General Discussion

Last edited Sat Feb 15, 2025, 08:05 PM - Edit history (1)

It's obvious Putin will be back for more at some point in the future if he's pandered to in any settlement, which is why Trump's conduct now has riled the European powers so much.

Putin's the aggressor, he's the war criminal, he's the mafioso who's ripped off his people for far too long and built a criminal dystopia out of what could have been a fresh start for his country. He'll repeat that performance as long as he lives if he takes over more territory. There are no excuses for his invasion, no buying in to the fantasy that it was because he felt threatened by encroachment by NATO (Finland waves "hello" ), he's just an imperialist criminal, and will always be that no matter what fancy terms get applied by history.

As for the rumour you reported last, I've heard Zelensky say something along those lines in the last year or so, but I took it more as exasperation at the slow drip of support at times, like "What are we supposed to do?" I'm not sure it would end up being a game-changer.

Ukraine gave up the nuclear arms on its territory because they were a liability at the time (as they were for Kazakhstan, which gave up its own stocks). The crucial codes enabling their use were held by Russia, and they were just so much hardware that needed costly maintenance and conservation and guarding, with the constant threat that they could feed into the illicit arms trade somehow. Even then, Ukraine (or another state or non-state actor) could have cobbled together some sort of dirty bomb and delivery system from the components pretty quickly, and that was no doubt among the fears that sparked the Minsk Agreement and paved the way for the ratification of START.

Ukraine nowadays has plenty of nuclear reactors and the accompanying waste. It could build a dirty bomb quite quickly if it wanted to. Whether that would be more of a deterrent than a full-blown fissile nuke is another matter.

Russia's possession of nukes hasn't deterred Ukraine from striking its soil and bringing it as close to outright defeat as at any time in more or less living memory, so I'm not clear how much of an asset they'd be for Ukraine, and they'd likely cost it a lot of goodwill among its allies, which, after all, would not be immune from any fallout. And Putin's enough of an asshole to call any bluff Ukraine might put up and enjoy pointing the righteous finger of condemnation if the (almost) worst came to the (almost) worst.