Is Ukraine about to have a war?
A TNW in the Black Sea will be the last time a Russian ship passes the Bosporus I wager.
It would place China in an untenable position and result in an opportunity to reinforce the alignment of China towards it's main trading partners.
India would be in an untenable position, they cannot condone the use of a nuclear weapon to blackmail the World, not when their neighbors on 2 sides hold stockpiles.
As far as trying to target Ukrainian forces in the front line, Russia has not been effective at doing that with any PGM in the past, and the kinetic front now mixes Russian and Ukrainian troops; he would be taking out his own troops, and certainly killing thousands of the very same "Russian loving" people of the areas that they are purporting to be saving from Ukraine (by raping, murdering, pillaging... the usual Russian "help" over the last 1,000 years + of "Russ").
US and NATO in-theatre Tacair would be able to mount a credible conventional response, but they would be wanting a surge of additional assets out of the US and other out of region supporting countries. Strategic air would gave a lot of mass, but the refuelling assets will get a workout even in a short sharp removal of everything that has a Z, X, or V, or white/blue/red flag nearby.
The USAF has discussed single pilot ops for tankers, they have an alternative available of using the tens of thousands of aircrew that are former military and are competent on the same types to assist a max effort to remove the criminals from Ukraine. I for one am available free of charge, for either MRTT/KC-30 or K-46 crewing. Tanking will be a limiting factor to a sharp response not involving a counter demo of a nuke in international water in the middle of the Sea of Azov by NATO. Prefer that Putin retire to Sochi to clean upper floor windows in his retirement.
Popping off a TNW in an urban population of Ukraine will mark the end of Russia as an international country, and would result in more neighbors calling for collective security from NATO or similar defensive alliances. It would result in the end of the UN 1.0 almost certainly, which is overdue anyway, but Russian troops in the Ukraine would still be removed by immediate responses from NATO.
It is not acceptable to merely sit back and reward a rogue nation for the use of WMD to achieve their criminal aims.
Overdue for rational thinking in Russia to play this out and see what the paranoia and institutionalized, systemic kleptocratic dysfunction will result in. Nationalistic jingoism doesn't act in the national best interest often if ever.
Kazakh demographics are improving, as Russia's goes into free fall. None of those guys are coming back to Russia until a change of regime occurs.
So much for Iranian drones, Ukraine managed to hack into its controls and land it in Ukraine complete with its bomb load 
https://twitter.com/TuliosportsINC/s...52299922288646
https://twitter.com/TuliosportsINC/s...52299922288646
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When do you think, or not, we will have a demonstration tactical Nuclear weapon explode say within a 100km of Kiev ? Apparently this is being considered as Putin's next gambit by UK / NATO I am told. What and how would the response be formed to such an action.
Kind regards
Mr Mac
Kind regards
Mr Mac
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...david-petraeus
.
The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black Sea fleet – if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, uses nuclear weapons in thecountry, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday.The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black Sea fleet – if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, uses nuclear weapons in thecountry, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday.
Petraeus said that he had not spoken to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to nuclear escalation from Russia, which administration officials have said has been repeatedly communicated to Moscow.
He told ABC News: “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraineand also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.”
Asked if the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine would bring America and Nato into the war, Petraeus said that it would not be a situation triggering the alliance’s Article 5, which calls for a collective defense. That is because Ukraine is not part of Nato – nonetheless, a “US and Nato response” would be in order, Petraeus said.
Petraeus acknowledged that the likelihood that radiation would extend to Nato countries under the Article 5 umbrella could perhaps be construed as an attack on a Nato member.
“Perhaps you can make that case,” he said. “The other case is that this is so horrific that there has to be a response – it cannot go unanswered.”
Yet, Petraeus added, “You don’t want to, again, get into a nuclear escalation here. But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.”
Nonetheless, with pressure mounting on Putin after Ukrainian gains in the east of the country under last week’s annexation declaration and resistance to mobilization efforts within Russia mounting, Petraeus said Moscow’s leader was “desperate”.
“The battlefield reality he faces is, I think, irreversible,” he said. “No amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it; no amount of annexation; no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can actually get him out of this particular situation.
“At some point there’s going to have to be recognition of that. At some point there’s going to have to be some kind of beginning of negotiations, as [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy has said, will be the ultimate end.”
