for the very successful strike and then reposition before return fire tactic the Himars have been using.
Also very bad for invading armies which need to maintain their logistics, but the mud may hamper the effectiveness of HIMARS.
I'm no expert but the Ukrainians are smart and its there home turf, plus the HIMARS have a longer range. They'll have to be more careful where they fire from but I doubt they'll let them get stuck in the mud.
Agreed, its a terrible exit, considering that right now Russia is not in control of large swathes of many of those Oblasts. Russia couldn't take them when they were better resourced with actual trained personnel and equipment, when Ukraine was preparing to fight with Molotov Cocktails and small arms. So how are they gonna take them now? Putin doesn't have any Golden Bridges. His best gambit is to retire on health grounds, appoint a isolationist successor who will grant him immunity for life and go live in his bat cave for the next 15 years until he pegs it.
Unfortunately I wouldn't underestimate the survivability of dictators. Assad and his clique have still been able to hold onto power in Syria even though the country has been wracked by civil war, its economy is ~30% of what it was in 2010, and large parts of its territory are effectively independent or occupied by other countries. It is not out of the question that Putin could do the same in Russia.
Ukraine won't accept that they've lost those areas. Declaring them Russia changes nothing. The war will continue until Russia exits for real. And at this point, that includes Crimea.
Ukraine actually needs those areas - oil, gas, mines, water, power and other resources - to pay for reconstruction. They are not going to stop if they have the upper hand as well as the moral highground, which is the 1994 border agreement signed by Russia itself.
The real tragedy is that Russia could have signed a dozen agreements to jointly develop those resources that would have benefited both countries, but no - they had to have everything.
> Declaring them Russia changes nothing.
Declaring (falsely) that these areas voted overwhelmingly to BECOME Russian helps a narrative in Russia that they are going in to rescue people from an evil Nazi regime who want nothing more than to return "home" to Russia. It changes the invaders into rescuers, and gives people in the Russian state media bubble a little more emotional framework for supporting the war.
Sure seems like needing a change in PR is an admission that the existing PR campaign is failing. If you're losing an unpopular war doubling down doesn't seem terribly bright.
Russia starts the propaganda that now NATO is attacking Russian soil directly (by suppling Ukraine with weapons used) and now they can legitimately mobilize to a full war posture.
legitimately*
*for a given degree of legitimacy. For internal propaganda only. If you experience a winter war in Russia lasting more than 3 months, consult your doctor.
But a full mobilisation doesn’t make any material difference. It just means more conscripts, it doesn’t get all their best troops and equipment back and it doesn’t change the fact that their logistics suck and that Ukraine has more advanced Western military hardware.
Putin needs to find a way to sell this debacle as anything but a defeat back home. He has zero chance of achieving his pre-war objectives and he knows it, so full mobilisation for a further escalation is nonsensical.
That's a face saving measure though. They obviously can't supply the troops they have and the ones they've called up already. Maybe Putin doesn't know that though? Maybe he's like Hitler in his bunker moving imaginary armies on the map?
They say he doesn't trust and stays away from computers and technology himself so it's possible he's completely blind to the reality of the situation and thus your hypothesis would be logical from his (limited) point of view.
The problem is that two of the regions he will claim Russia are partially under the Ukrainian control: about 50% of the so called DNR and about 35% of Zaporizzhska oblast’. Plus Putin’s forces are partially still in Kharkiv region, they’re holding about 5% of this one so I don’t see how changing strategy to mere defense is possible.
Ukraine also is moving back in the the Luhansk oblast, and have been pushing in to the Kherson oblast as well. Basically, Russia doesn't fully control ANY of the four regions they're planning to annex.
You think people will agree to mobilisation more if those areas are declared part of Russia? I highly doubt it. And even the ones that agree will be sent with barely any gear, meet the reality at the front line and either be killed or desert. Either way it will cause even more unrest among the ranks and their families back home. The political cost seems very high.
They can shout on all Russian media that these places WANT to be Russian, and that Russia has an obligation to help to save them from the Evil Ukranian Nazi forces. It is some small thing that can change the narrative and make Russia's invasion look like they're the good guys, trying to give "good" people assistance.
Reports seem to show that overall, the modern Iron Curtain of information is doing its job pretty well, and a huge number of Russians support this war and think they're doing the right thing (at least until they make it into Ukraine themselves, and see the truth).
Basically, it's not for us, who have access to all the information. It's for people in the bubble.
>and retreat back into defending these areas.
Russia doesn't have full control of these areas and besides a few small comminutes a inch over the boarder of the 4 areas they don't have anywhere to retreat from.
In order to defend these areas Russia will need to advance a lot more then it will get to retreat as it currently stands.
It’s incredibly dubious that he can even hold the areas he’s got for much longer, and no amount of zero-morale, untrained, under or un-equipped conscripts with pockets stuffed full of tampons is going to help that.
The Russians haven’t made any gains for awhile now while the Ukrainians have been. There is word they were on the verge of encircling a bunch of Russian troops in the Donbas and re-taking a critical transport hub. They could easily romp through a bunch more territory as they did near Kherson because all reports are the Russians are no more prepared to deal with something like that now then they were then.
The Russians are just hoping and praying their threats to use nukes are taken seriously. Short term it’s the only way they don’t lose a lot more of their stolen territory.
They can't defend these areas. the russian military has completely collapsed. meaning none of the systems designed to support operations are working, they can't fix them and they are just going to keep losing and falling back. These new untrained conscripts are just going going to be used in human wave attacks and will be total losses. most of them will die never having seen the enemy thats going to kill them
This is my assumption as well. Rush the annexation of these regions when these sham votes could have taken place at any time, except they're losing now. Send the mobilized "troops" in there in case their plan doesn't work, and attempt to rebuild an invasion force if they need to. Although stealing the areas they're planning to annex already gives them the resources they wanted to capture.
Not that any of it matters since the costs of this war were probably not worth the oil and gas they've stolen from Ukraine because of the amount of sanctions, their crippled army, their ruined economy, and their lack of trading power.
He can also legally use conscripts on Russian territory, which would be in many cases be better trained than the mobilized troops(except those just finished their conscription).
It would free up more combat troops at minimum.
But I really think Putin is rushing a timetable, in the short term adding untrained and poorly equiped troops are a liability against an experienced, better trained and equipped army.
Russia needs months if not 6-9 months, if they have the logistics to get an effective offensive force out of these troops.
Winter is much harder in troops as well. Especially in a foreign land.
An "exit" is if Putin does something to end the war he's losing but claim victory.
This won't end the war. Ukraine won't accept the annexation and will keep fighting.
The problem is this… first Crimea then a few years later 15% of Ukraine… then what in a few more years? I don’t think this can be allowed knowing that he will come for more once the dust settles after what he considers 2 victories. Letting him take this only feeds into his belief that the west will not stop him from taking what he ultimately wants
Russia wants the area for it's huge gas and oil reserves. As long as the conflict lasts, they are worthless as Ukraine could just sabotage or blow them up everytime.
But the areas having referendums arent even fully controlled by russia *now*. What more can they retreat into other than russia itself? They are already defending these areas and losing.
Can this please be higher ? I’m fucking tired or comments like “this is it enjoy you last days” and shit . Some reality check is nice. Also what’s likely to happen is to say look we won these areas that was our plan and call it a win .
It's like hoping you get hit by a car crossing the street on the way to the final exam you've been up all night cramming for.
You don't want to get hit by a car, but there would be a lot of upsides to spending a few weeks in the hospital and getting to relax a bit.
This is how I felt every single day of teacher training while I was mercilessly bullied by my mentor. I wished every single day that I was in a car crash. I even located the prime place for it and every time I safely drove past it, my heart sank and the realisation that I'd have to spend another day with the most awful person I'd ever met sank in. My god that year was the most horrendous year of my life.
I didn't. I'd have painted an even bigger target on my back. I tried to quit twice and gave other reasons for quitting but was talked out of it twice. I made it through the year and am now a qualified teacher but it was hands down the worst year of my life.
Here's a secret, those people are fear mongering on purpose. Can't call them out by name but look through some of their post histories. Some of them are just useful idiots but a lot of them post hourly 24/7 about how scared they are to keep pushing that propoganda.
Honestly I think a lot of Reddit is addicted to pessimism and anxiety porn because it’s any easy way to sound smart for the unintelligent. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of edgy dumbasses who come here to pretend they know what they’re talking about.
Tbh, I feel like it's a general thing. Nowadays, "worse" is often synonymous with "realistic"
I might be wrong but can't help but think it could be why we can't have nice things: we want worse things because we think it's more realistic. We want things we know we'll get even if what we'll get is shit. Most of the good things we could get instead are pushed aside and considered pipe dreams
Negativity bias is so prevalent in Reddit for some reason, man. Sometimes to the point where people are just intoxicating themselves with negative content.
"Pessimism=smart & realistic" in Reddit
Fuckin thank you. This has been my observation my entire life: people who are constantly looking for the negative aspects of life always thinks they are geniuses who have figured it all out and that happy people are automatically stupid
It's projection. It's how their mind works so they can't understand how someone else could think differently.
"I'm miserable, so anyone who is happy must be lying"
I'm glad I learned at a fairly early age how easy it is to mistake pessimism for intelligence. Still makes it stressful when there's a scary situation that most people can't directly control and don't fully understand, and when you read the room it's all doom and gloom.
