Ukraine

[Nicholas Carey]

A friend points out that Russia’s tactical nuclear forces are probably in the same sort of condition as Russian conventional forces, that the locations of the warhead stores are well known, and that they are watched closely by NATO.

Something I have been thinking: if Russia's armed forces are as non-competent, and as poorly equipped, as they appear to be, in real life, the balance of power is seriously out of whack.

And that seriously ratchets up the likelihood of a nuclear exchange.

If push came to shove with a competent western power (never mind an invocation of NATO Art. 5), seems like they'd be on the ropes pretty quickly. And thus, far more likely to start tossing nukes.

[ERGR]

Re: Ukraine

The Russians are probably unable to use tactical nukes in and offensive manner. The doctrine has been to use nukes to blast a hole in the enemy defence and then exploit that hole with armoured units. All assessments I've read of the current Russian capabilities state that they're presently not capable of operating in an NBC environment. A nuked area would realistically be impassable to Russian troops.
That takes away the upside of using tactical nukes. The downside is that Russia would face retaliations in the form of direct military involvement from NATO countries. Nobody knows if nukes will be used in such a retaliation. My expectation is that nukes will be used to make a statement, and that a target resulting in minor losses of lives would be selected. If I were Russian, I'd avoid the Crimean bridge.
/Erik

[Timo_N62.9_E27.7]

Re: Ukraine

I agree with Erik about the target of the retaliation but I doubt that nukes would be used by NATO. And there is no need either. NATO has conventional weapons powerful enough to wipe off Russian navy from the Black Sea.

[skuthorp]

Re: Ukraine

Do not ascribe logic where logic no longer applies, just hubris and desperation.

BTW

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/zelenski-announces-that-the-city-of-liman-has-been-completely-liberated/ar-AA12va8p?ocid=BingHPCNews

[TomF]

Re: Ukraine

I suspect that if Vlad was stupid enough to use a tactical nuke, that a multinational conventional weapons' strike would utterly destroy the Crimean bridge, and probably also turn the entirety of Sebastopol's naval port into 3/4" crush gravel. Carefully avoiding the civilians' residential neighborhoods.

I suspect it would also, as some newly imaginative (and clearly shaken) Russian TV commentators observed the other day, lead Ukraine to actually declare war on Russia. Which those Russian commentators realized would mean that cities like Moscow would be targets. Not merely cities close to Ukraine presently used as staging points.

If a second nuke was deployed by Russia, I really don't know what the response would look like. We'd be on a swift on-ramp towards a nuclear exchange though, I'd think.

I had thought to not feel a genuine and grounded fear of a nuclear exchange between the West and Russia ever again, but here we are. 1981 feelings all over again.

[Peerie Maa]

Re: Ukraine

The Russians are probably unable to use tactical nukes in and offensive manner. The doctrine has been to use nukes to blast a hole in the enemy defence and then exploit that hole with armoured units. All assessments I've read of the current Russian capabilities state that they're presently not capable of operating in an NBC environment. A nuked area would realistically be impassable to Russian troops.
That takes away the upside of using tactical nukes. The downside is that Russia would face retaliations in the form of direct military involvement from NATO countries. Nobody knows if nukes will be used in such a retaliation. My expectation is that nukes will be used to make a statement, and that a target resulting in minor losses of lives would be selected. If I were Russian, I'd avoid the Crimean bridge.
/Erik

The behavior of the troops and their officers at Chernobyl indicated ignorance of NBCD, so I think that your assumption of responsible caution is in error.

[sandtown]

Re: Ukraine

The behavior of the troops and their officers at Chernobyl indicated ignorance of NBCD, so r.

Some say it was incredible bravery and a spirit of self sacrifice.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Re: Ukraine

The Russians are probably unable to use tactical nukes in and offensive manner. The doctrine has been to use nukes to blast a hole in the enemy defence and then exploit that hole with armoured units. All assessments I've read of the current Russian capabilities state that they're presently not capable of operating in an NBC environment. A nuked area would realistically be impassable to Russian troops.
That takes away the upside of using tactical nukes. The downside is that Russia would face retaliations in the form of direct military involvement from NATO countries. Nobody knows if nukes will be used in such a retaliation. My expectation is that nukes will be used to make a statement, and that a target resulting in minor losses of lives would be selected. If I were Russian, I'd avoid the Crimean bridge.
/Erik

That’s a good point.

[Osborne Russell]

Re: Ukraine

The Russians are probably unable to use tactical nukes in and offensive manner. The doctrine has been to use nukes to blast a hole in the enemy defence and then exploit that hole with armoured units. All assessments I've read of the current Russian capabilities state that they're presently not capable of operating in an NBC environment. A nuked area would realistically be impassable to Russian troops.
That takes away the upside of using tactical nukes. The downside is that Russia would face retaliations in the form of direct military involvement from NATO countries. Nobody knows if nukes will be used in such a retaliation. My expectation is that nukes will be used to make a statement, and that a target resulting in minor losses of lives would be selected. If I were Russian, I'd avoid the Crimean bridge.
/Erik

Yeah. Even the short-term domestic political gain is questionable, especially in context. "Ukraine Nazis refused to surrender to the Special Military Operation, so we had to make first use of nukes because we were losing. Oh well, we can't go there now, but neither can they."

