Ask HN: How to get immediately notified in case of nuclear attack on Ukraine? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to get immediately notified in case of nuclear attack on Ukraine?

6 pointsthrowaway01925413 comments

Hi,

I'm visiting my family in a country that is neighboring Ukraine and would like to immediately return back to the US in case of a nuclear attack.

Is there any way to get notified about the attack so I can book a flight as soon as possible?

Thanks

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> so I can book a flight

If you're counting on flying away from Ukraine's neighbour after an attack like that, that's already not going to work. Flights were cancelled for over 2 days and only slowly restarted after 9/11. And that was basically nothing in comparison. In reality airports close to the Ukraine borders are already used by the military flights which take priority over civilian traffic. Main roads leading that way see regular military traffic.

The extra problem with booking the flights is that if there's a nuclear attack, the available options will not be updated immediately - you may book a ghost flight and then again have to fight with everyone else for a place on the new schedule.

Sorry, I don't have a good positive suggestion for transport. But if you really want to make a good plan, I'd check: where to get food directly from the farms in the area (there will be a run on the shops like we've never seen with covid), and where the local underground shelter is (most towns around that area have buildings from the times when bomb shelters were common - you can even see the signage for them sometimes), and... I guess figure out what you'd do in case of temporary martial law.

I don't think that looking for shelters or martial law being imposed is a realistic concern. If Russia drops a nuke, it would most likely be in Ukraine and a tactical one on the front-line or some military infrastructure. Imposing a martial law would not go without economic costs, in already tough times. Has any country but Ukraine imposed a martial law when Russia attacked it, despite the fear of being the next target? The worst case scenario where you would need to look for shelters, I don't think it would apply to just that geographical area.

There is no frame of reference here to other Russian attack. This would be unprecedented and it could either be nothing for the neighbours or it could spiral out of control very quickly. And the situation depends on how close to the border+airport is OP going to be.

I think any such attack is likely to set off a snowball effect which would make any destination potentially hazardous.

Post-attack is way too late. There will be total chaos. Since you're nearby, just listen for the radiation hazard sirens and turn on the radio/TV when you hear it. Any country around you has a very developed warning system since the Cold War.

(I'm just one more border away, already bought my iodide...)

If this happens, it will be minutes before the media covers it, so any media subscription will probably do.

As a matter of fact, it's likely the attack would be pre-announced too.

So maybe move even closer to Ukraine and listen carefully.

The threat of nukes was already done by putin. I don't know how many more warnings he will be willing to give, but if putin's regime wants to "wipe clean" a front line, I don't think they will give the ukrainian army time to move away.

Nukes without a threat of using them are not much value: he's probably trying to reduce and limit involvement of other nations.

"Wiping clean" kilometers of "a front line" (which is relatively "thin") would involve so many nukes and would involve so many non-army causalties that it doesn't make sense to use them for the purpose.

Nukes have a circular effective area, so you want to use them on well-populated areas for maximum effect. Or well, don't want to use them at all unless you are looking for annihilation, which I still hope Putin is not looking for despite all the unreasonables (craziness) he exhibited so far.

There are 2 types of nukes: the small (tactical) and the big (deterrence).

A few tactical nukes will wipe clean a front line. If putin's regime army on a front line does vanish in matter of few hours, expect the worst.

Deterrence nukes are those which will wipe clean all major Ukraine cities.

As far as I understood putin's regime goals, true or not:

- the since-2014 conflict in east-ukraine is "over".

- the so-called neo-nazi azov bataillon was wiped (now they should deal with their own neo-nazi wagner pmc...)

- the drug addicts???

- Some of the newly discovered fossil gas reserverd in ukrainian sea and land are under putin's regime control.

- other true or false goals.

> There are 2 types of nukes: the small (tactical) and the big (deterrence).

It’s tactical and strategic, and they both serve a deterrence role (and even the tactical/strategic divide is debated as to its significance.)

Yep, the tactical ones would be mostly used as "big bombs" to win a front line. The big ones, to crush a whole country to make it surrender (or what's left of it).

Quick searches say the length of the frontline in Ukraine is ~2400km. Even if only 1/3 of that has any army on it, that's still 800km and I am not sure a "few tactical nukes will wipe clean a front line" that long.

If it happens it'll be on all news channels.

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