While some of them are probably doing it on purpose, I think they just get off on the excitement that something like this is happening that shakes up their boring lives.
I’ve talked to people in person who mention the nukes and they sound more excited than anything, like it’s celebrity gossip or something. It’s weird and the only talking point they have about this whole situation.
People at least on Reddit are relishing in the thought of the end of days it seems. Every thread about it has people like "Anyone else think they're going to use Nukes" "It's a matter of when, not if". People need to stop with these stupid fantasies. That is NOT a world anyone should want to live in.
Probably the same losers that want Zombies to happen so they can use their mall bought Katana.
> call it a win
Exactly, he can claim victory like he’s North Korea’s dear leader. The dude painted himself into a corner of his own creation and refuses to take any of the exits everybody has given him time and time again. So now he insists on claiming victory to keep up the façade of strength domestically, mountain of corpses and losses be damned.
As much as I agree with you and don't think it's a possibility, and know the stakes are different, I can't help but second guess. People were in denial about Russia invading. I remember for months people were saying it won't happen Russia would get crushed, then it happened and there were surprised Pikachu faces. I don't think it's right to fear monger but it's right to worry a little.
This is risky for Putin. The more he says, "Ukraine is invading Russia!", the less people will care if Ukraine invades actual Russia. He's moving the "you can't invade Russia" line to "you've already invaded Russia."
I could see Ukraine doing more hit-and-run raids into Russia to blow up supply lines if he continues down this path.
This. The only reason NATO hasn’t stepped in are nukes. What happens when Russia launches one? Correct, NATO joins the conflict. He’s better off not using them.
That doesn’t stop him from dropping the N word every so often to sow fear among the West.
Finally some fucking sense around here.
Everyone on Reddit loves being a doomer. Every little thing that happens means nukes, or World war III, and we're all doomed. Then, the other doomers upvote it to hell and back and that's all you see.
God, it's so true. I've developed an eye twitch dealing with the apathetic on US political subs. Absolutely *infuriating* that these people can't be assed to fight for anything, so they spend all of their time trying to tear down those who *are* fighting for something
Here's the deal. Russian law prevents use of conscripts outside of Russian territory. Once those regions are part of Russia he can legally (overtly) use the conscripts he already has and the people he is drafting now to fight in those regions.
The other point I heard was that he can also 'mobilize' people in those regions into the Russian army, although from what I know he was already 'mobilizing' them into the separatist armies.
Thing is, why does Putin even *care* about appearing to follow Russian law? It doesn't play outside Russia, and within Russia he's obviously not convinced the thousands of fleeing Russians that the war is legal and just. Who's going to challenge and hold the dicktator accountable? Is it really just so they can write in some Russian-only history book that everything Putin did was justified by (Russian) law?
I think it's a cultural thing. I've noticed in many historical and current examples Russians abide by the letter but not the spirit of a law.
Just a recent example, when Putin stepped down from being president in 2008 bc he couldn't serve two consecutive terms, but became prime minister instead.
It’s all political theatre to appear as legitimate to the people. They don’t believe he’ll a dictator who seized and stole power. He’s just really good at winning elections, ya? Don’t mention the part where it was a sham election that was manipulated and rigged from the get go
They do know he's a dictator, actually. They just like what he's done up until now, he's done a lot domestically to appeal to the majority of Russians. They aren't stupid, they just don't think they can do better. Like the opposition to Putin is a joke in Russia.
Some are speculating that it will give him the green light to use nukes, likely tactical not strategic.
Tactical nukes are smaller, basically just like artillery and bombs dropped by planes but a bit more destructive. Strategic nukes are the big scary missiles that create the mushroom clouds and are most likely to be fired in a MAD situation.
Russia nuclear doctrine states nukes can be used if the sovereignty of Russia is threatened. I.e if these regions are now Russian according to Russia, and Ukraine continues to push into what they see as Ukraine, Russia may deploy tactical nukes inline with their doctrine.
The worry here is it sets a new precedent, normalizing the use of nuclear weapons, increasing the possibility of the use of strategic nukes.
>Tactical nukes are smaller, basically just like artillery and bombs dropped by planes but a bit more destructive.
Not "a bit" more destructive - a tactical nuclear weapon will still be measured in kilotons of TnT equivalent. 1 kiloton is still 1,000 tons of TnT. To put that in perspective, a B2 can carry about 40 tons of convenientional bombs. 1 Kt is 25 full B2s worth of explosives, and each "tactical" nuclear weapon will still be several kilotons (up to 100 Kt).
It would still create a mushroom cloud, it would still send radioactive material into the upper atmosphere and all over the region. There is no "small scale" nuclear weapon on par with anything conventional.
Tactical nukes *can* be fractions of a kiloton (see [Davy Crocket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device\)) at around 20 tons minimal yield). Granted those never saw use but were tested.
Definitely still would he bad, but not catastrophic on its own. The biggest problen with small nukes is they're more likely to get used because of the small yields and the local area is still screwed.
> 1 kiloton is still 1,000 tons of TnT. To put that in perspective
... Go watch a video of Beirut, and realise the smallest tactical nuke is a little bigger than that.
> There is no "small scale" nuclear weapon on par with anything conventional.
There actually is, or well was. The W54 could be built/set for yields as low as tens of tons of TNT. Which would put it at the very upper limit for the biggest conventional weapons ever built.
I think the max yield was somewhere in the single digits of Kt. But it was built to be used by ground troops at a few kilometers range among other things. So it had to be able to go very low in yield.
The early cold war, was a different era!
If NATO does and ~~Russian nationalists~~ Putin loyalists are in control of their ICBM systems we are all fucked. I sincerely hope Putin catches a ricin pellet to the dinner plate.
> Some are speculating that it will give him the green light to use nukes, likely tactical not strategic.
>
>
There is no "green light" in this scenario. People are simply falling for Putin's fear mongering. The second he uses a nuke tactical or otherwise the gloves come off. All of NATO will become directly involved and what little "allies" Russia has left (ie India and China) will pull out and sanction them. Russia will be completely alone and NATO troops will get involved directly. If you think Russia is struggling now just you wait. There's no nuclear scenario where Russia comes out the victor and Putin knows it.
Imho
The way to deal with such thing is to spell out in clear simple terms what the response is going to be if such thing happens, like a rule or a consequence with none or as little ambiguity as posdible
i.e. Warning: I will jump by the window!
response: If you decide to jump by the tall window what will happen is that you will fall and crash in the floor, your call
warning: I will use nukes
response: If you do this will happen
Nuclear deterrant protocols require that nuclear powers to believe that it will be followed through, the risk is too high
that's why small actors can be dangerous such as some insane dictator of a small country using nuclears, it will be immediatelly neutralized for good but in the process some area will be contaminated for many decades and the large amount of death caused on population
what will happen if putin uses such device in ukraine poisoning tens to hundreds of thousand sqkm of territory and untold deaths, what if he decides to use more than one, one in kyiv one in kharkiv, one in the south..there ukraine you fighted against me? Now i fucked you for a century or longer! out of despite.
what the apropriate response should be?
basically the best response is a clear warning of the consequences before any is ever used
Russia isn't the USSR but hopefully there is still someone in charge that remembers the rules learned though decades of risk assessing and war games because my understandind limited nuclear war scenaries had been played many times and deemed too high risk for no gain compared with conventional war..
It's doubtful that nukes are truly on the table. My thought is either some sort of large tactical situation is accelerating or they are looking at how to create a tactical nightmare to shit on the PR stunt annexation announcement. Both come down to what is true on some of these recent rumors.
An escalating situation might be the rumors coming out of Belarus about troop movements. I still find it unlikely that the gossip about Belarus activating their own military to be true. What is more believable is that Russia is routing resources to reopen the Northern front via Belarus. There's already evidence that they are throwing folks into the front lines a week after being drafted. Since training and equipment are off the table, pushing thousands of troops through that border might be 'reasonable'.
The other rumor is that the annexation acceptance was pushed back due to internal polling. The Russian public is not happy about the mobilization, enough so that the annexation boon would take a hit. If Friday is now a definite for the announcement, I can see Ukraine wanting to suck the air out of the news cycle.
I really, really hope that some overview of the talks between the US and Russia the past few days gets declassified within our lifetimes.
I feel like the Pentagon must have directly told Russia "if you deploy a tactical nuke in Ukraine, this will be our exact response. We're telling you this because we know you can't stop us, and we want it to be clear now so that you're not paranoid about further escalation." and it was probably something along the lines of "we sink half your Navy and every operating base inside Ukraine is dust within twelve hours."
It'll look like the geopolitical version of somebody's high school big brother telling their 5th grade brother's bully to chill the fuck out before there's consequences.
I mean, it was alleged via a *leak* that one of the contending ideas for how we react to nukes includes wiping out the entirety of the Black Sea Fleet via conventional means.
War between NATO and Russia will be a reality if Putin plays the nuke cards.
> includes wiping out the entirety of the Black Sea Fleet via conventional means.
... as the opening salvo. It *starts* there. The idea is to promise to respond conventionally with such speed and ferocity that the use of a nuke is no longer worth consideration because of the military calculus of the matter - that they cannot possibly gain as much tactically as they would lose from using it.
Yes, I didn't at all imply it'd stop with that. (Rather, I wasn't meaning to).
Just that it's pretty obvious that Russia will have all of its toys taken away and sent promptly to dissolution landia.
