Ukraine war: World must act now to stop Russia nuclear threat - Zelensky

[webfact]

Zelensky warns Russians are being prepared for nuclear warfare

 

By Hugo Bachega and John Simpson
BBC News, Kyiv

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian officials have begun to "prepare their society" for the possible use of nuclear weapons, but added he does not believe Russia is ready to use them.

 

In an interview with the BBC, President Zelensky denied having urged strikes on Russia, claiming that an earlier remark had been mistranslated.

 

"You must use preventive kicks," he said, referring to sanctions, "not attacks".

 

In recent weeks, the Ukrainian army has recaptured large swathes of territory in a successful counter-offensive that has forced Russian troops to abandon long-held positions. In what Kyiv describes as Moscow's response to its defeats, President Vladimir Putin has incorporated four partially occupied regions of Ukraine.

 

Full story: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63173443

 

-- © Copyright BBC 2022-10-08

[ogb]

There is only one country with form on using nuclear weapons.........and it ain't Russia

[twix38]

there is only one country with a thug in charge and who lie consistently as a matter of course and have no moral boundary and who now threaten repeatedly to use Nuclear weapons. Putin's Russia.

 

Look into Putin's eyes. They are dead Fish eyes with no humanity. He will do whatever he needs to protect himself and his position whilst already overseeing numerous war crimes!

 

The modern day Hitler!

[Isaan sailor]

KGB Putin—things not going so well, so he plays the nuke card.  Why don’t his countrymen stop him?

[Jingthing]

5 minutes ago, Isaan sailor said:

KGB Putin—things not going so well, so he plays the nuke card.  Why don’t his countrymen stop him?

Afraid of being sent to the front, being thrown out a window, or sent to prison for a long term.

[Jingthing]

3 hours ago, ogb said:

There is only one country with form on using nuclear weapons.........and it ain't Russia

So what?

Russia is threatening now.

[1sickpuppy]

2 hours ago, twix38 said:

there is only one country with a thug in charge and who lie consistently as a matter of course and have no moral boundary and who now threaten repeatedly to use Nuclear weapons. Putin's Russia.

 

Look into Putin's eyes. They are dead Fish eyes with no humanity. He will do whatever he needs to protect himself and his position whilst already overseeing numerous war crimes!

 

The modern day Hitler!

He makes Hitler look like an angel

[Jingthing]

5 minutes ago, 1sickpuppy said:

He makes Hitler look like an angel

He just turned 70 and sickly.

He's losing his war.

His pet very impressive Crimea bridge was just blown up. Slava Ukraine. 

He's weaker than ever and cornered with no off ramp.

He won't accept defeat.

He's now definitely the most dangerous man in the world.

Maybe the most dangerous man ever.

[1sickpuppy]

3 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

He just turned 70 and sickly.

He's losing his war.

His pet very impressive Crimea bridge was just blown up. Slava Ukraine. 

He's weaker than ever and cornered with no off ramp.

He won't accept defeat.

He's now definitely the most dangerous man in the world.

Maybe the most dangerous man ever.

1 sick unit, needs a 50 callibre lead headache tablet

[Tug]

Imo the only thing the world can do is respond if Putin plays the nuclear card.imo it’s up to the russan people to take care of the(problem) perhaps frog March mr Putin down to that special room in the basement of the Lubyanka prison were thease matters have been (taken care of) in the past hummmmm?

[Tropposurfer]

Being Ukrainian I'd hazard a guess Mr Z has a better handle on the ebb and flow of Putins, and the Russian peoples psyche than me.

Its a worry that's for sure, and with Putin and sociopaths like him anything is possible.

Limited small battlefield tactical nuke to 'punish' and try to halt the obvious routing of his invading troops, with not a care for making a hundred or so kilometres uninhabitable for a thousand years and letting a cloud of nuclear poison waft wherever the wind blows at the time.

I'm sure Putin would not bother one iota if a few thousand Rusky troops were vaporised or left to vomit their innards up from massive radiation poisoning if he got 'revenge' and delusionally furthered the great neo-Czarist Empire he is trying to create.

If he was to do such a terrible thing I would imagine (as some have been talking possible Western responses) the West could obliterate every troop and Russian outpost with conventional weaponry east of the Russian border with Ukraine in a matter of half a day.

