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Comment by karamanolev | Hacker News Reader

Does it, within Russia? Are you saying that as a person within Russia or an external observer? I feel like externally, the west feels like Russia is headed to certain doom, but a majority of Russians feels like they'll be fine and they're sticking it to the colonial west.

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I'm Russian living in Russia and it feels like that since 2/24. Now almost 90% are concerned about the events in the Ukraine [0].

Personally, in February I was concerned about loss of lives, mostly Ukrainian, political repressions and Russian economy, today the economy looks okeyish, but with all the Western help to the Ukraine, it looks like it's only the question of time when Putin turns to tactical nukes.

[0] https://www.levada.ru/2022/09/29/konflikt-s-ukrainoj-sentyab...

If he uses a nuke, even a small tactical nuke, nato and the US will respond with overwhelming conventional forces, destroying some significant Russian military assets. The world will be on a precipice of doom. I don't see how it will stop. Russia is too weak, their only response is more nukes, and then it's over for all of us.

NATO and the US will likely not respond if Putin uses a small nuke in Ukraine. There’s too much to lose. They’ll just let it happen, as they should. Which is obviously terrible and devastating for Ukrainians, but probably best for the rest of the world.

Hopefully other Russian leaders are aware of the risk though, and would actively disobey Putin if he gave the call to use nukes

> NATO and the US will likely not respond if Putin uses a small nuke in Ukraine. There’s too much to lose. They’ll just let it happen, as they should. Which is obviously terrible and devastating for Ukrainians, but probably best for the rest of the world.

It's actually the opposite, everyone should be hoping that someone delivers a devastating strike against the Russians for using any size of nuke in Ukraine. Unless you want to live in a world where every country is actively trying to get nuclear weapons you should as well.

Any lacklustre response to a use of a nuke will lead to nuclear proliferation going wild as every country in the world looks to actively acquire nuclear weapons for defence.

I think that the nuclear proliferation cat is out of the box. I wouldn't be surprised if even European countries are already looking to acquire nuclear capabilities.

Yeah, North Korea survived with their nukes, Libya failed after Gaddafi gave up theirs.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/if-gaddafi-had-the-bomb_b_846...

A very good article.

My bet is no direct military intervention but a dramatic ramp up in weapon supply to Ukraine, including long range weapons. The other thing that will likely happen is the loss of support from India and China, which are already a lukewarm support. Another consequence I think will be the end of non proliferation. Everyone will want to have nukes if it is now used as an offensive weapon against non nuclear countries. That includes Taiwan.

Which is why I think it is incredibly unlikely. Lots of threats, but they won't do it. Even chemical weapons would be a stretch.

I doubt they would let it happen as it's the worst of all options -- it guarantees more and more nuclear blackmail in the immediate future, not least from Putin himself.

If setting off a nuke goes unanswered, Putin will not stop at one. Europe knows that, China knows that, the US knows that, the whole world knows that.

> colonial west

Russian war in Ukraine is about regaining control of former colony. They lost lot of them in eastern Europe but still have some in Asia.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

Half of Novorossiya (New Russia) was taken from Turkey and Crimean Khanate by Russian soldiers and later that almost unpopulated land was settled by many ethnicities, but mostly by Ukrainians and Russians. [0]

When Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 this territory became Ukrainian on the basis of predominantly Ukrainian population even though the city population was mostly Russian and Jewish. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Universal_of_the_Ukraini...

> regaining control of former colony

This is an oversimplification... How many countries have built nuclear power plants and missile assembly lines in their colonies?

The British built a sizable chunk of the indian railways. In fact to this day there are plenty of British era bridges that survive whereas modern ones crumble within 20 years. Surely you don't imply that the British were not colonizers?

Railways have strategic importance for the military. Think of the Roman empire building roads.

"It's not a colony if you build infrastructure in it" seems like the sort of oversimplification you're complaining about.

The USSR certainly didn't plan to lose Ukraine.

Unlike colonies which West always planned to lose?

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