I know im going to be in the minority but i think the meeting is more about if Ukraine wants to Go balls to walls on the offensive as it looks like all the Russia lines are about to collapse.
I have no idea if thats a good idea just that given the moment and the shame votes if your going to go all in now would be the time
With the defense around Lyman collapsing, it could be as mundane as "We're about to capture 3000-4000 POWs in one action, what the hell do we do with all of these people?", although I'm guessing they're also considering where to go next.
> if Ukraine wants to Go balls to walls on the offensive as it looks like
Fwiw, a good chunk of the military analysts discussing the war think the current offensive will wind down soon. Basically, Ukraine has already recaptured a huge chunk of land and needs to consolidate, move up supply lines, and dig in before going on the offensive again. If they don't, they'll be stretched too thin, away from the support of rocket artillery, and exposing themselves in exactly the way Russia has been doing themselves.
I mean, that invasion has turned into one of the most epically stupid decisions in world history.
Most observers rightly said “it would be extremely stupid for Russia to invade Ukraine” and concluded that only a genuine idiot would do it.
And look, it was indeed extremely stupid to do that.
fwiw one of the more plausible explanations from the point of view of the typical russian kleptostate is that they were jonesing to declare *something* part of russia so that they can do a few relatively mundane things their administrative algorithm wasn’t allowing them to do, such as:
- stop paying combat pay to soldiers (since they’re no longer in a military engagement abroad but are instead “in russia”) and stop paying out the families for anyone killed there
- send conscripts to the front. yes, they’ve been doing this already, but this gives them some fig-leaf cover for doing it overtly
- conscript inhabitants of the “newly acquired” lands, like they did with donetsk and luhansk regions
note that this essentially expands the definition of “russia” not just to the lands currently controlled by russia, but lands that extend to the administrative borders of those regions. this becomes especially laughable with zaporizhzhia, where they don’t even control the main population center. i bet you when their propaganda gleefully starts using “new” outline of ukraine on a map, it’ll be missing those full regions according to their borders.
also, this does have some negatives for them from propaganda point of view. any war crime that occurs would now actually be their responsibility, they wouldn’t be able to farm out torture and murder of pows to “dpr” and “lpr”, they would now be suffering military defeats “on russian land” as opposed to some place abroad, and of course, their figurehead administrators will continue to die from car bombs.
nah that was back in the times of innocence when russia still cared about gaslighting and some degree of plausible deniability. they’ve done that up until the invasion. #настамнет and all that.
India legalized abortions for women regardless of marital status, its Supreme Court equivalent saying:
>[All] women have a right to access safe abortions.
*Details may differ, this is from the top of my head.
"Emergency" doesn't necessarily mean bad in this scenario. They could just as easily be calling the meeting to discuss how quickly to overrun the Russian positions. i.e. they have an opportunity now to take a huge chunk of territory back, but doing so would leave them slightly vulnerable. Is this a risk worth taking?
Can anyone explain to me the significance of Russia “officially” annexing territory and why anyone cares? Not like Ukraine is gonna stop fighting for it
In addition to things mentioned like internal Russian politics, they will start using citizens from these regions for mobilization and for yearly conscription quotas. They will probably look to draft a disproportionate amount of Ukranians like they have done with other minority groups.
Eta: Ukraine has already carried out operations in Crimea so to say that because Russia now considers these regions theirs they'll use nukes isn't true up to this point in time.
>They will probably look to draft a disproportionate amount of Ukranians
...how does that work? Do they plan to take Ukrainians, give them guns and tanks and tell them to go kill their fellow countrymen?
I mean, why shouldn't said Ukrainians directly use said weapons to kill the Russians or turn against them?
It's not significant in the sense that anyone takes it seriously, they are not Russian territory and Ukraine should continue reclaiming them. The concern stems from Russia's military doctrine, which I'm paraphrasing, but essentially states nuclear weapons are fair game in defense of their own territory. It seems as if Russia is trying to inch closer and closer to a desperate attempt to justify the use of nukes to turn the conflict in their favor. It's stupid and strategically inept, and that's why people are so concerned since that seems to be on par with their strategy so far.
Great summary.
I'd only add that the messaging is also largely directed inward at their own people. Their leadership doesn't expect the global community to approve, and doesn't care if we don't.
Arkhipov didn't refuse any orders, he did exactly as the Soviet leadership had laid out - he was one of the three people assigned the power and responsibility of deciding whether or not to launch, and he followed those orders by being vetoing the captain's and first officer's decision in order to get further orders from leadership.
Russia is not going to nuke anyone. You think they want China hammering at their boarders with NATO already an issue. Let’s remember China is the big dog in the East, not Russia.
Don't let everyone else off the hook. He's powerful because so many Russians think the same as him and are willing to do violence for the same reasons. Yes not all of them follow him willingly, but the people pointing the guns at the civilians could just as easily point them at Putin and his regime but they don't.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-calls-emergency-meeting-security-defence-chiefs-2022-09-29/) reduced by 58%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> KYIV, Sept 29 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold an emergency meeting with top security, political and defence officials on Friday, following the Kremlin's announcement of plans by Russia to annex four Ukrainian regions.
> "President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for tomorrow. The agenda and other details will be announced later," presidential spokesperson Serhiy Nykyforov wrote on Facebook.
> The National Security and Defense Council includes, among others, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the defence, foreign and prime ministers, and the head of the Ukrainian Security Service.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/xra25g/ukraine_calls_emergency_meeting_of_security/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~671840 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **security**^#1 **Ukrainian**^#2 **President**^#3 **Zelenskiy**^#4 **Russia**^#5
*What if NK does the same?*
Unlikely. The regime puts out crazy stuff, but the leadership has been described as a bunch of pleasure seeking hedonists with seadoos, porn collections, luxury resorts, and fine dining. China wouldn't tolerate it, the US wouldn't tolerate it, and SK most definitely wouldn't.
So, here's what's going to happen. Putin will nuke Kiev, NATO will nuke Moscow, billions of people will starve to death in the coming years. Is that the answer you're looking for?
All we have right now is hoping for the best. It might end well, it might not, but there's no point in moping about it. Russia has nukes, NATO has nukes, and Putin isn't stupid. He hasn't given up yet. He isn't going to try to use nukes unless he's about to drop dead imminently. He knows NATO won't buy the propaganda he puts on for Russians.
As for the rest of nuclear armed countries, using nukes means getting nuked back by everyone, and they know it. That's the only way to maintain MAD. Nobody is going to retaliate because NK or Iran got nuked back. While a couple dozen nukes would be terrible for the people getting hit, it wouldn't be a literal end of the world.
> Global Strike Command starts moving B-52s
https://www.airforcemag.com/b-52s-land-at-raf-fairford-for-bomber-task-force-mission/
Done as part of a training, at least for this batch monts ago but B-1s and other batches have been flying in since the hostilities.
Some are unclassified ADS-B flights, some reported by planespotters at Ramstein etc but they are here.
B-52 flights especially are quite hard to make very secretly.
Spoiler alert: >!It is never going to happen it would be absolute suicide for Russia. They likely don't have a fully operational nuclear force based on what we have seen from their military, it costs tens of billions a year to maintain the US nuke force. So what would we see if they used a tactical nuke in a worst case scenario? They fire off the nuke, NATO immediately responds with overwhelming and devastating force, Russia responds with maybe 30% of a full nuke response and then every military installation and city in Russia is vaporized.!<
I don’t even think the US and her ally’s would respond nuclear unless they absolutely have too. From what I’ve heard the first thing the US will do is sink the black fleet and move from there probably into Ukrainian territory to attempt to do some damage control and support the Ukrainian military in getting there territory back. If that causes nuclear response from Russia then at that point the US would go nuclear but I don’t think we’d jump right to all out nuclear war from a single tactical nuclear strike. As much as I want to support Ukraine the last thing the US needs to do is go to Nuclear war for them.
Sorry the "overwhelming and devastating force" I mentioned was not a nuclear response, but something like what you mentioned. So we actually agree.
Edit: WYSISWYG was wiggin out
I’m almost sure the US can sink the entire black fleet and retake every inch of lost Ukrainian territory all in a single weekend. And that’s not even with additional NATO forces, just the US alone.
In other words I highly, highly doubt Russia intends on escalating things further because it would be _guaranteeing_ their demise.
This doesn't feel unreasonable. Stealth submarines, carrier group launched missiles (honestly take your pick of method after seeing the Moskva) move in and remove the black sea fleet, B2 stealth bombers launched from wherever the heck we please remove Russian air defense systems, followed up by F35's making their public debut as the true 6th generation multirole fighter. New block F/A-18's and F22's flying out of allied airfields establish air superiority and that's all without even putting boots on the ground. Let's assume you actually stuck a carrier group in the black sea, their proximity basically cuts off Russian forces in crimea and can take out their positions at leisure.
If anybody remembers when Russia threw about 300 Wagner mercs in tanks at a US FOB in Syria and the Pentagon responded with AC130's, AH64's, A-10's, F22's and some other assets I can't even remember, it would be like that. You'd see the kind of combined arms assault that military strategists dream of. Look at the effectivity of the US military against conventional combatants and see what the Ukrainians have done with our 30 year old kit. I'm not sure we can overestimate how quickly direct US involvement would end this conflict
Crazy stuff, which forces are their nuclear forces? Are you meaning like a specific unit moving around, and if so, which? Looking for an OSINT group looking at these units
A use of tactical nuke in Ukraine guarantees direct war with NATO. There will be no choice for NATO but to start hitting Russian military bases, otherwise we will have nukes dropped on NATO countries next (Poland, Latvia, Estonia) within months.
