The Pentagon has expressed no concern regarding the advance of Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, the Pentagon’s press service reports.
Source: European Pravda, citing Sabrina Singh, Deputy Spokesperson for the Pentagon
Details: “No, because at the end of the day, Ukraine is fighting for its sovereign territory that its neighbour invaded. So, if we want to de-escalate tensions, as we’ve said from the beginning, the best way to do that is Putin can make that decision today to withdraw troops from Ukraine,” Singh stated, when asked about the potential escalation of tensions due to Ukrainian forces entering Kursk Oblast
There is the issue that at the time, Ukraine had absolutely no ability to actually pay to maintain a nuclear arsenal. Getting security agreements instead was a sensible thing to do, it just turns out that the ones they got weren’t strong enough
And Russia does? At least they’d have the “what if one of them still works” card that the Russians are playing.
Russia’s GDP and GDP per capita have both been a lot higher than Ukraine’s in the entire post-Soviet period. Usually about two to three times higher per capita and five to ten times bigger overall. Post-Soviet Russia hasn’t been particularly prosperous, but it has a large population and oil money. It was definitely much more able to pay for it than Ukraine.
All I’m saying is that if they kept some, they could maintain some ambiguity whether they were maintaining them or not, potentially deterring the current invasion. It’s not like Russia has money to spare either, we’re taking them at their word that they have a functioning nuclear arsenal.
With how the current invasion is going, I doubt that they know for certain. But let’s be honest, that uncertainty is the only thing keeping US F-22s out of Moscow’s skies right now.
I agree it would have been better for them with the benefit of hindsight. My point is more that the decision that they did make was a pretty rational one at the time
Yeah, I get that and I agree. Everyone thought Russia will do what’s good for Russia, and not this.
Theoretically yes, although that would mean less yachts for oligarchs, so maybe some maintenance might be neglected or skipped
Not really, Russia spends about as much on its arsenal as the UK while having orders of magnitude more warheads to maintain. Either they have help from the magic nuclear maintenance faeries or only a small portion of their arsenal is still functional.