OTOH the Russians have a tradition of apocalyptic thinking.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Re: Ukraine

Stefan Korshak’s update for today!

https://medium.com/@Stefan.Korshak/october-2-day-221-restart-in-south-foam-at-the-blogosphere-mongolia-murmers-b9da17da52f3

[johnw]

Re: Ukraine

Some say it was incredible bravery and a spirit of self sacrifice.

Here's the Wikipedia version of what happened:

On 18 March, Russian forces attacked Slavutych, the town constructed to house workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant following the disaster. The battle lasted for nine days, resulting in a Russian victory. On 20 March, Russian forces allowed some of the power plant's staff to leave and return home, in a swap with volunteers of staff that had been outside of the plant when it was captured to replace them.^[16]
Potential radiation exposure

Reuters reported that the Russian forces used the Red Forest as a route for their convoys, kicking up clouds of radioactive dust. Local workers said the Russian soldiers moving in those convoys were not using protective suits and could have potentially endangered themselves.^[30] On 31 March 2022, a Ukrainian council member of the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management claimed on his Facebook page that Russian troops were regularly removed from the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl and taken to the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology in Gomel, Belarus. This rumor led to further speculation in the press that the soldiers were suffering from acute radiation syndrome.^[31] One Russian trooper was reported to have died due to radiation.^[32] On 6 April, images and videos of trenches, foxholes and other defensive structures at the Red Forest surfaced on the internet and news outlets.^[33][34]
Local workers and scientists also said Russian troops looted radioactive material from the laboratories.^[35]
Russian withdrawal

On 29 March, Russian Deputy Minister of Defense Alexander Fomin announced a withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv area,^[36] and on 1 April the State Agency on Exclusion Zone Management announced that Russian troops had completely withdrawn from the Chernobyl NPP.^[37]
Following the Russian withdrawal, staff at the power plant raised the Ukrainian flag back over the plant.^[22] IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi announced that the IAEA would be sending a support mission to the plant "as soon as possible."^[38] On 3 April, Ukrainian forces re-entered the exclusion zone.^[16]
Following the return of Ukrainian control, significant damage to parts of the plant's offices was noted, including graffiti and smashed windows. The Washington Post further estimated that around 135 million US dollars worth of equipment had been destroyed, namely computers, vehicles, and radiation dosimetres.^[39]
Reactions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the Russian capture of the zone a "declaration of war against the whole of Europe".^[40]
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, was quoted as saying that it was a "totally pointless attack",^[7] and "the condition of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, confinement, and nuclear waste storage facilities is unknown".^[41] However, the International Atomic Energy Agency stated that there were "no casualties nor destruction at the industrial site" but that it was "of vital importance that the safe and secure operations of the nuclear facilities in that zone should not be affected or disrupted in any way".^[20][42]
Analysis

In the greater picture of the Kyiv offensive, the capture of Chernobyl could be considered a waypoint for Russian troops advancing towards Kyiv. Ben Hodges, former commanding general of the United States Army Europe, stated that the exclusion zone was "important because of where it sits... If Russian forces were attacking Kyiv from the north, Chernobyl is right there on the way." Former American Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia Evelyn Farkas said that the Russian forces "want to surround the capital" and that they "certainly don't want loose nuclear material floating around" in case of a Ukrainian insurgency.^[43][44]
The exclusion zone is important for containing fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986; as such, Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs adviser Anton Herashchenko said that "if the occupiers' artillery strikes hit the nuclear waste storage facility, radioactive dust may cover the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and the EU countries".^[40] According to BBC News, monitoring stations in the area reported a 20-fold increase in radiation levels, up to 65 μSv/h.^[45] For comparison, the average person is exposed to 0.41 μSv/h from background radiation. At 65 μSv/h it would require more than a month of continuous exposure to meet the conservative yearly exposure limit for US radiation workers.^[46] This does not account for inhaled or ingested radioactive particles, which increase exposure rates. Claire Corkhill of the University of Sheffield stated that the increase was localised and was due in part to "increased movement of people and vehicles in and around the Chernobyl zone [that] will have kicked up radioactive dust that's on the ground".^[45]

It does not appear that the soldiers digging trenches in the radioactive soil were told about their exposure to radiation, so I doubt the self-sacrifice was intentional.

[WszystekPoTrochu]

Re: Ukraine

is the Sedov the terrorist ship?

This would fit the speculations on previously planted charges listening in for an acoustic command. Even more so for a vessel that can be propelled in absolute silence.

It should be triple underlined that the technicalities on the sabotage are just speculations at this point

[WX]

Re: Ukraine

Some say it was incredible bravery and a spirit of self sacrifice.

Some say it was incredible stupidity and a spirit of ignorant to the danger.

[Peerie Maa]

Re: Ukraine

Some say it was incredible bravery and a spirit of self sacrifice.

If they do, they are idiots.
The bravery and self-sacrifice was from the troops sent in to clean up the explosion debris.

sandtown reminds me of tRump: Someone posted: "Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!"

[jdmcintyre]

Re: Ukraine

Freeman Dyson write a report that explains why the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Vietnam war would not have helped (and would have run the risk of escalation)

Freeman J. Dyson, R. Gomer, and Stephen C. Wright, Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia

You can download the report here

https://irp.fas.org/agency/dod/jason/tactical.pdf

and an op ed (from 2003) at the Nautilus institute here

https://nautilus.org/essentially-annihilated/op-ed-a-bad-idea-in-vietnam-an-even-worse-idea-today/