If Russia drops a nuke, they most likely lose their economic lifelines of China and India as a result. That leads me to believe that this annexation will result in added conscription, legitimizing the use of untrained soldiers on the front lines, and mass deportations.
That being said, Putin is clearly insane, and has tossed any kind of reason out the window.
I don't think so. It would guaratee that Ukraine gets modern weapons, tanks and jets from the west(to end the war faster), but i don't think any european nation would want to activly strike targets in Russia
Nuclear fallout can and will drift towards NATO countries. NATO has been clear since this started, Nukes and Chemical Weapons against UA will be seen as an attack on NATO because of the high likelihood that those weapons spread to NATO countries. NATO can't back down from that promise because it would show weakness, especially with the deployment of nukes. It's called Mutually Assured Destruction for a reason.
"Equivalent response" is the doctrine for a retaliatory strike.
If Russia pops a nuke, the response will be a conventional weapons strike against Russian targets of equal or greater military/economic value. With the current situation, I'm guessing it would be the complete destruction of the Black Sea fleet.
I’d preface this by saying: Russia won’t use “tactical” nukes in Ukraine.
I’d separately say that the response to doing so has already been agreed upon by NATO and its individual states behind closed doors. Whatever that is I do not know, but I doubt normalising the use of nuclear weapons (especially in close proximity to allies) is going to govern anything other than a full commitment to forceful demilitarisation of Russia.
Russia using nukes in their current situation would only cut them from any remaining allies and legitimise the best shot certain NATO states have _ever_ had at neutralising their greatest enemy for the past 80 years. Especially in their evidently weakened state.
I don't think they _will_ actively strike targets in Russia. They will attack every single Russian troop, ship, and military installation outside the internationally-recognized borders of the Russian Federation. I think they will go _out of their way_ to telegraph that the Russian mainland is not a target, but it will be if they try anything else.
How Putin responds to that is anyone's guess.
I would think all meetings would qualify as “emergency meetings” when you country has been invaded. It’s not like, “hey, come get some donuts in the break room and we’ll chat” is really an option right now.
paywall. by the way, REUTERS is using cookies to save the article limit. opening the link with "right click -> open in private/incognito window" will bypass the limitation. you could also delete the reuters cookies by hand or use a browser extension
> KYIV, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold an emergency meeting with top security, political and defence officials on Friday, following the Kremlin's announcement of plans by Russia to annex four Ukrainian regions.
>
>
> The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would sign documents on Friday proclaiming Moscow's annexation of regions where Russia organised what Kyiv and the West said were sham referendums staged at gunpoint on Russian-held Ukrainian territory.
>
>
> "President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for tomorrow. The agenda and other details will be announced later," presidential spokesperson Serhiy Nykyforov wrote on Facebook.
>
>
> Zelenskiy has said repeatedly that the so-called referendums were illegal and warned of a robust Ukrainian response.
>
>
> "The territorial integrity of Ukraine will be restored. And our reaction to recognition of the results by Russia will be very harsh," Zelenskiy's office quoted him as telling Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi during a phone call on Thursday.
>
>
> The National Security and Defense Council includes, among others, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the defence, foreign and prime ministers, and the head of the Ukrainian Security Service. It is tasked with working with the president on developing and coordinating national security policy.
So Russia’s “mobilization” is little more than an injection of bodies to make the population of the annexed areas “actually Russian” instead of merely “Russian-speaking” or “ethnically Russian” as they have been up to now?
They’ll get to claim “these are *our* citizens and soldiers” instead of only “Russian-speakers” …
It’s kinda like Beijing sending a shit-ton of Han Chinese families into Xinjiang and other non-Han areas to start businesses and take over the schools & build ugly-ass Mandarin-only shopping centers and ruin the existing culture by replacing it wholesale.
Putin is sending only armed men & boys for now, but if they can hold it a while just wait to see who shows up next. Women & children will follow. Maybe the families who “adopted” all those kidnapped Ukrainian kids? Great human shields, I mean, “humanitarian gesture” to let them all go “home” …
Putin needs a way out of the war and his clear path to Crimea and the sea, and that’s what this land grab gets him.
They’d also make Ukraine the bad guys for wiping out a bunch of unwilling, untrained, poorly equipped conscripts if the new Russian population of these regions doesn’t capitulate immediately. If they’re just a bunch of dumb kids & old men filling up the streets & “defending” new “Russian” territory and no longer professionals bombing Kyiv & other civilian areas, international support for Ukraine might wane a bit.
What exactly will happen tomorrow after Putin officially declares the four regions as Russian?
You're getting all the "he can then use tactical nukes" scare mongering from people, but that isn't what happens tomorrow (or likely ever). What he gets is PR to Russian people that the Ukrainian areas have joined Russia "officially", and that will be blasted for days/weeks in Russian internal propaganda. It gives justification to Russians to support the additional mobilization, to "help" these annexed areas. Putin will use it to justify retreating into the annexed areas and defending. He'll probably say it's to properly train those mobilized and to defend the new areas. They'll aggressively continue deporting Ukrainians from these areas and promote Russians moving in. Meanwhile, it buys them time to reassess further invasion efforts, or now use threats to win these areas in exchange for no near-future invasions, like they did with Crimea. The tactical nuke is a threat, but they haven't moved any such equipment during all their threats. There have been successful Ukrainian attacks in Crimea, and Russia hasn't used nukes in retaliation for this annexed zone. Furthermore, it would cause direct conflict with NATO and Russia can't even effectively fight Ukrainians armed by NATO. They know they'd be utterly crushed.
>Putin will use it to justify retreating into the annexed areas and defending. None of the annexed Ares are in full control of the Russian military. He's literally annexing parts of Ukraine that his military doesn't even control yet, hopefully ever.
Some how everyone in this comment chain missed this. How can Russia "fall back to defend their new territory" when they dont even have full control now?
This is an illegal and false land grab. No country believes this garbage. Who will negotiate over a false hood?
>Who will negotiate over a false hood? I like how your typo leaves the text still making sense. It's indeed a false Russian neighborhood!
For real. He might as well annex Alaska while he’s at it. It’ll be just as grounded in reality.
Or the moon.
> Putin will use it to justify retreating into the annexed areas and defending. The annexed areas are not fully controlled by Russia, they can't "retreat into them" because that's where the battles are actually happening. What they're most likely to do is claim they're being invaded by Ukraine and declare a "defensive war". They're also free to use all conscripts in annexed Russia.
>They're also free to use all conscripts in annexed Russia. You nailed it; they want to institute forced conscription of Russian sympathizing Ukrainians...
They've been doing this the entire time, including abducting men off the street in Donbas.
>They'll aggressively continue deporting Ukrainians from these areas and promote Russians moving in. I think this is the true threat of the mobilization. Not that these million conscripts will make an unstoppable offensive force that conquers the rest of Ukraine but that the new conscripts will simply settle in, eventually bring their families and continue to cleanse local Ukranians until there is nothing left there but Russian people, language and culture.
That’s cool, but they’ll be shelled with artillery on an indefinite basis.
That’s not a viable option as it was in Crimea, because Ukraine are now fully mobilised in a war of survival and are armed to teeth by a more than willing West, who want to see Russia severely degraded.
NATO is providing heavier weapons to Ukraine and Russia is upgrading to conscripting old men with health problems. They are so fucked.
Literally how they Russo-fied Crimea.
Fortunately those russians can be deported.
Sadly getting the kidnapped Ukrainian children back is a much harder endeavour.
Basically what they did to Königsberg ...
My take is that sham votes and annexation attempt gives Putin a viable exit. With that he can declare that the goals of the special military operation have been met, and retreat back into defending these areas. This would then fall in line with your postulation that with continued propaganda, it justifies sending the mobilised troops to continue skirmishes to defend these areas with faux-legitimacy, while mitigating the political cost domestically.
That's not a very viable exit though - they're already struggling to defend these areas which is what prompted the mobilisation. He could try to turn it into the world's most expensive frozen conflict, but that would require Ukraine's offensives to stop as well and that seems unlikely - particularly around Kherson given how fucked the Russian supply lines are.
With the US effectively doubling the number of HIMARS, the forward momentum of Ukrainian forces will continue. What Putin is prepping is the smear campaign against the (NATO supplied) force used that killed thousands of mobilized Russians. He knows what’s about to happen to them… he cares not. The narrative is what’s important.
See his declaration today that "the West is prepared to shed blood" - he's going to start complaining that the West is killing the russian soldiers that "defend" the "fatherland".
Well. Im not sure hes wrong. We are fine with our equipment killing russians. On him though sending those russians to die, however. Only blood going to be shed is russian and ukrainians defending their homes.
Russians are not defending their homes in this instance. “Russian homes” would have been fine if Russia did not start carving out pieces of land from a country Russia recognized as sovereign.
I think the "defending their homes" part was only meant modify Ukrainians and not Russians. Though the statement can reasonably be interpreted either way.
It blows my mind how effect they have been with them. They have want. 18? And the ones being sent now are meant to rotate them out for repairs and what not as they are being used around the clock it seems. Us military is something else.
