Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[Delphinho123]

14 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Zero chance. 

Why?

[Mandy Lifeboats]

3 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

Given the state of play at present, how likely is it we'll see Putin launch a 'tactical' nuke anytime soon?

I very much doubt it.  

1.  There is no such thing as a tactical nuke.  It’s just a term for a small nuke used against a specific military target rather than a larger nuke used against more strategic targets like cities.  Ukraine’s main military assets are very close to Russia or Russian Troops.  

2. Fallout would blow into Russia or NATO territory.  NATO wouldn’t be happy bunnies. 

3. China has a strict policy on nukes.  The first to launch automatically becomes their enemy.  China would not be happy bunnies. 

4. Nukes are weapons of last resort.  Russia using a nuke to retain Crimea makes as much sense as the UK using a nuke to retain the Isle of White. 

5. The famous leaked US document of a few months ago outlined the US’s infiltration of the Russian Military.  Some orders reached the Pentagon before they reached their intended recipient. The US could easily find out about the nuke threat and take it out. 

Believe me as an ITK, Russia uses its nukes as a threat to undermine public opinion.  It’s not yet a legitimate threat. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

19 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Zero chance. 

I’d say almost zero chance.

 It would take a madman to issue the order followed by several levels of command following a ridiculous order, the US/NATO not finding out beforehand and taking it out AND it actually detonating.  
 

[Delphinho123]

Ok, hypothetical situation. Russia launches a nuke on Bakhmut and kills X amount of people (let's say 50-75k). 

What would the response be from a) Nato, and b) the World. 

I too don't think it would happen, but at some point, Putin needs to start being truer to his word. At the moment, he can't win this war by conventional means (boots on the ground/artillery), so at some point, something has to give? Especially with land he claims is his territory now being attacked. Would he 'win' the war by mobilising the entire nation? I'm not sure.

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

10 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Ok, hypothetical situation. Russia launches a nuke on Bakhmut and kills X amount of people (let's say 50-75k). 

What would the response be from a) Nato, and b) the World. 

 

Doing that makes no sense.  
 

It would ruin land that Russia hopes to keep.  Fallout could blow onto Russia or Russian Troops. 

Biden has already said that the use of a nuke would see US boots on the ground in 48 hours.  I don’t think he’s bluffing. 

My guess is that NATO would do one or all of the following. 

1. Establish air superiority over Ukraine

2. Sink the Black Sea fleet using conventional weapons. 

3. Close the Black Sea to all Russian shipping.   (Turkey)

4. Close the Baltic Sea to all Russia shipping (Denmark/Norway)

5. Strike Russian Airbases near Ukraine with conventional weapons targeting the runways. 

 

[sidcow]

7 hours ago, pas5898 said:

My Father in Law (former Russian military shooting instructor), but is Lithuanian since the break up of the soviet union has been approached to rejoin the Russian army. He received mail to his joint family holiday home in Russia. Safe to say he will never see that house again - He lives in Leicester now.

If they are approaching him in his condition and age, they must be near conscription and seriously running out of man power.

Out of interest what is his take on all this?  Is he in agreement that Russia was forced into it by The west or that Russia is out of order?

[Delphinho123]

 

Interesting thread

[chrisp65]

5 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

Given the state of play at present, how likely is it we'll see Putin launch a 'tactical' nuke anytime soon?

Back during the Cuban missile crisis there weren’t the safety systems and communication systems there are now. Russian submarines were sent off knowing when they left Russia that communication would break down once they were a few thousand miles away and under the sea. So the orders were, that the sub captain had absolute authority to fire a nuclear tipped torpedo (it could take out a fleet of ships).

The U.S. navy wanted to see where the subs were so were dropping small or practise depth charges to get them to surface. The Russian submarine commander gave the order to fire the nuclear torpedo. His second in command and the political officer over rules him, and as we know, Russia did not nuke the U.S. fleet, even when ordered to do so.

Something similar could happen again, even if Putin gave the order those around him could in theory, say no.

[avfc1982am]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

 

This is really interesting imo. I'm trying to understand the end game for these so called freedom fighters and what their real objectives are? To the point I'm questioning if they are some sort of shadow group set up by someone like Prighozin himself to create his own political space in Russia. It's a bit of a conspiracy theory but everyman and his dog worth something in Russia will be looking to protect themselves in the event of widespread civil conflict. I'm just throwing stuff out there though tbh. 

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

30 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

, that the sub captain had absolute authority to fire a nuclear tipped torpedo (it could take out a fleet of ships).

The Captain of our nuclear submarines have a protocol if they ever lose total contact with command.  It's quite an eye-opener.  

They conduct certain checks to see if a nuclear war has begun.  If they believe the UK has been hit by a major nuclear attack they open a letter kept in the safe which is handwritten by the PM.  

This letter tells them what to do.  

No letter has ever been opened and they are destroyed unopened when the PM changes.  

Our deterrent is that even if a massive surprise attack took out the UK there is still a very good chance that we would retaliate.  

 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, avfc1982am said:

This is really interesting imo. I'm trying to understand the end game for these so called freedom fighters and what their real objectives are? To the point I'm questioning if they are some sort of shadow group set up by someone like Prighozin himself to create his own political space in Russia. It's a bit of a conspiracy theory but everyman and his dog worth something in Russia will be looking to protect themselves in the event of widespread civil conflict. I'm just throwing stuff out there though tbh. 

 

There are fundamental differences between the two Russian groupings. Russian Volunteer Corps are literal neo-Nazis who used to be in the Ukrainian militias like AZOV when they weren’t officially part of the military. They lived in Ukraine before the war. On the other hand, the Fredom of Russia Legion rely on POWs turning and volunteering to fight on the Ukrainian side, I've not heard of any politics involved.

