Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[SpookyFrank]

So you think they should desert their current posts

They can get agency staff in to do all the fuck all they do all day.

 

[tim]

Don't think vp needs to sponsor corruption, its been a great issue in Ukraine since independence

Russia and Ukrainian are minnows in the pond of corruption. We all know who the bloated old pike is.

 

[Pickman's model]

Russia and Ukrainian are minnows in the pond of corruption. We all know who the bloated old pike is.

World-beating

 

[Pickman's model]

They can get agency staff in to do all the fuck all they do all day.

I am surprised you feel the deserters would think about getting in agency staff to perform their military functions

 

[Flavour]

Not-beyond-the-realms-of-possibility but CONSPIRACY THEORY ALERT! It just occurred to me:

What if the whole moving nukes into Belarus thing, and then moving Wagner into Belarus, is the premise to a nuclear attack conducted against Ukraine "By Wagner, with missiles based in Belarus" in order to try and avert the blame being put on Putin for it?

 

[pug]

I think the battlefield nukes might come as artillery shells rather than just missiles, possibly mines too.

prigosin has said that he's upset that russia won't use them

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Not-beyond-the-realms-of-possibility but CONSPIRACY THEORY ALERT! It just occurred to me:

What if the whole moving nukes into Belarus thing, and then moving Wagner into Belarus, is the premise to a nuclear attack conducted against Ukraine "By Wagner, with missiles based in Belarus" in order to try and avert the blame being put on Putin for it?

Only Putin can give the order though.

 

[Flavour]

Only Putin can give the order though.

nukes + wagner in Belarus = plausible deniability

 

[kebabking]

Not-beyond-the-realms-of-possibility but CONSPIRACY THEORY ALERT! It just occurred to me:

What if the whole moving nukes into Belarus thing, and then moving Wagner into Belarus, is the premise to a nuclear attack conducted against Ukraine "By Wagner, with missiles based in Belarus" in order to try and avert the blame being put on Putin for it?

It is, I suppose, possible.

The idea that the coup/protest/whatever is part of a maskirovka to distract from a new attack/form of warfare/location of warfare isn't one unspoken in the west- in broad brush terms the whole thing stinks if looked at from a particular angle - it's just not one I subscribe to because I think the details don't fit the headline, but it's certainly true that old Vlad is partial to an attack of the clevers...

Perhaps a better idea on this line is that Wagner captured/went through a military facility at Borisoglebsk that has been used to store nuclear weapons - however, as before, the details don't fit: Russian nukes use a similar Permissive Action Link system to US nukes. just because you've got physical possession of a nuke, that doesn't mean you can set it off.

 

[mojo pixy]

Maybe putin sends wagner into north ukraine then nukes kyiv when they arrive, thus killing two birds with one stone so to speak.

 

[moochedit]

nukes + wagner in Belarus = plausible deniability

Russia would be blamed for providing them in the first place though.

 

[Pickman's model]

Only Putin can give the order though.

Well you'd hope so

 

[kebabking]

Russia would be blamed for providing them in the first place though.

And Russia - official Russia - would be blamed for detonating them, because even if Wagner/other had them (and I think the idea that Putin would give Wagner/other nukes is a loooonnnnnggggg way from 'theoretically plausible, but staggeringly unlikely', they couldn't set them off without the PAL codes, which are held by the MOD and Kremlin.

 

[StoneRoad]

Setting off a nuke "officially" is only one way to spread radioactive materials ..

Don't forget that some troops during the push on Kyiv went into the "red area" around Chernobyl and a load of personnel found out the hard way about the bad affects of high doses of radiation {despite, as I understand it, broadcast warnings from the home nation} ...

If you blow up a nuclear weapon with enough conventional explosives, you would {probably} not get enough compression of the fissile material for a "nuclear" explosion, but you would, in effect, get a very dirty bomb crater but without the large amount of fallout that would acompany a "normal" ground burst, nor get the EMP pulse ...
Still a very stupid thing to do, with long lasting affects.

 

[kebabking]

And, of course, given long Belarusian memories of Chernobyl, Lukashenko et al might not be overly keen on setting off a dirty bomb attack in Ukraine...

 

[StoneRoad]

kebabking - I agree, that's likely to be one of the reasons !
perhaps having tactical nukes "to hand" might be part of some other longer term plan flapping around in lukashenko's skull.

 

[The39thStep]

Oh dear

 

[A380]

Setting off a nuke "officially" is only one way to spread radioactive materials ..

Don't forget that some troops during the push on Kyiv went into the "red area" around Chernobyl and a load of personnel found out the hard way about the bad affects of high doses of radiation {despite, as I understand it, broadcast warnings from the home nation} ...

If you blow up a nuclear weapon with enough conventional explosives, you would {probably} not get enough compression of the fissile material for a "nuclear" explosion, but you would, in effect, get a very dirty bomb crater but without the large amount of fallout that would acompany a "normal" ground burst, nor get the EMP pulse ...
Still a very stupid thing to do, with long lasting affects.

Are Russian (ex USSR that is) nuclear artillery shells uranium gun types like the American ones? My very limited knowledge would guess that was likely. You could probably get at least a fizzle yield out of one of those if you had experience, some conventional explosives and a cavalier approach to nuclear safety...