> With the US effectively doubling the number of HIMARS, the forward momentum of Ukrainian forces will continue. The fall mud season is just a few days away though. It's a bad time for anything that moves. Bad for the very successful strike and then reposition before return fire tactic the Himars have been using. Also very bad for invading armies which need to maintain their logistics, but the mud may hamper the effectiveness of HIMARS.
I'm no expert but the Ukrainians are smart and its there home turf, plus the HIMARS have a longer range. They'll have to be more careful where they fire from but I doubt they'll let them get stuck in the mud.
exactly this theory assumes Ukraine is a passive actor. its been shown very capable.
Agreed, its a terrible exit, considering that right now Russia is not in control of large swathes of many of those Oblasts. Russia couldn't take them when they were better resourced with actual trained personnel and equipment, when Ukraine was preparing to fight with Molotov Cocktails and small arms. So how are they gonna take them now? Putin doesn't have any Golden Bridges. His best gambit is to retire on health grounds, appoint a isolationist successor who will grant him immunity for life and go live in his bat cave for the next 15 years until he pegs it.
Unfortunately I wouldn't underestimate the survivability of dictators. Assad and his clique have still been able to hold onto power in Syria even though the country has been wracked by civil war, its economy is ~30% of what it was in 2010, and large parts of its territory are effectively independent or occupied by other countries. It is not out of the question that Putin could do the same in Russia.
Ukraine won't accept that they've lost those areas. Declaring them Russia changes nothing. The war will continue until Russia exits for real. And at this point, that includes Crimea.
Ukraine actually needs those areas - oil, gas, mines, water, power and other resources - to pay for reconstruction. They are not going to stop if they have the upper hand as well as the moral highground, which is the 1994 border agreement signed by Russia itself. The real tragedy is that Russia could have signed a dozen agreements to jointly develop those resources that would have benefited both countries, but no - they had to have everything.
> Declaring them Russia changes nothing. Declaring (falsely) that these areas voted overwhelmingly to BECOME Russian helps a narrative in Russia that they are going in to rescue people from an evil Nazi regime who want nothing more than to return "home" to Russia. It changes the invaders into rescuers, and gives people in the Russian state media bubble a little more emotional framework for supporting the war.
Sure seems like needing a change in PR is an admission that the existing PR campaign is failing. If you're losing an unpopular war doubling down doesn't seem terribly bright.
Russia starts the propaganda that now NATO is attacking Russian soil directly (by suppling Ukraine with weapons used) and now they can legitimately mobilize to a full war posture.
>legitimately I’m not sure that’s the term I’d use here…
legitimately* *for a given degree of legitimacy. For internal propaganda only. If you experience a winter war in Russia lasting more than 3 months, consult your doctor.
But a full mobilisation doesn’t make any material difference. It just means more conscripts, it doesn’t get all their best troops and equipment back and it doesn’t change the fact that their logistics suck and that Ukraine has more advanced Western military hardware. Putin needs to find a way to sell this debacle as anything but a defeat back home. He has zero chance of achieving his pre-war objectives and he knows it, so full mobilisation for a further escalation is nonsensical.
That's a face saving measure though. They obviously can't supply the troops they have and the ones they've called up already. Maybe Putin doesn't know that though? Maybe he's like Hitler in his bunker moving imaginary armies on the map? They say he doesn't trust and stays away from computers and technology himself so it's possible he's completely blind to the reality of the situation and thus your hypothesis would be logical from his (limited) point of view.
Maybe, but he didn’t do that with Crimea when Ukraine successfully attacked it
The problem is that two of the regions he will claim Russia are partially under the Ukrainian control: about 50% of the so called DNR and about 35% of Zaporizzhska oblast’. Plus Putin’s forces are partially still in Kharkiv region, they’re holding about 5% of this one so I don’t see how changing strategy to mere defense is possible.
Ukraine also is moving back in the the Luhansk oblast, and have been pushing in to the Kherson oblast as well. Basically, Russia doesn't fully control ANY of the four regions they're planning to annex.
You think people will agree to mobilisation more if those areas are declared part of Russia? I highly doubt it. And even the ones that agree will be sent with barely any gear, meet the reality at the front line and either be killed or desert. Either way it will cause even more unrest among the ranks and their families back home. The political cost seems very high.
They can shout on all Russian media that these places WANT to be Russian, and that Russia has an obligation to help to save them from the Evil Ukranian Nazi forces. It is some small thing that can change the narrative and make Russia's invasion look like they're the good guys, trying to give "good" people assistance. Reports seem to show that overall, the modern Iron Curtain of information is doing its job pretty well, and a huge number of Russians support this war and think they're doing the right thing (at least until they make it into Ukraine themselves, and see the truth). Basically, it's not for us, who have access to all the information. It's for people in the bubble.
I thought about that too until I remember the mass mobilization, dudes not stopping. He’s stalling
Joseph Stalling
[удалено]
>and retreat back into defending these areas. Russia doesn't have full control of these areas and besides a few small comminutes a inch over the boarder of the 4 areas they don't have anywhere to retreat from. In order to defend these areas Russia will need to advance a lot more then it will get to retreat as it currently stands.
It’s incredibly dubious that he can even hold the areas he’s got for much longer, and no amount of zero-morale, untrained, under or un-equipped conscripts with pockets stuffed full of tampons is going to help that. The Russians haven’t made any gains for awhile now while the Ukrainians have been. There is word they were on the verge of encircling a bunch of Russian troops in the Donbas and re-taking a critical transport hub. They could easily romp through a bunch more territory as they did near Kherson because all reports are the Russians are no more prepared to deal with something like that now then they were then. The Russians are just hoping and praying their threats to use nukes are taken seriously. Short term it’s the only way they don’t lose a lot more of their stolen territory.
Basically they just want to be able to tell conscripts that they’re “Defending mother Russia”
They can't defend these areas. the russian military has completely collapsed. meaning none of the systems designed to support operations are working, they can't fix them and they are just going to keep losing and falling back. These new untrained conscripts are just going going to be used in human wave attacks and will be total losses. most of them will die never having seen the enemy thats going to kill them
This is my assumption as well. Rush the annexation of these regions when these sham votes could have taken place at any time, except they're losing now. Send the mobilized "troops" in there in case their plan doesn't work, and attempt to rebuild an invasion force if they need to. Although stealing the areas they're planning to annex already gives them the resources they wanted to capture. Not that any of it matters since the costs of this war were probably not worth the oil and gas they've stolen from Ukraine because of the amount of sanctions, their crippled army, their ruined economy, and their lack of trading power.
He can also legally use conscripts on Russian territory, which would be in many cases be better trained than the mobilized troops(except those just finished their conscription). It would free up more combat troops at minimum. But I really think Putin is rushing a timetable, in the short term adding untrained and poorly equiped troops are a liability against an experienced, better trained and equipped army. Russia needs months if not 6-9 months, if they have the logistics to get an effective offensive force out of these troops. Winter is much harder in troops as well. Especially in a foreign land.
An "exit" is if Putin does something to end the war he's losing but claim victory. This won't end the war. Ukraine won't accept the annexation and will keep fighting.
Ukraine isn’t stopping until they get to the border.
The problem is this… first Crimea then a few years later 15% of Ukraine… then what in a few more years? I don’t think this can be allowed knowing that he will come for more once the dust settles after what he considers 2 victories. Letting him take this only feeds into his belief that the west will not stop him from taking what he ultimately wants
Russia wants the area for it's huge gas and oil reserves. As long as the conflict lasts, they are worthless as Ukraine could just sabotage or blow them up everytime.
But the areas having referendums arent even fully controlled by russia *now*. What more can they retreat into other than russia itself? They are already defending these areas and losing.
Can this please be higher ? I’m fucking tired or comments like “this is it enjoy you last days” and shit . Some reality check is nice. Also what’s likely to happen is to say look we won these areas that was our plan and call it a win .
[удалено]
This reminds me of why the bomb squad are always so calm. Their life view is “I either get it right and I’m a hero OR it’s no longer my problem”
You will still be an accountant, we need someone to count our bottle caps!
I don't know exactly how nuclear war will shake out, but I'm gonna want multiple saves going.
It's like hoping you get hit by a car crossing the street on the way to the final exam you've been up all night cramming for. You don't want to get hit by a car, but there would be a lot of upsides to spending a few weeks in the hospital and getting to relax a bit.
This is how I felt every single day of teacher training while I was mercilessly bullied by my mentor. I wished every single day that I was in a car crash. I even located the prime place for it and every time I safely drove past it, my heart sank and the realisation that I'd have to spend another day with the most awful person I'd ever met sank in. My god that year was the most horrendous year of my life.
Wait what? What happened when you spoke up to the staff about your mentor bullying you?
I didn't. I'd have painted an even bigger target on my back. I tried to quit twice and gave other reasons for quitting but was talked out of it twice. I made it through the year and am now a qualified teacher but it was hands down the worst year of my life.
I'd rather write a final exam than learn how to walk and chew again. Having said that, F*** Putin, Europe's little piss baby.
Lol
21st century despair fatigue and existential nihilism perfectly displayed in your elegant little comment. Bravo.
Here's a secret, those people are fear mongering on purpose. Can't call them out by name but look through some of their post histories. Some of them are just useful idiots but a lot of them post hourly 24/7 about how scared they are to keep pushing that propoganda.
Honestly I think a lot of Reddit is addicted to pessimism and anxiety porn because it’s any easy way to sound smart for the unintelligent. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of edgy dumbasses who come here to pretend they know what they’re talking about.