Both groups have one uniting factor, they hate Putin, it could get really messy with these two at some point.

I guess if your scenario is true the. It is the Freedom of Russia Legion that Prigozhin would have sent his men to infiltrate as the RVC are a much closer knit grouping and aren’t formed from POWs. The FoRL were formed from a company of the regular Russian army that defected though so even though they’ve expanded to two battalions in strength they already had a command structure. And it would also reasonably hard for Wagner to infiltrate.

I'm guessing but I suspect that a lot of people are hoping that at least the RVC get wiped out eventually

I also think your theory is a little far fetched. I just think Ukraine is using them as a massive distraction forcing Russia to strengthen Belgorod Oblast and taking resources away from Ukraine in the process.

[ml1dch]

10 hours ago, pas5898 said:

My Father in Law (former Russian military shooting instructor), but is Lithuanian since the break up of the soviet union has been approached to rejoin the Russian army. He received mail to his joint family holiday home in Russia. Safe to say he will never see that house again - He lives in Leicester now.

Maybe they were aware of that and thought that his recent experience of urban desolation and hopelessness would be useful?

[magnkarl]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

There are fundamental differences between the two Russian groupings. Russian Volunteer Corps are literal neo-Nazis who used to be in the Ukrainian militias like AZOV when they weren’t officially part of the military. They lived in Ukraine before the war. On the other hand, the Fredom of Russia Legion rely on POWs turning and volunteering to fight on the Ukrainian side, I've not heard of any politics involved.

Both groups have one uniting factor, they hate Putin, it could get really messy with these two at some point.

I guess if your scenario is true the. It is the Freedom of Russia Legion that Prigozhin would have sent his men to infiltrate as the RVC are a much closer knit grouping and aren’t formed from POWs. The FoRL were formed from a company of the regular Russian army that defected though so even though they’ve expanded to two battalions in strength they already had a command structure. And it would also reasonably hard for Wagner to infiltrate.

I'm guessing but I suspect that a lot of people are hoping that at least the RVC get wiped out eventually

I also think your theory is a little far fetched. I just think Ukraine is using them as a massive distraction forcing Russia to strengthen Belgorod Oblast and taking resources away from Ukraine in the process.

And it’s working a treat, with Wagner and Kadyrov already moving their forces to try to win favour in Russia. Ukraine is playing chess.

[sidcow]

Lots of reports about Ukraine starting it's advance now. 

How quickly will the Russians crumble? 

How will they use these Western tanks and how effective will they be? 

[avfc1982am]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

There are fundamental differences between the two Russian groupings. Russian Volunteer Corps are literal neo-Nazis who used to be in the Ukrainian militias like AZOV when they weren’t officially part of the military. They lived in Ukraine before the war. On the other hand, the Fredom of Russia Legion rely on POWs turning and volunteering to fight on the Ukrainian side, I've not heard of any politics involved.

Both groups have one uniting factor, they hate Putin, it could get really messy with these two at some point.

I guess if your scenario is true the. It is the Freedom of Russia Legion that Prigozhin would have sent his men to infiltrate as the RVC are a much closer knit grouping and aren’t formed from POWs. The FoRL were formed from a company of the regular Russian army that defected though so even though they’ve expanded to two battalions in strength they already had a command structure. And it would also reasonably hard for Wagner to infiltrate.

I'm guessing but I suspect that a lot of people are hoping that at least the RVC get wiped out eventually

I also think your theory is a little far fetched. I just think Ukraine is using them as a massive distraction forcing Russia to strengthen Belgorod Oblast and taking resources away from Ukraine in the process.

Thanks for the response and the breakdown of the groups which admittedly I know very little about. As for the Prighozin theory I can see it's a little far fetched and I can see Ukraine are using the groups as a distraction. However, Russia are fully aware of that so the point I'm trying to make is what is their end goal? There hardly going to remove Putin acting like bandits running backwards and forwards across the border terrorising local communities. I just seems a little pointless and more a gesture at the moment. So then it makes me question if it's all staged. 

[ender4]

4 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

 They conduct certain checks to see if a nuclear war has begun.  If they believe the UK has been hit by a major nuclear attack they open a letter kept in the safe which is handwritten by the PM.  

This letter tells them what to do.  

No letter has ever been opened and they are destroyed unopened when the PM changes.  

Our deterrent is that even if a massive surprise attack took out the UK there is still a very good chance that we would retaliate.  

Oh god, I wonder what the letter said while Liz Truss was PM

[tonyh29]

6 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

The Captain of our nuclear submarines have a protocol if they ever lose total contact with command.  It's quite an eye-opener.  

They conduct certain checks to see if a nuclear war has begun.  If they believe the UK has been hit by a major nuclear attack they open a letter kept in the safe which is handwritten by the PM.  

This letter tells them what to do.  

No letter has ever been opened and they are destroyed unopened when the PM changes.  

Our deterrent is that even if a massive surprise attack took out the UK there is still a very good chance that we would retaliate.  

 

Isn’t the rumour that if they can’t access Radio 4’s “Today” program 3 days in a row they take that as a likelihood that the U.K. has been hit by a nuclear strike and then open the letter of last resort  ?

[TheAuthority]

4 hours ago, ender4 said:

Oh god, I wonder what the letter said while Liz Truss was PM

Something about pork markets

[TheAuthority]

3 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Isn’t the rumour that if they can’t access Radio 4’s “Today” program 3 days in a row they take that as a likelihood that the U.K. has been hit by a nuclear strike and then open the letter of last resort  ?

I think you've been reading a few too many John le Carré novels Tony.

And shame on you for reading the work of a Frenchman

[LondonLax]

The Kherson dam has been blown up. 

Both sides claim the other did it of course. 

The dam supplied the water needed for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as well as for Crimea. 

Edited June 6, 2023 by LondonLax