Russia has 6000 nuclear warheads and enough capabilities to deliver them wherever they want in the world.
That will keep the US military far away from their battlefield.
That will keep the US military far away from their battlefield.
When we talk about the risk of a nuclear escalation we talk about the risk of this or that country launching nuclear armed missiles at an other country.
How would the posession of nuclear reactors factor into that?
If Russian will capture nuclear reactor, they can convert it to nuclear landmine, because reactor uses enriched Uranium, to create equivalent of 10k Chornobyl's.
Ukraine has know-how and nuclear materials (Plutonium) to create nuclear weapons at will. The only thing that stopped us is USA, Britain, France, and Germany, which used Budapest memorandum as leverage against Ukraine to prevent that.
Now, maybe if Russia captures a reactor they could send a scientist down to repurpose its parts to make an improvised nuke, but if that's the goal, what would be the point? It's not like Russia doesn't have nukes already.
Just having plutonium and knowledge is not enough to build a nuclear weapon. No country has ever developed nukes while its main territory was being invaded. For one, even if you can build a device, you'd need to test it at least once. What would you do if you had nukes and you detected that the non-nuclear-capable country you're invading has just run a nuclear test?
The point is to use the nuclear reactor like a nuclear landmine, to blow up at retreat, to do maximum amount of damage. It's called «scorched earth tactics».
Ukraine, as part of USSR, developed nukes decades ago. Ukraine is the fist post-nuclear country in the world.
Nuclear reactors can't produce nuclear explosions, for the reasons I said previously. Even the Chernobyl incident wasn't a nuclear explosion, it was a steam explosion. It's no more possible to turn a nuclear reactor into a nuclear bomb, than to turn a gas generator into a molotov cocktail. I don't know where you heard this absurd notion of a "nuclear landmine", but anyone who talks about exploding nuclear reactors is just spreading sensationalism.
Yes, Ukraine had nuclear weapons. Had. It has since dismantled all of them and doesn't have the infrastructure to make new ones. As such, it would have to develop them again. They have to build the machines to build the weapons and then they have to test the weapons to make sure the machines are building them correctly. Then they need some delivery system, which is a problem entirely separate from merely making a device that can produce a nuclear explosion. Good luck doing all that while infrastructure is disrupted by an invasion.
Go back to 1986, and imagine what the Soviet response would be if NATO would have breached the Iron Courtain and would have fighter planes and tanks in Kiev. This is what we're dealing with here.
"A shame your tanks exploded. Perhaps their car warranty expired?"
For all we know, this is already happening.
2 weeks ago it was "unlikely" Russia launches a full scale war on Ukraine. Putin is crazy and will use nukes if he deems it necessary.
We have a lot to hate about putting,but it comes from his inaction to solve a genocide on his very border. Instead, he only acted when russia was threatened. Sounds logical to me.
My understanding is that Putin has repeatedly made it painfully clear that that is exactly what he would do if anyone interferes.
Of course, a 10% chance of destroying the world is beyond my tolerance.
What probability of global thermonuclear war would you accept? 10%? 1%? 0.1%?
It probably depends a lot on the exact circumstances/timing. And in the war, circumstances change all the time.
Putin wants us to believe it's a Dr. Strangelove situation, where no humans make a choice and therefore nuclear annihalation is a guarantee if we cross a line. But that's false.
Any line Putin draws can be tested and shifted along various axes: who crosses it, how bad it is for Russia, how egregious the violation is, how well it can be argued that it's not a violation, how long it takes to confirm that a violation has taken place, how certain he is that a violation has taken place, who authorized it, how long it takes to confirm who authorized it, etc.
And we don't know for sure that Putin can unilaterally initiate a world-ending strike without anyone in the chain second-guessing him.
Oh yeah and they can't deliver them anywhere. Then can deliver only a few. Others are short range or should be dropped from old planes that can't even fly.
Wikipedia says as part of START[1], russia has 1457 warheads. Suppose 50% are broken. That's 728 warheads. Even one warhead landing in each of the top 50 cities in the US[2] would be devastating.
>Oh yeah and they can't deliver them anywhere. Then can deliver only a few. Others are short range or should be dropped from old planes that can't even fly.
Source? As of 2009 they have 383 ICBMs. Keep in mind each ICBM can hold multiple warheads because of MIRV. Presumably there's less now because of START, but the ones they decommissioned are the old/unreliable ones, so it's fairly reasonable to assume most of their warheads can be delivered.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_START
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
Are you willing to bet the future of human civilization on this?