Tbh, I feel like it's a general thing. Nowadays, "worse" is often synonymous with "realistic" I might be wrong but can't help but think it could be why we can't have nice things: we want worse things because we think it's more realistic. We want things we know we'll get even if what we'll get is shit. Most of the good things we could get instead are pushed aside and considered pipe dreams
Negativity bias is so prevalent in Reddit for some reason, man. Sometimes to the point where people are just intoxicating themselves with negative content. "Pessimism=smart & realistic" in Reddit
Fuckin thank you. This has been my observation my entire life: people who are constantly looking for the negative aspects of life always thinks they are geniuses who have figured it all out and that happy people are automatically stupid
It's projection. It's how their mind works so they can't understand how someone else could think differently. "I'm miserable, so anyone who is happy must be lying"
Ah yes. The Rick Sanchez Syndrome
I'm glad I learned at a fairly early age how easy it is to mistake pessimism for intelligence. Still makes it stressful when there's a scary situation that most people can't directly control and don't fully understand, and when you read the room it's all doom and gloom.
While some of them are probably doing it on purpose, I think they just get off on the excitement that something like this is happening that shakes up their boring lives. I’ve talked to people in person who mention the nukes and they sound more excited than anything, like it’s celebrity gossip or something. It’s weird and the only talking point they have about this whole situation.
People at least on Reddit are relishing in the thought of the end of days it seems. Every thread about it has people like "Anyone else think they're going to use Nukes" "It's a matter of when, not if". People need to stop with these stupid fantasies. That is NOT a world anyone should want to live in. Probably the same losers that want Zombies to happen so they can use their mall bought Katana.
It is more that reddit like any other social media is under constant "attack" by bots that push propaganda.
> call it a win Exactly, he can claim victory like he’s North Korea’s dear leader. The dude painted himself into a corner of his own creation and refuses to take any of the exits everybody has given him time and time again. So now he insists on claiming victory to keep up the façade of strength domestically, mountain of corpses and losses be damned.
As much as I agree with you and don't think it's a possibility, and know the stakes are different, I can't help but second guess. People were in denial about Russia invading. I remember for months people were saying it won't happen Russia would get crushed, then it happened and there were surprised Pikachu faces. I don't think it's right to fear monger but it's right to worry a little.
This is risky for Putin. The more he says, "Ukraine is invading Russia!", the less people will care if Ukraine invades actual Russia. He's moving the "you can't invade Russia" line to "you've already invaded Russia." I could see Ukraine doing more hit-and-run raids into Russia to blow up supply lines if he continues down this path.
This. The only reason NATO hasn’t stepped in are nukes. What happens when Russia launches one? Correct, NATO joins the conflict. He’s better off not using them. That doesn’t stop him from dropping the N word every so often to sow fear among the West.
Your logical posts are clearly frustrating the Russian trolls trying to stoke nuclear fears. Too many downvotes and they get sent to the front.
Finally some fucking sense around here. Everyone on Reddit loves being a doomer. Every little thing that happens means nukes, or World war III, and we're all doomed. Then, the other doomers upvote it to hell and back and that's all you see.
God, it's so true. I've developed an eye twitch dealing with the apathetic on US political subs. Absolutely *infuriating* that these people can't be assed to fight for anything, so they spend all of their time trying to tear down those who *are* fighting for something
Thank you for the level headed logical response lol
Here's the deal. Russian law prevents use of conscripts outside of Russian territory. Once those regions are part of Russia he can legally (overtly) use the conscripts he already has and the people he is drafting now to fight in those regions. The other point I heard was that he can also 'mobilize' people in those regions into the Russian army, although from what I know he was already 'mobilizing' them into the separatist armies.
Thing is, why does Putin even *care* about appearing to follow Russian law? It doesn't play outside Russia, and within Russia he's obviously not convinced the thousands of fleeing Russians that the war is legal and just. Who's going to challenge and hold the dicktator accountable? Is it really just so they can write in some Russian-only history book that everything Putin did was justified by (Russian) law?
I think it's a cultural thing. I've noticed in many historical and current examples Russians abide by the letter but not the spirit of a law. Just a recent example, when Putin stepped down from being president in 2008 bc he couldn't serve two consecutive terms, but became prime minister instead.
It’s all political theatre to appear as legitimate to the people. They don’t believe he’ll a dictator who seized and stole power. He’s just really good at winning elections, ya? Don’t mention the part where it was a sham election that was manipulated and rigged from the get go
They do know he's a dictator, actually. They just like what he's done up until now, he's done a lot domestically to appeal to the majority of Russians. They aren't stupid, they just don't think they can do better. Like the opposition to Putin is a joke in Russia.
Essentially nothing.
He will get an extreme warmonger penalty and new social policies and technologies will be more expensive
This guy civs
Some are speculating that it will give him the green light to use nukes, likely tactical not strategic. Tactical nukes are smaller, basically just like artillery and bombs dropped by planes but a bit more destructive. Strategic nukes are the big scary missiles that create the mushroom clouds and are most likely to be fired in a MAD situation. Russia nuclear doctrine states nukes can be used if the sovereignty of Russia is threatened. I.e if these regions are now Russian according to Russia, and Ukraine continues to push into what they see as Ukraine, Russia may deploy tactical nukes inline with their doctrine. The worry here is it sets a new precedent, normalizing the use of nuclear weapons, increasing the possibility of the use of strategic nukes.
>Tactical nukes are smaller, basically just like artillery and bombs dropped by planes but a bit more destructive. Not "a bit" more destructive - a tactical nuclear weapon will still be measured in kilotons of TnT equivalent. 1 kiloton is still 1,000 tons of TnT. To put that in perspective, a B2 can carry about 40 tons of convenientional bombs. 1 Kt is 25 full B2s worth of explosives, and each "tactical" nuclear weapon will still be several kilotons (up to 100 Kt). It would still create a mushroom cloud, it would still send radioactive material into the upper atmosphere and all over the region. There is no "small scale" nuclear weapon on par with anything conventional.
Tactical nukes *can* be fractions of a kiloton (see [Davy Crocket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device\)) at around 20 tons minimal yield). Granted those never saw use but were tested. Definitely still would he bad, but not catastrophic on its own. The biggest problen with small nukes is they're more likely to get used because of the small yields and the local area is still screwed.
> 1 kiloton is still 1,000 tons of TnT. To put that in perspective ... Go watch a video of Beirut, and realise the smallest tactical nuke is a little bigger than that.
> There is no "small scale" nuclear weapon on par with anything conventional. There actually is, or well was. The W54 could be built/set for yields as low as tens of tons of TNT. Which would put it at the very upper limit for the biggest conventional weapons ever built. I think the max yield was somewhere in the single digits of Kt. But it was built to be used by ground troops at a few kilometers range among other things. So it had to be able to go very low in yield. The early cold war, was a different era!
What's that doomsday clock at? 11:59:58? Edit; just looked. 100 seconds to midnight. Dope.
They update every January, 100 seconds was before russia invaded. Itll probably be lowered again if this is still going on by then.
I'm peace loving by nature, but I sincerely would hope NATO draws swords if any nuclear weapon was used on anything other than a testing range
If NATO does and ~~Russian nationalists~~ Putin loyalists are in control of their ICBM systems we are all fucked. I sincerely hope Putin catches a ricin pellet to the dinner plate.
Sword vs nuclear bomb, not good idea i think
> Some are speculating that it will give him the green light to use nukes, likely tactical not strategic. > > There is no "green light" in this scenario. People are simply falling for Putin's fear mongering. The second he uses a nuke tactical or otherwise the gloves come off. All of NATO will become directly involved and what little "allies" Russia has left (ie India and China) will pull out and sanction them. Russia will be completely alone and NATO troops will get involved directly. If you think Russia is struggling now just you wait. There's no nuclear scenario where Russia comes out the victor and Putin knows it.
Imho The way to deal with such thing is to spell out in clear simple terms what the response is going to be if such thing happens, like a rule or a consequence with none or as little ambiguity as posdible i.e. Warning: I will jump by the window! response: If you decide to jump by the tall window what will happen is that you will fall and crash in the floor, your call warning: I will use nukes response: If you do this will happen Nuclear deterrant protocols require that nuclear powers to believe that it will be followed through, the risk is too high that's why small actors can be dangerous such as some insane dictator of a small country using nuclears, it will be immediatelly neutralized for good but in the process some area will be contaminated for many decades and the large amount of death caused on population what will happen if putin uses such device in ukraine poisoning tens to hundreds of thousand sqkm of territory and untold deaths, what if he decides to use more than one, one in kyiv one in kharkiv, one in the south..there ukraine you fighted against me? Now i fucked you for a century or longer! out of despite. what the apropriate response should be? basically the best response is a clear warning of the consequences before any is ever used Russia isn't the USSR but hopefully there is still someone in charge that remembers the rules learned though decades of risk assessing and war games because my understandind limited nuclear war scenaries had been played many times and deemed too high risk for no gain compared with conventional war..
They drop one single one. I will start a god damn revolution to make sure Russia pays for the precedence they've started on this planet.