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

And Russia - official Russia - would be blamed for detonating them, because even if Wagner/other had them (and I think the idea that Putin would give Wagner/other nukes is a loooonnnnnggggg way from 'theoretically plausible, but staggeringly unlikely', they couldn't set them off without the PAL codes, which are held by the MOD and Kremlin.

Couldn't you just lob a brick on them, like we did with the detonators we nicked off the trains?

 

[turing test]

You made a right tit of yourself on this thread last June, and left it, now you're a back again for a repeat performance, what an odd ball.

It's still June so you mean, a year ago?

 

[Fez909]

Setting off a nuke "officially" is only one way to spread radioactive materials ..

Don't forget that some troops during the push on Kyiv went into the "red area" around Chernobyl and a load of personnel found out the hard way about the bad affects of high doses of radiation {despite, as I understand it, broadcast warnings from the home nation} ...

If you blow up a nuclear weapon with enough conventional explosives, you would {probably} not get enough compression of the fissile material for a "nuclear" explosion, but you would, in effect, get a very dirty bomb crater but without the large amount of fallout that would acompany a "normal" ground burst, nor get the EMP pulse ...
Still a very stupid thing to do, with long lasting affects.

A dirty bomb would have very little long term effect, and the radiation dose from the initial blast would be so low, that wouldn't have an effect, either.

The whole concept of a dirty bomb is a bit silly, and sounds much worse than it actually is, purely becaus it involves radioactivity, which people have been conditioned to fear.

 

[kebabking]

A dirty bomb would have very little long term effect, and the radiation dose from the initial blast would be so low, that wouldn't have an effect, either.

The whole concept of a dirty bomb is a bit silly, and sounds much worse than it actually is, purely becaus it involves radioactivity, which people have been conditioned to fear.

I'd argue that that's a desired effect, not a limiting one.

If you set off a dirty bomb anywhere near a population centre you're going to have mass panic, huge numbers of people on the move clogging up all the roads, and huge state/civil/military resources used to both police that and to try and clear up/mitigate the R effects, even if, in the long run, the R effects are negligible - if you wanted to throw a spanner in the works of an enemy, what more would you want?

 

[maomao]

radioactivity, which people have been conditioned to fear.

Bit conspiracy theory. How have we been conditioned?

 

[Fez909]

I'd argue that that's a desired effect, not a limiting one.

If you set off a dirty bomb anywhere near a population centre you're going to have mass panic, huge numbers of people on the move clogging up all the roads, and huge state/civil/military resources used to both police that and to try and clear up/mitigate the R effects, even if, in the long run, the R effects are negligible - if you wanted to throw a spanner in the works of an enemy, what more would you want?

Sure, there would be all of the things you said happen, but these are short term effects. I was responding to the claim that a dirty bomb would have "long-lasting" effects.

I wonder what NATO response a Russian/Wagner dirty bomb would cause.

Bit conspiracy theory. How have we been conditioned?

Well, we're not born with a fear of radiation. And there is no formal teaching that makes us afraid of it, that I know of. So, what word would you use aside from conditioning?

 

[Pickman's model]

A dirty bomb would have very little long term effect, and the radiation dose from the initial blast would be so low, that wouldn't have an effect, either.

The whole concept of a dirty bomb is a bit silly, and sounds much worse than it actually is, purely becaus it involves radioactivity, which people have been conditioned to fear.

I don't think you've investigated this with your usual rigour https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-dirty-bombs.html

 

[Pickman's model]

Well, we're not born with a fear of radiation. And there is no formal teaching that makes us afraid of it, that I know of. So, what word would you use aside from conditioning?

We're not born with a fear of fire or drowning or speaking in public or falling from heights either

 

[Fez909]

I don't think you've investigated this with your usual rigour Backgrounder on Dirty Bombs

From the first paragraph in your link: "Most RDDs would not release enough radiation to kill people or cause severe illness"

If you want me to read further, please provide a quote that supports whatever argumnt you're making.

 

[maomao]

Well, we're not born with a fear of radiation. And there is no formal teaching that makes us afraid of it, that I know of. So, what word would you use aside from conditioning

Personally I learned about radiation from the telly and in school whereas conditioning is a specific psychological technique used mainly with animals. Using it tends to indicate the speaker is somewhere on the CT spectrum along with talk about subliminal messages on telly etc.

In fact there's been a noticeable effort from some parts of the media over the last year or so to persuade people that a nuclear war probably wouldn't be that bad and it's just some very big bombs really whereas in reality even a limited exchange would almost certainly be the greatest disaster ever faced by humanity. I wouldn't call that conditioning though. Because it didn't involve bells, being hit and tasty rewards.

 

[Fez909]

We're not born with a fear of fire or drowning or speaking in public or falling from heights either

These things are visible, or easily experienced. Radiation is not. I feel like they're different.

Also, I'd argue we are taught to fear fire and drowning; by our parents, usually. Because they are everyday, present dangers.

 

[maomao]

We're not born with a fear of fire or drowning or speaking in public or falling from heights either

Public speaking maybe not but it's certainly been claimed that babies are instinctively afraid of the other three. Do you have definitive proof that they're not?