But, Petraeus warned, “It can still get worse for Putin and for Russia. And even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield won’t change this at all.” Still, he added, “You have to take the threat seriously.”
Senator Marco Rubio, the ranking Republican member of the Senate foreign relations committee, told CNN that Putin was down to two choices: established defensive lines or withdraw and lose territory.
Rubio said he believed it “quite possible” that Putin could strike distribution points where US and allied supplies are entering Ukraine, including inside Poland. The senator acknowledged the nuclear threat, but he said most worries about “a Russian attack inside Nato territory, for example, aiming at the airport in Poland or some other distribution point”.
“Nato will have to respond to it,” he said. “How it will respond, I think a lot of it will depend on the nature of the attack and the scale and scope of it.”
But as a senator privy to Pentagon briefings, Rubio resisted being drawn on whether he’d seen evidence that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
“Certainly, the risk is probably higher today than it was a month ago,” Rubio said, predicting that Russia would probably take an intermediate step.
“He may strike one of these logistical points. And that logistical point may not be inside … Ukraine. To me, that is the area that I focus on the most, because it has a tactical aspect to it. And I think he probably views it as less escalatory. Nato may not.”
Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine
Former CIA director and retired army general says Moscow’s leader is ‘desperate’ and ‘battlefield reality he faces is irreversible’The warning comes days after Putin expressed views that many have interpreted as a threat of a larger war between Russia and the west.The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black Sea fleet – if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, uses nuclear weapons in thecountry, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday.The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black Sea fleet – if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, uses nuclear weapons in thecountry, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday.
Petraeus said that he had not spoken to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to nuclear escalation from Russia, which administration officials have said has been repeatedly communicated to Moscow.
He told ABC News: “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraineand also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.”
Asked if the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine would bring America and Nato into the war, Petraeus said that it would not be a situation triggering the alliance’s Article 5, which calls for a collective defense. That is because Ukraine is not part of Nato – nonetheless, a “US and Nato response” would be in order, Petraeus said.
Petraeus acknowledged that the likelihood that radiation would extend to Nato countries under the Article 5 umbrella could perhaps be construed as an attack on a Nato member.
“Perhaps you can make that case,” he said. “The other case is that this is so horrific that there has to be a response – it cannot go unanswered.”
Yet, Petraeus added, “You don’t want to, again, get into a nuclear escalation here. But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.”
Nonetheless, with pressure mounting on Putin after Ukrainian gains in the east of the country under last week’s annexation declaration and resistance to mobilization efforts within Russia mounting, Petraeus said Moscow’s leader was “desperate”.
“The battlefield reality he faces is, I think, irreversible,” he said. “No amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it; no amount of annexation; no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can actually get him out of this particular situation.
“At some point there’s going to have to be recognition of that. At some point there’s going to have to be some kind of beginning of negotiations, as [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy has said, will be the ultimate end.”
But, Petraeus warned, “It can still get worse for Putin and for Russia. And even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield won’t change this at all.” Still, he added, “You have to take the threat seriously.”
Senator Marco Rubio, the ranking Republican member of the Senate foreign relations committee, told CNN that Putin was down to two choices: established defensive lines or withdraw and lose territory.
Rubio said he believed it “quite possible” that Putin could strike distribution points where US and allied supplies are entering Ukraine, including inside Poland. The senator acknowledged the nuclear threat, but he said most worries about “a Russian attack inside Nato territory, for example, aiming at the airport in Poland or some other distribution point”.
“Nato will have to respond to it,” he said. “How it will respond, I think a lot of it will depend on the nature of the attack and the scale and scope of it.”
But as a senator privy to Pentagon briefings, Rubio resisted being drawn on whether he’d seen evidence that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
“Certainly, the risk is probably higher today than it was a month ago,” Rubio said, predicting that Russia would probably take an intermediate step.
“He may strike one of these logistical points. And that logistical point may not be inside … Ukraine. To me, that is the area that I focus on the most, because it has a tactical aspect to it. And I think he probably views it as less escalatory. Nato may not.”
and here is what a "sub optimal" 25KT did:
Russia's nuclear arsenal is presume to be equal in care to it's other military assets, so that makes the assumption that they can actually get a low fall out outcome as being improbable.