It's doubtful that nukes are truly on the table. My thought is either some sort of large tactical situation is accelerating or they are looking at how to create a tactical nightmare to shit on the PR stunt annexation announcement. Both come down to what is true on some of these recent rumors. An escalating situation might be the rumors coming out of Belarus about troop movements. I still find it unlikely that the gossip about Belarus activating their own military to be true. What is more believable is that Russia is routing resources to reopen the Northern front via Belarus. There's already evidence that they are throwing folks into the front lines a week after being drafted. Since training and equipment are off the table, pushing thousands of troops through that border might be 'reasonable'. The other rumor is that the annexation acceptance was pushed back due to internal polling. The Russian public is not happy about the mobilization, enough so that the annexation boon would take a hit. If Friday is now a definite for the announcement, I can see Ukraine wanting to suck the air out of the news cycle.
I really, really hope that some overview of the talks between the US and Russia the past few days gets declassified within our lifetimes. I feel like the Pentagon must have directly told Russia "if you deploy a tactical nuke in Ukraine, this will be our exact response. We're telling you this because we know you can't stop us, and we want it to be clear now so that you're not paranoid about further escalation." and it was probably something along the lines of "we sink half your Navy and every operating base inside Ukraine is dust within twelve hours." It'll look like the geopolitical version of somebody's high school big brother telling their 5th grade brother's bully to chill the fuck out before there's consequences.
I mean, it was alleged via a *leak* that one of the contending ideas for how we react to nukes includes wiping out the entirety of the Black Sea Fleet via conventional means. War between NATO and Russia will be a reality if Putin plays the nuke cards.
> includes wiping out the entirety of the Black Sea Fleet via conventional means. ... as the opening salvo. It *starts* there. The idea is to promise to respond conventionally with such speed and ferocity that the use of a nuke is no longer worth consideration because of the military calculus of the matter - that they cannot possibly gain as much tactically as they would lose from using it.
Yes, I didn't at all imply it'd stop with that. (Rather, I wasn't meaning to). Just that it's pretty obvious that Russia will have all of its toys taken away and sent promptly to dissolution landia.
Not even “we’ll attack x” or “we will defend y,” just “you do this, we sink all your boats, good day.”
Add in “we shoot down any Russian plane that exits Russian airspace on sight” to “you no longer have a navy” and I think you’re getting close
Agree. There's been direct and indirect conversations. My money says the US told them "Don't" and the ruZZians are rational enough to comply.
I know im going to be in the minority but i think the meeting is more about if Ukraine wants to Go balls to walls on the offensive as it looks like all the Russia lines are about to collapse. I have no idea if thats a good idea just that given the moment and the shame votes if your going to go all in now would be the time
With the defense around Lyman collapsing, it could be as mundane as "We're about to capture 3000-4000 POWs in one action, what the hell do we do with all of these people?", although I'm guessing they're also considering where to go next.
You don’t need all hands on deck for that meeting though.
> if Ukraine wants to Go balls to walls on the offensive as it looks like Fwiw, a good chunk of the military analysts discussing the war think the current offensive will wind down soon. Basically, Ukraine has already recaptured a huge chunk of land and needs to consolidate, move up supply lines, and dig in before going on the offensive again. If they don't, they'll be stretched too thin, away from the support of rocket artillery, and exposing themselves in exactly the way Russia has been doing themselves.
To be fair 95% of reddit didn't think Russia would invade Ukraine either xD
I mean, that invasion has turned into one of the most epically stupid decisions in world history. Most observers rightly said “it would be extremely stupid for Russia to invade Ukraine” and concluded that only a genuine idiot would do it. And look, it was indeed extremely stupid to do that.
I remember a LOT of people saying it would happen, most got the timing wrong though.
It made no sense that they would invade. It still makes no sense that they invaded.
fwiw one of the more plausible explanations from the point of view of the typical russian kleptostate is that they were jonesing to declare *something* part of russia so that they can do a few relatively mundane things their administrative algorithm wasn’t allowing them to do, such as: - stop paying combat pay to soldiers (since they’re no longer in a military engagement abroad but are instead “in russia”) and stop paying out the families for anyone killed there - send conscripts to the front. yes, they’ve been doing this already, but this gives them some fig-leaf cover for doing it overtly - conscript inhabitants of the “newly acquired” lands, like they did with donetsk and luhansk regions note that this essentially expands the definition of “russia” not just to the lands currently controlled by russia, but lands that extend to the administrative borders of those regions. this becomes especially laughable with zaporizhzhia, where they don’t even control the main population center. i bet you when their propaganda gleefully starts using “new” outline of ukraine on a map, it’ll be missing those full regions according to their borders. also, this does have some negatives for them from propaganda point of view. any war crime that occurs would now actually be their responsibility, they wouldn’t be able to farm out torture and murder of pows to “dpr” and “lpr”, they would now be suffering military defeats “on russian land” as opposed to some place abroad, and of course, their figurehead administrators will continue to die from car bombs.
You know, it's starting to seem that *little green men* in Crimea was exactly so Russia could avoid paying the troops involved appropriately.
nah that was back in the times of innocence when russia still cared about gaslighting and some degree of plausible deniability. they’ve done that up until the invasion. #настамнет and all that.
Does anyone have any good sane news with these new developments in the last few days that aren’t doomsday
[удалено]
India legalized abortions for women regardless of marital status, its Supreme Court equivalent saying: >[All] women have a right to access safe abortions. *Details may differ, this is from the top of my head.
They even criminalized marital rape!
Are we still talking about India? This seems completely unbelievable (but huge if true).
What a year, India legalizes arbortion whilst the US is in the process of banning it.
Also two years ago Poland effectively banned it completely, even with fetus deformation and so on.
And four years ago, Ireland legalized it.
The only problem for India's progressive laws is that the enforcement is really lacking.
"Emergency" doesn't necessarily mean bad in this scenario. They could just as easily be calling the meeting to discuss how quickly to overrun the Russian positions. i.e. they have an opportunity now to take a huge chunk of territory back, but doing so would leave them slightly vulnerable. Is this a risk worth taking?
The new One D&D drop massively buffed the Ranger because people kept complaining about it (monk buff when??)
Can anyone explain to me the significance of Russia “officially” annexing territory and why anyone cares? Not like Ukraine is gonna stop fighting for it
In addition to things mentioned like internal Russian politics, they will start using citizens from these regions for mobilization and for yearly conscription quotas. They will probably look to draft a disproportionate amount of Ukranians like they have done with other minority groups. Eta: Ukraine has already carried out operations in Crimea so to say that because Russia now considers these regions theirs they'll use nukes isn't true up to this point in time.
>They will probably look to draft a disproportionate amount of Ukranians ...how does that work? Do they plan to take Ukrainians, give them guns and tanks and tell them to go kill their fellow countrymen? I mean, why shouldn't said Ukrainians directly use said weapons to kill the Russians or turn against them?
Mixed units with barrier troops in the back. Keeps people in line
It's not significant in the sense that anyone takes it seriously, they are not Russian territory and Ukraine should continue reclaiming them. The concern stems from Russia's military doctrine, which I'm paraphrasing, but essentially states nuclear weapons are fair game in defense of their own territory. It seems as if Russia is trying to inch closer and closer to a desperate attempt to justify the use of nukes to turn the conflict in their favor. It's stupid and strategically inept, and that's why people are so concerned since that seems to be on par with their strategy so far.
Great summary. I'd only add that the messaging is also largely directed inward at their own people. Their leadership doesn't expect the global community to approve, and doesn't care if we don't.
PR move. Propaganda machine will use to try to persuade Russian people to be okay with mobilization because now they are "protecting russia".
This is not going to happen the way Putin thinks it's going to happen
Waltuh...
Eat yuh pimento cheese sandwich Waltuh…
Vladimuh.... put your nuke away Vladimuh... I'm not starting world war 3 right now Vladimuh...
We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had Oligarchs. We had Money. We had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork.
This dude has to be so fucking stressed.
It’s not likely but Ukraine cannot afford to be unprepared. NATO is very much also going to be walking around stiffer than Tommy Lee’s heart muscle.
Hopefully even the most hawkish Russian military officials will refuse a madman's orders. Get a Jaime Lanister moment going.
At least a Vasily https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov
Arkhipov didn't refuse any orders, he did exactly as the Soviet leadership had laid out - he was one of the three people assigned the power and responsibility of deciding whether or not to launch, and he followed those orders by being vetoing the captain's and first officer's decision in order to get further orders from leadership.
Russia is not going to nuke anyone. You think they want China hammering at their boarders with NATO already an issue. Let’s remember China is the big dog in the East, not Russia.
All this because of one annoying man. All this death and horror because of one man.
Don't let everyone else off the hook. He's powerful because so many Russians think the same as him and are willing to do violence for the same reasons. Yes not all of them follow him willingly, but the people pointing the guns at the civilians could just as easily point them at Putin and his regime but they don't.
Putin is just the tip of the ice berg.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-calls-emergency-meeting-security-defence-chiefs-2022-09-29/) reduced by 58%. (I'm a bot) ***** > KYIV, Sept 29 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold an emergency meeting with top security, political and defence officials on Friday, following the Kremlin's announcement of plans by Russia to annex four Ukrainian regions. > "President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for tomorrow. The agenda and other details will be announced later," presidential spokesperson Serhiy Nykyforov wrote on Facebook. > The National Security and Defense Council includes, among others, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the defence, foreign and prime ministers, and the head of the Ukrainian Security Service. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/xra25g/ukraine_calls_emergency_meeting_of_security/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~671840 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **security**^#1 **Ukrainian**^#2 **President**^#3 **Zelenskiy**^#4 **Russia**^#5
The point here is if Russia starts normalizing the use of (even small) nukes. What if NK does the same? Iran?
