• Kyiv wants to hit Russia with U.S. long-range missiles
  • Biden comments suggest U.S. may be shifting its stance
  • Kremlin suspects U.S. will give Kyiv green light
  • Says direct Western involvement in war is growing
  • assembly@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This is the only way to get the conflict to end, let the Ukrainians really hit back so that the Russians are pressured for peace. Without that pressure the invasion of Ukraine will continue indefinitely.

    • Bocky@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      If they could escalate, shouldn’t they do that on their own home soil and the Ukrainian frontlines?

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow would be forced to use “more powerful and destructive weapons” against Ukraine if Kyiv started firing long-range Western missiles at Russia.

    Hey Vyacheslav, what weapons besides nuclear (and maybe biological) weapons does russia have that it hasn’t used against Ukraine already? Do you think if you use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine that that ends the war? Do you think the rest of the world will just say “welp, I guess russia used a nuke, better let them have Ukraine now”. Not even close.

    • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Russia uses nukes in Ukraine to “win” the war. Now they control land that has large swaths that are completely unlivable and non-productive for farming. And the “livable” parts Russia would have to spend huge sums of money to re-build the infrastructure from the blast(s).

      Even if the rest of the world let’s them get away with that (which I doubt they would) it doesn’t seem like a very good strategy.

      • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        If they nuke Ukraine into oblivion, they’re not spending a single kopeck building it back. They’ll engineer a second Holodomor to “get their money’s worth” before that.

    • GenosseFlosse@feddit.org
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      3 months ago

      At this point I’m questioning if they really have working nukes, or if some commanders sold them of to ISIS 15 Years go and the warheads are now filled with empty vodka bottles.

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        More realistically warheads need their fissionable components replaced every 20 years or so, Considering Russia claims to field the worlds largest nuclear arsenal on the same budget the UK spends on a much smaller arsenal (albeit likely far more advanced in the delivery system department) its extremely questionable wether the nuclear material in most of those warheads is still viable.

        While in a full scale nuclear war even a 10% success rate is apocalyptic it really does matter if they want to make a demonstration strike on Ukraine, imagine the geo-political ramifications of Russia making the huge decision to make a nuclear strike only for that missile to fail to properly detonate.

        • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          If putin throws a dud nuclear weapon out, would that stop us from nuking them? Would we be like “oh bless your heart,” and stick to traditional weapons, or would we be like “you fucked around, now find out why America doesn’t have universal health care?”

          • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I suspect turning another country into a radioactive wasteland of black-brown glass is politically unetnnable for most nations.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            3 months ago

            If putin throws a dud nuclear weapon out, would that stop us from nuking them?

            No. Because retaliatory missiles would be fired long before the “dud” landed. I can guarantee that any missile leaving any known nuclear site would illicit a response. The only hesitation would be “where is it heading?”. After that though… it’s fair game.

            now find out why America doesn’t have universal health care?”

            Fucking wish America would stop being the worlds police.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    3 months ago

    if you guys call me ‘little bitch’ 13 or 14 more times I am OUT of here!

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
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    3 months ago

    There used to be a joke in Russia called “China’s final warning” because of the hundreds of times China used to threaten a “final warning” to whoever it perceived (correctly or otherwise) as encroaching on its politics or territories, and then promptly did absolutely nothing.

    The joke is in danger of defecting and getting a new name.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Everyone does it. How many “final warnings” has the US given to Israel?

    • Maalus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It always had a new name over here. It was both Russia’s and China’s last warning depending on which one you said.

      • palordrolap@fedia.io
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        3 months ago

        Where’s “here”? I’m in the UK and only discovered that there had been a specific saying, in (Soviet) Russia, about (contemporaneous) China, very recently. Maybe it was a joke I wasn’t privy to or heard but was too young to appreciate at the time.

        (As to how I discovered it recently: I had been looking for a name or “law” for the concept of constantly making vague or empty threats - it’s kind of like crying wolf, but not - and somehow ended up the Wikipedia article on “China’s final warning”.)

  • ramble81@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Seriously, short of a nuke, how much can he actually escalate? He’s basically thrown what he can at them without risking any other front. This is an empty threat.

      • TipRing@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I imagine they still have fissile material in them, since that is hard to move without intelligence agencies catching wind. Other parts, rocket fuel, etc. very well may have been stolen.

        But we should treat them as though they still have nukes, even if we think our defenses could overcome them.