Dropping a nuke for demo in the Black Sea or on Ukraine will be a repudiation of wanting to be part of civilization henceforth. In economic terms, that leaves Russia with the trading partner of North Korea, and that is going to be their road to prosperity?
Does anyone think that secondary sanctions by all other than North Korea would arise from the use of a TNW by Russia in any form?
In the meantime, Ukraine is just the start of the headaches for Putin. Putin has achieved the destruction of the Russian armed forces to an extent that NATO could only have dreamed of. Their military now is inadequate to maintain a stable 'stable" of client states around their border. It is incongruous that their rapacious criminal attack on Ukraine is leading to the de-stabilizing of many of the other countries that have been held within their grip by the perception of force from Russia. Their hypocrisy in conscripting from minority states and from press-ganged victims of their invasion (that being contrary to the Geneva Convention) further weakens their legitimacy for a say in the republics beyond that achieved by force alone. The demographics, Russia is accelerating the collapse of their military and their economy by making their greatest export in metric tonnage being Russian men aged 18 to 65. Their upside down demographics was already a slow motion train wreck, but Putin just rammed the throttle wide open for that. What is interesting is what happens in the future where Russia claims hegemony based on the fact that a Russian speaker running away from Putin and his evil empire, ends up in Jamaica, and Putin pushes for another referendum to make Jamaica a Russian state, to preserve Russian speaking people.... and to defeat the [add invective description of your choice] perfidious locals.
Any nuclear release will change the history of mankind, and not in a good way for Russia. Putin will get his immortality, he will be appreciated as much as Pol Pot and Hitler.
Turkey and Greece would not sit back idly and consider a detonation in their backyard to be other than an existential threat, which is what the reason for the release is. It is an explicit threat, not by accident, and any response other than a global response to remove Russia from their current position seems to be inappropriate; invasion of a sovereign state in contravention of countless treaties and conventions, and against international laws and standards of behavior. A TNW release will unite nations against Russia, and will elicit at the very least a conventional use of force to remove Russia and their residual arms from Ukraine, "Ukraine" including Donbas and Crimea.
To not respond with a single voice is to invite the next short stature sociopath that has delusions of strategy beyond his (or her) competency.
If we have to suffer images of bare chested horse riding megalomaniacs, please can we have a woman next time as the resident sociopath?
Theres rumors going around that Georgia has/is going to restrict all russians from further outbound travel. They will only be allowed to return to russia, cannot leave to 3rd party countries
Does anyone think UKR may be able totally eject Russia from all of Ukraine in the short-term?
The rout currently underway and the collapse that appears near in Kherson would suggest the Russians may be able to be pushed all the way back to the pre 2014 UKR-RUS border - as well as booted out of Crimea.
The rout currently underway and the collapse that appears near in Kherson would suggest the Russians may be able to be pushed all the way back to the pre 2014 UKR-RUS border - as well as booted out of Crimea.
Russia's nuclear arsenal is presume to be equal in care to it's other military assets, so that makes the assumption that they can actually get a low fall out outcome as being improbable.
Dropping a nuke for demo in the Black Sea or on Ukraine will be a repudiation of wanting to be part of civilization henceforth. In economic terms, that leaves Russia with the trading partner of North Korea, and that is going to be their road to prosperity?
Does anyone think that secondary sanctions by all other than North Korea would arise from the use of a TNW by Russia in any form?
In the meantime, Ukraine is just the start of the headaches for Putin. Putin has achieved the destruction of the Russian armed forces to an extent that NATO could only have dreamed of. Their military now is inadequate to maintain a stable 'stable" of client states around their border. It is incongruous that their rapacious criminal attack on Ukraine is leading to the de-stabilizing of many of the other countries that have been held within their grip by the perception of force from Russia. Their hypocrisy in conscripting from minority states and from press-ganged victims of their invasion (that being contrary to the Geneva Convention) further weakens their legitimacy for a say in the republics beyond that achieved by force alone. The demographics, Russia is accelerating the collapse of their military and their economy by making their greatest export in metric tonnage being Russian men aged 18 to 65. Their upside down demographics was already a slow motion train wreck, but Putin just rammed the throttle wide open for that. What is interesting is what happens in the future where Russia claims hegemony based on the fact that a Russian speaker running away from Putin and his evil empire, ends up in Jamaica, and Putin pushes for another referendum to make Jamaica a Russian state, to preserve Russian speaking people.... and to defeat the [add invective description of your choice] perfidious locals.
