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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1329 thread views

Transnational Thursday for October 17, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/17/zelensky-ukraine-seek-nuclear-weapons-join-nato

“Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which will serve as protection, or it must be part of some kind of alliance. Apart from Nato, we do not know of such an effective alliance,” Mr Zelensky said.

Ukraine has four nuclear power stations and German magazine Bild quoted a Ukrainian official specialising in weapons procurement who said that Kyiv could build a nuclear missile.

“We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb,” he said. “The West should think less about Russia’s red lines and more about our red lines.”

Despite this, the Ukrainians are also accusing poor Julian Ropcke of the Bild of spreading disinformation:

https://www.unian.ua/weapons/yaderna-zbroya-u-zelenskogo-vidreaguvali-na-informaciyu-pro-namir-ukrajini-vidnoviti-arsenal-12791010.html

According to Dmitry Litvin, an adviser to President Vladimir Zelensky, it has long been possible to confuse where the words of Bild military columnist Julian Röpke, and where the statements of Russian propagandists, writes 24 Channel.

"Because both Röpke and rospropaganda are 'turning the same nonsense into informorism,'" he added.

Later on the Bild publication as well responded head of the Anti-Disinformation Center Andriy Kovalenko. He stressed that "any fantasies of Western journalists about Ukrainian nuclear weapons are fabrications."

I guess they're trying to tone it down, or perhaps someone has reminded them of the likely outcomes of nuclear escalation against a country with an overwhelmingly larger nuclear arsenal. Zelensky probably received some very angry phone-calls from the 'you're totally joining NATO at some unspecified future time' crowd for this one and was forced to backtrack.

Ukraine is now in a very unpleasant position and they're not making it any better by constantly trying to wriggle out of it. There isn't some cheat code that lets Ukraine win the war, whether it's long range strikes, F-16s (which seem not to have produced any significant effect) or even nuclear weapons.

At this point the West should stop all kind of aid for ukraine for couple of months just to teach this loudmouth who is really in charge. And make it official - no face savings.

They might disintegrate if we did that - the battlefield situation is not looking very good even with continual spurts of aid.

There are already lots of angry Ukrainians who feel betrayed or deceived by the West, many of whom now have plentiful access to MANPADs, ATGMs, top-tier killer drones and experience using them. I wouldn't want to be the politician who is seen to pull the plug on these people.

This whole situation has become a complete disaster, I have a few shreds of sympathy for the Pentagon/State Department goons in charge of this operation. No matter what they decide on, there's going to be huge backblast. Steady-as-she-goes: Ukraine bleeds out on the battlefield. Cut and run: accusations of betrayal, the usual suspects shrieking 'with a bit of backbone we could've fought off the tyrannical rampage of this genocidal monster', Ukrainian collapse and decent probability of 'stabbed in the back' terror attacks. Pump up aid: military readiness declines further, escalation risks, Russia takes hostile actions elsewhere, still very unlikely Ukraine secures 2014 borders.

Of course, if the experts actually understood what they were doing we would never have rowed up shit creek at all.

Pump up aid: military readiness declines further, escalation risks, Russia takes hostile actions elsewhere, still very unlikely Ukraine secures 2014 borders.

I doubt more aid will really affect American military readiness, the bigger question is what the US gets back. Zelensky is not able to answer the big unspoken question: why should anyone help Ukraine win the war decisively?

There's option A: the US spends 100 billion dollars, Ukraine and Russia bleed out on the battlefield, at least one of them sells its prime assets to MNCs to fix the economy

And there's option B: the US spends 500 billion dollars, Ukraine kicks Russia out, at most one of them sells its prime assets to MNCs to fix the economy

Why spend more money on a potentially worse outcome?

B) also implies civil war in Russia

Not necessarily. A civil war requires competing elites, and Putin has been constantly pruning anything that could be considered a nascent counter-elite. Given how even Ukraine didn't really have a civil war I doubt Russia will. The PRC could support separatists in the Far East, but this would mean the bigger part of Russia would realign itself with the US, which not what they need.

Given how even Ukraine didn't really have a civil war I doubt Russia will.

Russia and Ukraine are having a civil war right now, it's just one that happens to straddle an existing border.

Don't forget in option B: Russian ethnics are dispossessed at least and massacred at worst in Crimea and DPR/LPR, with NATO weapons.

Russian ethnics are dispossessed at least and massacred at worst in

Russian ethnics are being dispossessed at least and massacred at worst in Ukraine right now, by Russians.

Yes but not, or at least only marginally, with US support and weapons.

...isn't that.... too much? if they want to punish Zelensky, they can sanction some of his property or send his wife back

The point is not to punish Zelensky but to humiliate him.

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