I wonder what China is thinking and wanting to say to him? I imagine they'd be a tad annoyed to have him spread nuclear clouds across their borders.

[ballpoint]

If Putin did decide to launch a tactical nuclear weapon, would the launch instruction be acted upon - there are at least two occasions when individual Soviet citizens either flatly refused to carry out a launch (from a submarine during the Cuban missile crisis - Vasili Arkhipov) or refused to pass on data from a faulty early warning site that incorrectly showed five US missile launches following the Soviet Union's shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007 - Stanislav Petrov), so let's hope there are still Russians with a conscious in the chain of command. 

 

But, if the launch order was obeyed, then much would depend on the type of warhead chosen.  A low yield device would cause a lot of damage in one area, (an approximately 560m radius for a 30kT payload), but the life of the fallout would be limited - after all, Hiroshima (~15kT) was more or less back to normal by 1947.  One with augmented radioactive material, specifically designed to produce higher levels of radiation would be a different story, but even so, would be limited mainly to those closer to the blast, which is small consolation to them, but nowhere near the level of a strategic nuclear missile hit.  It wouldn't really achieve much, other than the shock (in terms of awe and anger, rather than blast) value, and many analysts have said that it wouldn't result in any really significant military gain.  The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) could very well be more devasting than the blast and radiation, wiping out unprotected electronics up to an approximately 8km radius, but again, the effect would depend on where it was targeted.

 

Therefore, what would Putin's warped reasoning be for carrying out a launch?  To show that he's mad enough to do so, in the hope that everyone else will back down?  To provoke a reaction?  (Which would be akin to an act of murder-suicide).  If NATO retaliated by hitting Russia with conventional weapons then what's to stop him launching more nukes, even escalating to strategic ones aimed at NATO countries?  At the moment he seems to be chest beating and cage rattling, so hopefully that's all he has.  Sure, he may very well be terminally ill, and in the early stages of dementia, so has nothing to lose, but he has also specifically said that he wants to leave a legacy, like that of Peter the Great, and surely even he can see that if no one is left alive then there will be no one to build a statue to him - not that the chances of a statue are very high no matter what happens, unless it's a wax work in the museum of most evil men in history.  One can only hope that if he is mad enough to order a nuclear strike, no matter how low the yield, someone is courageous enough to stop it, and someone is courageous enough to stop him.  Permanently.

 

Washington State Department of Health – Office of Radiation Protection - Nuclear Weapon Detonation Fact Sheet

 

Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Following a Nuclear Detonation - Radiation Emergency Medical Management (hhs.gov)

 

 

[hotchilli]

12 hours ago, Isaan sailor said:

KGB Putin—things not going so well, so he plays the nuke card.  Why don’t his countrymen stop him?

It's coming...

Russia is now a failed country.

Economic sanctions, loss of gas revenue, several hundreds of thousands leaving the country, thousands pulled out of work places to fight, businesses going bankrupt.

Russia is dead.

And so will Putin soon.

 

[Jingthing]

16 hours ago, Tug said:

Imo the only thing the world can do is respond if Putin plays the nuclear card.imo it’s up to the russan people to take care of the(problem) perhaps frog March mr Putin down to that special room in the basement of the Lubyanka prison were thease matters have been (taken care of) in the past hummmmm?

If he uses even one nuke directed at a target the fallout would likely blow to a NATO country. 

That would trigger WW3  The most likely response is NATO destroying most of Russia's military targets in the Ukraine with conventional weapons. The west will not do a first strike for full nuclear war. At that point it will be up to Putin to try to end the world along with his own life or not. If he decides on doing that the only hope is for people not to follow his orders and off him instead. I wouldn't even try to place odds on whether he would be stopped internally then or not. Of course if his orders are followed MAD follows and it's game over.

[billd766]

22 hours ago, ogb said:

There is only one country with form on using nuclear weapons.........and it ain't Russia

And how many hundreds of thousands of lives did they save?

 

In addition it was a world war and 77 years ago.

 

During that war the Germans were also attempting to make an atom bomb. Do you think that they would not have used it?

[metisdead]

A post with a trolling image has been removed.

[Bkk Brian]

55 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

Did anyone tell Zelensky that Biden will fight this war to the last Ukrainean? 

