5 ms·

Two strategic points off the top of my head: One, the railhead. Afaik it’s operational and modern, as they used it for moving material for constructing the sar

Two strategic points off the top of my head: One, the railhead. Afaik it’s operational and modern, as they used it for moving material for constructing the sarcophagus. Goes straight to Kiev. Makes for easy onwards transport of materiel from Belarus. Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible.

asdff 5y ago
Why blow up a dirty bomb when they have 1000 real bombs?
- AitchEmArsey 5y ago
  Nuking someone is a definitive, MAD-triggering event. Causing a radiological disaster "accidentally" would be entirely consistent with the "stop hitting yourself" diplomacy Russia has undertaken since moving against Ukraine in 2014.
- dathinab 5y ago
  Additionally to what was already said in other threads about this: Why wast money?
  - asdff 5y ago
    Why do you care about saving money when you are planning on ending the world in the next hour?
- newuser94303 5y ago
  They won't blow up Chernobyl. Ukraine is a top grain exporting nation. Without wheat, Ukraine's economy would be even worse and there would be no way to feed the people.
AmericanBlarney 5y ago
I don't think the second is realistic, as that might be considered an attack on NATO countries, which is likely not a scale of war Russia is looking for.
Calavar 5y ago
> Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible. If they wanted to go that extreme, they always had the option of just launching nukes. Capturing the reactor and blowing the sarcophagus just seems like a lot of needless extra steps.
- codezero 5y ago
  Plausible deniability is a good reason not to use nukes. They could have a military accident, or blame a saboteur for some sort of weapons cache exploding in-situ and claim it was not intentional.
- steve_adams_86 5y ago
  Maybe I read too much scifi, but can't nukes be intercepted in key locations? They might be able to land them in more remote places, but wouldn't hitting cities be difficult? I was under the impression developed nations have missile interception technologies. But yeah, I've read books not based in reality and watched some netflix in my days, so I could be in fantasy land. Kind of sobering to write this out and realize how clueless I am.
  - unionpivo 5y ago
    intercepting few (up to few dozen) missiles sure. Intercepting hundreds potentially thousands ? Not really.
    - steve_adams_86 5y ago
      I didn’t realize thousands was a possible measurement of missiles to intercept.
  - jcrawfordor 5y ago
    The US and Russia long had a treaty which prohibited the development of anti-ballistic missile systems with narrow exceptions. While the treaty agreement effectively ended in 2002, it did effectively stop most ABM work in both countries for an extended period of time. Further, the problem has proven to be exceptionally difficult. The Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as "Star Wars," was an effort towards a comprehensive defense against nuclear ICBMs that was famously declared to be beyond the realm of the possible by some technical groups. While US ABM work as resumed in earnest over the last couple of decades or so, it remains an extremely hard problem and progress has been slow. The prominent GMD system, for example, has the ability to counter only "tens" of warheads (and at tremendous expense, having to fire many interceptors per inbound missile in order to raise the probability of success). Other systems like Aegis are generally even more limited. So while various countries do possess ABM systems with varying levels of efficacy, in general we could expect only a very small portion of inbound ICBMs to be successfully intercepted... if any. These types of systems have consistently under-performed expectations as field conditions prove to be more challenging than expected, and that's with limited knowledge of the countermeasures an adversary like Russia might employ.
stickfigure 5y ago
> Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible. Does the wind only blow west? This seems pretty far fetched.
- dathinab 5y ago
  Does Putin care, he will just say the West or Ukraine did so to hinder Russia and then use the damage to Russia as an excuse to act even more ruthless.

asdff 5y ago

Why blow up a dirty bomb when they have 1000 real bombs?

AitchEmArsey 5y ago
Nuking someone is a definitive, MAD-triggering event. Causing a radiological disaster "accidentally" would be entirely consistent with the "stop hitting yourself" diplomacy Russia has undertaken since moving against Ukraine in 2014.
dathinab 5y ago
Additionally to what was already said in other threads about this: Why wast money?
- asdff 5y ago
  Why do you care about saving money when you are planning on ending the world in the next hour?
newuser94303 5y ago
They won't blow up Chernobyl. Ukraine is a top grain exporting nation. Without wheat, Ukraine's economy would be even worse and there would be no way to feed the people.

AmericanBlarney 5y ago

I don't think the second is realistic, as that might be considered an attack on NATO countries, which is likely not a scale of war Russia is looking for.

Calavar 5y ago

> Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible. If they wanted to go that extreme, they always had the option of just launching nukes. Capturing the reactor and blowing the sarcophagus just seems like a lot of needless extra steps.

codezero 5y ago
Plausible deniability is a good reason not to use nukes. They could have a military accident, or blame a saboteur for some sort of weapons cache exploding in-situ and claim it was not intentional.
steve_adams_86 5y ago
Maybe I read too much scifi, but can't nukes be intercepted in key locations? They might be able to land them in more remote places, but wouldn't hitting cities be difficult? I was under the impression developed nations have missile interception technologies. But yeah, I've read books not based in reality and watched some netflix in my days, so I could be in fantasy land. Kind of sobering to write this out and realize how clueless I am.
- unionpivo 5y ago
  intercepting few (up to few dozen) missiles sure. Intercepting hundreds potentially thousands ? Not really.
  - steve_adams_86 5y ago
    I didn’t realize thousands was a possible measurement of missiles to intercept.
- jcrawfordor 5y ago
  The US and Russia long had a treaty which prohibited the development of anti-ballistic missile systems with narrow exceptions. While the treaty agreement effectively ended in 2002, it did effectively stop most ABM work in both countries for an extended period of time. Further, the problem has proven to be exceptionally difficult. The Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as "Star Wars," was an effort towards a comprehensive defense against nuclear ICBMs that was famously declared to be beyond the realm of the possible by some technical groups. While US ABM work as resumed in earnest over the last couple of decades or so, it remains an extremely hard problem and progress has been slow. The prominent GMD system, for example, has the ability to counter only "tens" of warheads (and at tremendous expense, having to fire many interceptors per inbound missile in order to raise the probability of success). Other systems like Aegis are generally even more limited. So while various countries do possess ABM systems with varying levels of efficacy, in general we could expect only a very small portion of inbound ICBMs to be successfully intercepted... if any. These types of systems have consistently under-performed expectations as field conditions prove to be more challenging than expected, and that's with limited knowledge of the countermeasures an adversary like Russia might employ.

stickfigure 5y ago

> Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible. Does the wind only blow west? This seems pretty far fetched.

dathinab 5y ago
Does Putin care, he will just say the West or Ukraine did so to hinder Russia and then use the damage to Russia as an excuse to act even more ruthless.