"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (4 Viewers)

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I'm not convinced that the West would do anything beyond further sanctions and lethal aid if Russia set off a dirty bomb. I honestly don't think there is anything Russia can do within Ukraine that would provoke NATO to attack Russia. NATO is defensive, a full on nuclear strike to flatten Kyiv will not get the consensus to attack. Russia could launch a new Holodomor with Einsatzgruppen and gas chambers et al, publicly murdering Ukrainian women and children by the hundreds of thousands, stacking the bodies like sandbags in front of CNN and BBC cameras, and still NATO won't do more than increase arms support to Ukraine. This is Ukraine's war to win or loose, though maybe by that point Germany will finally release Leopard 2s.

It should be noted that no NATO country is required to receive NATO approval for any retaliatory measures. They could choose to forgo NATO approval and go it alone.

I do agree that a dirty bomb almost certainly won't set off any nuclear response. I also think, however, that it could set up conditions for a no-fly zone or other stepping-stone to a full-scale confrontation.

All this Russian talk must be pushing the Ukrainians to drive harder to seal off the Russians in Kherson, so that Russian troops will be trapped in any hypothetical irradiation scenario.
 


and more bad news for Kadyrov...
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7500 (1400 of them tanks) is a lot.
I remember someone made some napkin calculations crossing visually confirmed data with (leaked) actual loses of a Russian battle group (or however Russians call it) and the conclusion was that visually confirmed represented about 70% of real loses. If this estimation still holds, Russians may have lost about 10.000 vehicles including 2000 tanks.

 
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's nuclear energy operator said Tuesday that Russian forces were performing secret work at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, activity that could shed light on Russia's claims that Kyiv's forces are preparing a "provocation" involving a radioactive device.

[...]

Energoatom, the Ukrainian state enterprise that operates the country's four nuclear power plants, said Russian forces have carried out secret construction work over the last week at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.

Russian officers controlling the area won't give access to Ukrainian staff running the plant or monitors from the U.N.'s atomic energy watchdog that would allow them to see what they are doing, Energoatom said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Energoatom said it "assumes ... (the Russians) are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored at (the plant)." It said there were 174 containers at the plant's dry spent fuel storage facility, each of them containing 24 assemblies of spent nuclear fuel.

"Destruction of these containers as a result of explosion will lead to a radiation accident and radiation contamination of several hundred square kilometers (miles) of the adjacent territory," the company said.


 
I suppose those Russian dumbasses haven't considered that a "dirty nuke" would create a fallout cloud that'll eventually drift eastward into Russia proper.

Putin doesn't care. The Russian model is that the people only exist to enable the State. If the State needs to prove its case by setting of a nuclear explosion, then any resultant casualties are simply supporting the State in its actions, and hence are true and noble citizens.


Adding to that, Ukraine forces aren't in control of the facility - so a claim that Ukraine caused the explosion would be seen as total bullshit.

Moscow will simply claim that the explosion resulted from Ukrainian artillery fire (just as they've done for every single Russian weapon that hit a civilian target). I suspect HIMARS would be identified as the system that fired on the facility, hence the US can be brought into the blame game.
 
It should be noted that no NATO country is required to receive NATO approval for any retaliatory measures. They could choose to forgo NATO approval and go it alone.
I doubt that would happen though. Poland was afraid to give over some MiG-29s without everyone's backing, and Germany is still mollycoddling about Leo2 tanks. These are not the sort of nations that would unilaterally attack Russia.
 
I doubt that would happen though. Poland was afraid to give over some MiG-29s without everyone's backing, and Germany is still mollycoddling about Leo2 tanks. These are not the sort of nations that would unilaterally attack Russia.

They won't act unilaterally but they may join a coalition of the willing. Ok, Germany may not but I think Poland would...indeed Poland MUST participate as a key axis for coalition forces and materiel to get into Ukraine.
 
Putin doesn't care. The Russian model is that the people only exist to enable the State. If the State needs to prove its case by setting of a nuclear explosion, then any resultant casualties are simply supporting the State in its actions, and hence are true and noble citizens.




Moscow will simply claim that the explosion resulted from Ukrainian artillery fire (just as they've done for every single Russian weapon that hit a civilian target). I suspect HIMARS would be identified as the system that fired on the facility, hence the US can be brought into the blame game.
I liked the HIMARS bit. Nice touch.
 
I doubt that would happen though. Poland was afraid to give over some MiG-29s without everyone's backing, and Germany is still mollycoddling about Leo2 tanks. These are not the sort of nations that would unilaterally attack Russia.
That was still early in the war. We were all a little too cautious then.
 
One of the links of the past two days had a side bar which said the 2nd brigade of 101st Airborne had been moved to the Romanian border with Ukraine. I have not seen comment by forum members or news media. non sense or fake news?
 
I suppose those Russian dumbasses haven't considered that a "dirty nuke" would create a fallout cloud that'll eventually drift eastward into Russia proper.

I wouldn't be so sure about that part. The reason fallout is so dangerous is because not only is it irradiated, but the nuclear explosion that creates it is sucking in the topsoil, irradiating it, and then hoisting it well into the stratosphere where upper-level winds can scatter it hundreds of miles. A two-thousand-pound bomb simply doesn't have the power to lift that soil very far, so it stays much more localized.

It could still poison a large area, and the storage containers used by the Ukrainians at Zaporizhia could conceivably poison up to 120 square miles (about 11 x 11 miles square), which is of course more than bad enough to have long-term effects.

A much bigger worry, to me, is the preparation of the dam for blowing. That reservoir supplies cooling water to the plant at Zaporizhia, and also supplies electricity to drive its pumps. Losing either or both would likely result in a meltdown if the plant is running active. That's what happened at Fukushima due to the tsunami.
 
I doubt that would happen though. Poland was afraid to give over some MiG-29s without everyone's backing, and Germany is still mollycoddling about Leo2 tanks. These are not the sort of nations that would unilaterally attack Russia.

No, but the US and UK could well do so if they decided to -- not that I think they would, mind you. I think a dirty bomb would result in a no-fly zone, though, which would either end the invasion or spur Russian escalation, which is why it's not been applied yet. Keep in mind that Biden has already warned of catastrophic consequences of Russia setting off a nuke, and Petraeus has already outlined a possible non-nuclear response as well.

It's hard to say what the Western response would be to a simple dirty bomb
 
One of the links of the past two days had a side bar which said the 2nd brigade of 101st Airborne had been moved to the Romanian border with Ukraine. I have not seen comment by forum members or news media. non sense or fake news?

Like Rob, I've read reports too, like this one from Stars & Stripes:

The 101st Airborne Division marked its official arrival in Europe during a ceremony Saturday at a strategic base in Romania, where soldiers were dispatched on a mission aimed at deterring potential aggression on NATO's southeastern flank.

The division's headquarters and its 2nd Brigade Combat Team unfurled colors at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, which will serve as an operational hub for the unit in the months ahead. The positioning of an Army combat brigade in Romania is part of an enhanced military presence along NATO's eastern flank that has taken root in the aftermath of Russia's war on Ukraine.


 

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