Its ok, Russia's doing a mighty good job of supplying Ukraine with all it needs:

 

Ukraine's New Offensive Is Fueled by Captured Russian Weapons

 

“The Russians no longer have a firepower advantage. We smashed up all their artillery units before launching the offensive, and then we started to move ahead so fast that they didn’t even have time to fuel up and load their tanks,” said the officer. “They just fled and left everything behind.”

Combined with weapons taken during Russia’s retreat from Kyiv and other parts of northern Ukraine in April, these recent gains have turned Moscow into by far the largest supplier of heavy weapons for Ukraine, well ahead of the U.S. or other allies in sheer numbers, according to open-source intelligence analysts. Western-provided weapons, though, are usually more advanced and precise.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-s-new-offensive-is-fueled-by-captured-russian-weapons/ar-AA12CIDc

[Rimmer]

A troll post from an unproved source has been removed, also a reply

 

Also removed a further troll post and reply

[Jingthing]

5 hours ago, billd766 said:

And how many hundreds of thousands of lives did they save?

 

In addition it was a world war and 77 years ago.

 

During that war the Germans were also attempting to make an atom bomb. Do you think that they would not have used it?

I'm not convinced that the US had to use nukes to beat Japan but that is literally an academic question now.

 

The current situation is completely different.

 

Two nuclear powers involved.

 

MAD has worked up till now but the dynamics have changed.

 

One side Putin openly willing to consider using tactical nukes if sovereign Russia is threatened and Putin now has FIVE annexed regions that he has illegally claimed as Russia. Ukraine has not respected Putin's scams.

 

It would be silly at this point to not take Putin's threats seriously and if he acts escalation to full nuclear war is very possible.

[heybruce]

14 hours ago, Jingthing said:

I'm not convinced that the US had to use nukes to beat Japan but that is literally an academic question now.

 

The current situation is completely different.

 

Two nuclear powers involved.

 

MAD has worked up till now but the dynamics have changed.

 

One side Putin openly willing to consider using tactical nukes if sovereign Russia is threatened and Putin now has FIVE annexed regions that he has illegally claimed as Russia. Ukraine has not respected Putin's scams.

 

It would be silly at this point to not take Putin's threats seriously and if he acts escalation to full nuclear war is very possible.

At the end of World War II Japan's suicidal defense of the island's it had captured left the US considering three options for ending the war:

 

1.  Invade Japan, losing hundreds of thousands of US troops and killing millions of Japanese troops and civilians.

 

2.  Blockade Japan and starve it into submission.  All evidence indicated that Japan would not submit until millions of its citizens had starved and a generation of survivors would be left mentally and physically damaged by malnutrition.

 

3.  Use the atomic bomb, kill over a hundred thousand civilians, and end to war.

[Jingthing]

35 minutes ago, heybruce said:

At the end of World War II Japan's suicidal defense of the island's it had captured left the US considering three options for ending the war:

 

1.  Invade Japan, losing hundreds of thousands of US troops and killing millions of Japanese troops and civilians.

 

2.  Blockade Japan and starve it into submission.  All evidence indicated that Japan would not submit until millions of its citizens had starved and a generation of survivors would be left mentally and physically damaged by malnutrition.

 

3.  Use the atomic bomb, kill over a hundred thousand civilians, and end to war.

That is what Americans the victors are taught in school but there is more to it.

 

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/How-the-Soviets-helped-Allies-defeat-Japan-3177012.php

[jayceenik]

Any of you guys ever heard of Maidan and the (non-respected by Zelensky) Minsk Accords?

Just wondering why so much love for Zelensky and so much hatred for Putin...

 

[placeholder]

4 minutes ago, jayceenik said:

Any of you guys ever heard of Maidan and the (non-respected by Zelensky) Minsk Accords?

Just wondering why so much love for Zelensky and so much hatred for Putin...

 

You mean the accords that weren't respected by anybody? The ones where the Russian claimed that it didn't apply to them because the didn't have any troops in Donbas? Or is it some other Minsk agreements that you are referring to?

 

As for Maidan, do you mean the protests about this?