Any nuclear release will change the history of mankind, and not in a good way for Russia. Putin will get his immortality, he will be appreciated as much as Pol Pot and Hitler.
Turkey and Greece would not sit back idly and consider a detonation in their backyard to be other than an existential threat, which is what the reason for the release is. It is an explicit threat, not by accident, and any response other than a global response to remove Russia from their current position seems to be inappropriate; invasion of a sovereign state in contravention of countless treaties and conventions, and against international laws and standards of behavior. A TNW release will unite nations against Russia, and will elicit at the very least a conventional use of force to remove Russia and their residual arms from Ukraine, "Ukraine" including Donbas and Crimea.
To not respond with a single voice is to invite the next short stature sociopath that has delusions of strategy beyond his (or her) competency.
If we have to suffer images of bare chested horse riding megalomaniacs, please can we have a woman next time as the resident sociopath?
Putin may be evil but I don’t think he is stupid. He floated the nuke issue to see what the response will be. It sounds like he got his answer and not in a way good for him so the real question is how does he up the ante without risking an overwhelming response that will be unrecoverable by Russia.
I think the sabotage of the Nordstream pipe line is a signal of his intent to go after European energy infrastructure. There is lots of room for mischief with wink wink nudge nudge deniability.
If he can get the EU to crack he thinks he can leverage imposed negotiations on Ukraine with terms favourable to him…..
I think the sabotage of the Nordstream pipe line is a signal of his intent to go after European energy infrastructure. There is lots of room for mischief with wink wink nudge nudge deniability.
If he can get the EU to crack he thinks he can leverage imposed negotiations on Ukraine with terms favourable to him…..
Putin may be evil but I don’t think he is stupid. He floated the nuke issue to see what the response will be. It sounds like he got his answer and not in a way good for him so the real question is how does he up the ante without risking an overwhelming response that will be unrecoverable by Russia.
I think the sabotage of the Nordstream pipe line is a signal of his intent to go after European energy infrastructure. There is lots of room for mischief with wink wink nudge nudge deniability.
If he can get the EU to crack he thinks he can leverage imposed negotiations on Ukraine with terms favourable to him…..
I think the sabotage of the Nordstream pipe line is a signal of his intent to go after European energy infrastructure. There is lots of room for mischief with wink wink nudge nudge deniability.
If he can get the EU to crack he thinks he can leverage imposed negotiations on Ukraine with terms favourable to him…..
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He’s not stupid, but he is foolish and operates with a self-created and false version of reality. He’s not insane and insanity will be no defense for the evil, heartless, atrocities he has committed. He is is immoral, has no respect for the lives and happiness of others. Whether he is bluffing about the nuclear option is hard to say, but I doubt he has any moral inhibitions about it. What he did with the gas lines he is just as capable of any evil act. We are foolish for trying to explain it, when we should be putting an end to it. The caution and timidity of inaction with which the west responded to the Crimean episode now has led to the death and destruction we have seen this year in Ukraine.
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How strange that the Iranians would chose to mark the missiles etc in English and not add Irainian text
It sounds like he got his answer and not in a way good for him so the real question is how does he up the ante without risking an overwhelming response that will be unrecoverable by Russia.
I think the sabotage of the Nordstream pipe line is a signal of his intent to go after European energy infrastructure. There is lots of room for mischief with wink wink nudge nudge deniability.
If he can get the EU to crack he thinks he can leverage imposed negotiations on Ukraine with terms favourable to him…..
If he can get the EU to crack he thinks he can leverage imposed negotiations on Ukraine with terms favourable to him…..
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I think events in Belarus a couple of years back reinforced Putin's desire to act to seek retribution for his perceived sleight back in 2014.
Given their first round response is likely to be conventional, its noteworthy there hasn't been any noticeable stepping up of the US's conventional forces in Europe. It doesn't appear they have the forces in place here to conduct anything more than a token strike somewhere. Unless of course it'll be more along the lines of Libya, with European states committing much of the firepower.
Given their first round response is likely to be conventional, its noteworthy there hasn't been any noticeable stepping up of the US's conventional forces in Europe. It doesn't appear they have the forces in place here to conduct anything more than a token strike somewhere. Unless of course it'll be more along the lines of Libya, with European states committing much of the firepower.
