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Comment by robocat | Hacker News Reader

If they were nuclear bombers, then an attack on nuclear deterrent infrastructure should really put the shits up the US (what if Russia mistook who was attacking?).

From another article (although maybe journalist is making shit up):

  The attacks that went after the heart of Russia's strategic [bomber] capabilities and one arm of its nuclear deterrent should serve as a global wake-up call.

Also if they are part of Russia's strategic military assets, then wouldn't Russia wonder if the US was a secret puppetmaster?

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They didn't mistake anything and aren't wondering about anything.

Here's a primer on how these things work in Russia.

You can be as careful as you want, if they decide they want confrontation with the US, they'll make up a reason.

If they don't feel confrontation is in their best interest, you can hit Moscow with a Tomahawk and, magically, no one will notice anything but a clapping sound.

> if they decide they want confrontation with the US, they'll make up a reason

That is true, but they also perceive interests that can result in confrontations, for very real reasons.

This president is not puppeteering an attack on Russia, particularly on the eve of his peace negotiation.

No, it's almost as if Ukraine has a good reason to blow up the planes that airstrike them.

Tu-95 bears are indeed Russia's equivalent of a B-52 long range strategic bomber. You can see four of them burning in one video alone. A nuclear state losing one third of a leg in their nuclear triad in one morning to asymmetric warfare should put a fire under everyone's ass.

> If they were nuclear bombers

They were nuclear-capable bombers that have regularly been used to attack Ukraine with conventional weapons (mostly cruise missiles.)

> Also if they are part of Russia's strategic military assets, then wouldn't Russia wonder if the US was a secret puppetmaster?

Increasing distrust between Putin and the Trump Administration would also be a coup for Ukraine, but, no, I don't think that's a real threat here.

The “what if Putin’s delicate feelings are bruised” style of Russian propaganda is just increasingly absurd at this point, honestly. Ukraine cannot be expected to put up with these bombers hitting their cities on a rather flimsy theory that damaging the precious bombers might result in more Russian aggression.

In practice, Ukraine has significantly reduced Russia’s _capacity_ for such aggression with this move. Russia only has a limited number of working bombers, and they’re irreplaceable.

The US, a secret puppetmaster?

Of course they will. russia, and russians disparage Ukrainians as a default. A success such as this will absolutely be blamed on “Western puppentmasters” rather than absolute mastery by Ukrainians. After all, the alcoholic descendants of a subservient Mongol enforcers couldn’t possibly have had their ass handed to them by Ukrainians. This is standard russian racism, beaten into them throughout the generations.

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