The protests were sparked by the Ukrainian government's sudden decision not to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved of finalizing the Agreement with the EU,^[82] while Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it.^[83] The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych and the Azarov Government.^[84] 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan

[Jingthing]

49 minutes ago, jayceenik said:

Any of you guys ever heard of Maidan and the (non-respected by Zelensky) Minsk Accords?

Just wondering why so much love for Zelensky and so much hatred for Putin...

 

Because Zelensky is showing the world anew that democracy and freedom are worth fighting for and Putin is showing the world that leaders can sometimes give Hitler a run for his money in the total evil department. 

[markclover]

It doesn't look like he can give up now.  The embarrassment of it would be too much.  I think he will cross the line and create a world war.  Russia will be turned into dust and a new government will be put it place.

[heybruce]

3 hours ago, Jingthing said:

That is what Americans the victors are taught in school but there is more to it.

 

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/How-the-Soviets-helped-Allies-defeat-Japan-3177012.php

Obviously my three option summary simplified the situation; many volumes could be written about details and hypothetical alternate histories.  And it is true that after the war in Europe ended Stalin was intent on capturing as much of Japanese held Korea, Manchuria, China and any other vulnerable lands as possible.

 

This would have certainly happened with either a US invasion or blockading of Japan.  I don't think this would have led to a better outcome for Japan or the world.  Forcing Japan into a rapid surrender prevented much of this, but the Soviet Union still seized Manchuria and Russia still holds it.

 

 

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, markclover said:

It doesn't look like he can give up now.  The embarrassment of it would be too much.  I think he will cross the line and create a world war.  Russia will be turned into dust and a new government will be put it place.

It seems that way but hopefully his Russian insider peers will stop him before it's late.

An alternative would be if he can create some kind of fiction of some kind of victory. That's more of a battlefield issue. 

[JetsetBkk]

3 hours ago, jayceenik said:

Any of you guys ever heard of Maidan and the (non-respected by Zelensky) Minsk Accords?

Just wondering why so much love for Zelensky and so much hatred for Putin...

Yes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements   &  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

 

re. the Minsk Accords: When Boris Johnson went to Ukraine in April, he told Zelensky not to negotiate for peace with Russia.

All Russia wanted was for Ukraine not to join NATO.

 

And now, here we are.

 

Thanks Boris.

 

[placeholder]

24 minutes ago, JetsetBkk said:

Yes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements   &  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

 

re. the Minsk Accords: When Boris Johnson went to Ukraine in April, he told Zelensky not to negotiate for peace with Russia.

All Russia wanted was for Ukraine not to join NATO.

 

And now, here we are.

 

Thanks Boris.

 

Except that the prospect for negotiations was never a serious one. Since the start of the war, Ukrainians have known this:

 

Declaring its readiness for negotiations, Russia is trying to buy time to prepare for the continuation of its aggressive policy towards Ukraine - Mykhailo Podolyak

Stating the alleged desire to resume peace talks, Russia is trying to divert the attention of Ukraine and the world community in order to buy time to prepare for the continuation of the aggressive policy. Mykhailo Podolyak, Advisor to the Head of the President's Office, emphasized this in an interview with Wirtualna Polska.

https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/zayavlyayuchi-pro-gotovnist-do-peremovin-rosiya-namagayetsya-77161

[Bkk Brian]

5 hours ago, JetsetBkk said:

Yes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements   &  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

 

re. the Minsk Accords: When Boris Johnson went to Ukraine in April, he told Zelensky not to negotiate for peace with Russia.

All Russia wanted was for Ukraine not to join NATO.

 

And now, here we are.

 

Thanks Boris.

 

What utter misinformation you spew, this was never about NATO and certainly not about Boris:

 

As war began, Putin rejected a Ukraine peace deal recommended by aide

But, despite earlier backing the negotiations, Putin made it clear when presented with Kozak's deal that the concessions negotiated by his aide did not go far enough and that he had expanded his objectives to include annexing swathes of Ukrainian territory, the sources said. The upshot: the deal was dropped.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-war-began-putin-rejected-ukraine-peace-deal-recommended-by-his-aide-2022-09-14/

 

President Zelensky: 'Ukraine won't join NATO to stop the war with Russia'

In order to find peace with Russia, president Zelensky is willing to reject NATO

https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2022/03/23/623a883fca47418c4d8b45f6.html