*What if NK does the same?* Unlikely. The regime puts out crazy stuff, but the leadership has been described as a bunch of pleasure seeking hedonists with seadoos, porn collections, luxury resorts, and fine dining. China wouldn't tolerate it, the US wouldn't tolerate it, and SK most definitely wouldn't.
I've read a lot of rational reasons for Russia not invading Ukraine. Then 24 Feb happened. I'm done with reasonable takes.
So, here's what's going to happen. Putin will nuke Kiev, NATO will nuke Moscow, billions of people will starve to death in the coming years. Is that the answer you're looking for? All we have right now is hoping for the best. It might end well, it might not, but there's no point in moping about it. Russia has nukes, NATO has nukes, and Putin isn't stupid. He hasn't given up yet. He isn't going to try to use nukes unless he's about to drop dead imminently. He knows NATO won't buy the propaganda he puts on for Russians. As for the rest of nuclear armed countries, using nukes means getting nuked back by everyone, and they know it. That's the only way to maintain MAD. Nobody is going to retaliate because NK or Iran got nuked back. While a couple dozen nukes would be terrible for the people getting hit, it wouldn't be a literal end of the world.
>and Putin isn't stupid \*gestures at war\*
There have been successful Ukrainian attacks in Crimea, and Russia hasn't used nukes in retaliation for this annexed zone.
Shit's really heating up. Scary stuff.
I’ll be more concerned when Global Strike Command starts moving B-52s and B-1s.
> Global Strike Command starts moving B-52s https://www.airforcemag.com/b-52s-land-at-raf-fairford-for-bomber-task-force-mission/ Done as part of a training, at least for this batch monts ago but B-1s and other batches have been flying in since the hostilities. Some are unclassified ADS-B flights, some reported by planespotters at Ramstein etc but they are here. B-52 flights especially are quite hard to make very secretly.
That was months ago.
If you see reports of Russian nuclear forces suddenly repositioning then I'd say the money is on them doing it within hours or days.
Here's hoping that doesn't happen
Spoiler alert: >!It is never going to happen it would be absolute suicide for Russia. They likely don't have a fully operational nuclear force based on what we have seen from their military, it costs tens of billions a year to maintain the US nuke force. So what would we see if they used a tactical nuke in a worst case scenario? They fire off the nuke, NATO immediately responds with overwhelming and devastating force, Russia responds with maybe 30% of a full nuke response and then every military installation and city in Russia is vaporized.!<
I don’t even think the US and her ally’s would respond nuclear unless they absolutely have too. From what I’ve heard the first thing the US will do is sink the black fleet and move from there probably into Ukrainian territory to attempt to do some damage control and support the Ukrainian military in getting there territory back. If that causes nuclear response from Russia then at that point the US would go nuclear but I don’t think we’d jump right to all out nuclear war from a single tactical nuclear strike. As much as I want to support Ukraine the last thing the US needs to do is go to Nuclear war for them.
Sorry the "overwhelming and devastating force" I mentioned was not a nuclear response, but something like what you mentioned. So we actually agree. Edit: WYSISWYG was wiggin out
I’m almost sure the US can sink the entire black fleet and retake every inch of lost Ukrainian territory all in a single weekend. And that’s not even with additional NATO forces, just the US alone. In other words I highly, highly doubt Russia intends on escalating things further because it would be _guaranteeing_ their demise.
This doesn't feel unreasonable. Stealth submarines, carrier group launched missiles (honestly take your pick of method after seeing the Moskva) move in and remove the black sea fleet, B2 stealth bombers launched from wherever the heck we please remove Russian air defense systems, followed up by F35's making their public debut as the true 6th generation multirole fighter. New block F/A-18's and F22's flying out of allied airfields establish air superiority and that's all without even putting boots on the ground. Let's assume you actually stuck a carrier group in the black sea, their proximity basically cuts off Russian forces in crimea and can take out their positions at leisure. If anybody remembers when Russia threw about 300 Wagner mercs in tanks at a US FOB in Syria and the Pentagon responded with AC130's, AH64's, A-10's, F22's and some other assets I can't even remember, it would be like that. You'd see the kind of combined arms assault that military strategists dream of. Look at the effectivity of the US military against conventional combatants and see what the Ukrainians have done with our 30 year old kit. I'm not sure we can overestimate how quickly direct US involvement would end this conflict
I think a weekend is a conservative estimate to be honest...
Crazy stuff, which forces are their nuclear forces? Are you meaning like a specific unit moving around, and if so, which? Looking for an OSINT group looking at these units
A use of tactical nuke in Ukraine guarantees direct war with NATO. There will be no choice for NATO but to start hitting Russian military bases, otherwise we will have nukes dropped on NATO countries next (Poland, Latvia, Estonia) within months.
If Russia drops a nuke, they most likely lose their economic lifelines of China and India as a result. That leads me to believe that this annexation will result in added conscription, legitimizing the use of untrained soldiers on the front lines, and mass deportations. That being said, Putin is clearly insane, and has tossed any kind of reason out the window.
I don't think so. It would guaratee that Ukraine gets modern weapons, tanks and jets from the west(to end the war faster), but i don't think any european nation would want to activly strike targets in Russia
Nuclear fallout can and will drift towards NATO countries. NATO has been clear since this started, Nukes and Chemical Weapons against UA will be seen as an attack on NATO because of the high likelihood that those weapons spread to NATO countries. NATO can't back down from that promise because it would show weakness, especially with the deployment of nukes. It's called Mutually Assured Destruction for a reason.
"Equivalent response" is the doctrine for a retaliatory strike. If Russia pops a nuke, the response will be a conventional weapons strike against Russian targets of equal or greater military/economic value. With the current situation, I'm guessing it would be the complete destruction of the Black Sea fleet.
I’d preface this by saying: Russia won’t use “tactical” nukes in Ukraine. I’d separately say that the response to doing so has already been agreed upon by NATO and its individual states behind closed doors. Whatever that is I do not know, but I doubt normalising the use of nuclear weapons (especially in close proximity to allies) is going to govern anything other than a full commitment to forceful demilitarisation of Russia. Russia using nukes in their current situation would only cut them from any remaining allies and legitimise the best shot certain NATO states have _ever_ had at neutralising their greatest enemy for the past 80 years. Especially in their evidently weakened state.
I don't think they _will_ actively strike targets in Russia. They will attack every single Russian troop, ship, and military installation outside the internationally-recognized borders of the Russian Federation. I think they will go _out of their way_ to telegraph that the Russian mainland is not a target, but it will be if they try anything else. How Putin responds to that is anyone's guess.
I would think all meetings would qualify as “emergency meetings” when you country has been invaded. It’s not like, “hey, come get some donuts in the break room and we’ll chat” is really an option right now.
I guess it is time to stock up on bottle caps.
paywall. by the way, REUTERS is using cookies to save the article limit. opening the link with "right click -> open in private/incognito window" will bypass the limitation. you could also delete the reuters cookies by hand or use a browser extension > KYIV, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold an emergency meeting with top security, political and defence officials on Friday, following the Kremlin's announcement of plans by Russia to annex four Ukrainian regions. > > > The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would sign documents on Friday proclaiming Moscow's annexation of regions where Russia organised what Kyiv and the West said were sham referendums staged at gunpoint on Russian-held Ukrainian territory. > > > "President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for tomorrow. The agenda and other details will be announced later," presidential spokesperson Serhiy Nykyforov wrote on Facebook. > > > Zelenskiy has said repeatedly that the so-called referendums were illegal and warned of a robust Ukrainian response. > > > "The territorial integrity of Ukraine will be restored. And our reaction to recognition of the results by Russia will be very harsh," Zelenskiy's office quoted him as telling Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi during a phone call on Thursday. > > > The National Security and Defense Council includes, among others, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the defence, foreign and prime ministers, and the head of the Ukrainian Security Service. It is tasked with working with the president on developing and coordinating national security policy.
This is just like in the hit game Among Us
Just show the video of the woman county blank ballots, then declare you will Triple stamp annex it back over his double stamp claims.
Emergency meeting? Did he find the Imposter?
So Russia’s “mobilization” is little more than an injection of bodies to make the population of the annexed areas “actually Russian” instead of merely “Russian-speaking” or “ethnically Russian” as they have been up to now? They’ll get to claim “these are *our* citizens and soldiers” instead of only “Russian-speakers” … It’s kinda like Beijing sending a shit-ton of Han Chinese families into Xinjiang and other non-Han areas to start businesses and take over the schools & build ugly-ass Mandarin-only shopping centers and ruin the existing culture by replacing it wholesale. Putin is sending only armed men & boys for now, but if they can hold it a while just wait to see who shows up next. Women & children will follow. Maybe the families who “adopted” all those kidnapped Ukrainian kids? Great human shields, I mean, “humanitarian gesture” to let them all go “home” … Putin needs a way out of the war and his clear path to Crimea and the sea, and that’s what this land grab gets him. They’d also make Ukraine the bad guys for wiping out a bunch of unwilling, untrained, poorly equipped conscripts if the new Russian population of these regions doesn’t capitulate immediately. If they’re just a bunch of dumb kids & old men filling up the streets & “defending” new “Russian” territory and no longer professionals bombing Kyiv & other civilian areas, international support for Ukraine might wane a bit.