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Reported Ukrainian attack on a key radar site could trigger retaliation, an expert analysis shared by the Austrian armed forces says

A reported Ukrainian attack on a Russian early-warning radar installation may have been approved by the US and poses the risk of a nuclear escalation, an analysis published by the Austrian armed forces has warned.

Ukrainian sources claimed last week that Kiev had delivered a strike at a Voronezh-DM site in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region, near the city of Armavir.

The alleged operation is significant, considering that the facility is part of Russian nuclear deterrence, according to a text by Colonel Markus Reisner and posted by the Austrian military on Sunday.

It is unlikely that attacking the radar station had direct military value for Kiev, Reisner argues. Disabling it would reduce the amount of intelligence that Russia collects on Ukrainian launches of US-donated ATACMS ballistic missiles, he added. But the station is designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles that fly at altitudes much higher than the tactical weapons used by Ukraine.

The expert suggested that the alleged attack may have been a US-sanctioned response to Moscow’s reminders that it could use non-strategic nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. Senior Ukrainian and Western officials have called those statements a form of blackmail. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin ordered tactical nuclear exercises in the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine. Moscow said this was in response to increasingly hostile rhetoric by Western officials.

”If this is indeed the case, two further conclusions can be drawn: first, the situation in Ukraine is extremely serious and, second, the war over Ukraine has escalated again,” Reisner wrote. Such an attack could qualify for a nuclear retaliation, the colonel added.

Russia’s nuclear doctrine says that its nuclear arsenal may be used in four scenarios, one of which is “enemy action against critical Russian government and military facilities, the disabling of which would prevent a nuclear response.”

Over-the-horizon radar stations, such as the Voronezh-DM, are meant to detect ICBM launches and inform the national leadership, at which point officials can make a decision on whether to fire back.

The Russian Defense Ministry has so far not commented on the alleged attack.

This is incredibly dangerous. This is brazen flirting with nuclear war.

  • multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
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    5 months ago

    “May have”.

    The US provides Ukraine with targeting info and intelligence. I thought this was public knowledge. Ukraine doesn’t have satellites that fly over Russia.

  • darkcalling@lemmygrad.mlOP
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    5 months ago

    This seems to be arrogantly taunting Russia that they think they can or will try to take out and blind Russia before any nuclear attack by them in the event of that kind of escalation. Interception can’t work and the US knows that but blinding the enemy so the US can “catch them with their pants down” (Dr. Strangelove reference) seems like the kind of delusion these genocidal maniacs may actually believe they can pull off with Russia or worse China which has a smaller arsenal.

    During the cold war this kind of attack would have been unthinkable by either side as either side would have taken it as a potential prelude to or part of a full scale attack. The US doing it to Russia is doubly unfair. Russia has very limited space between it and US stationed nuclear weapons in NATO and so very little warning potentially in case of a first strike. By contrast the US has two oceans, thousands of miles of Canada plus NATO radar installations of just this kind at the far north of Canada to give them thousands of miles of warning before missiles can even be detected from their own borders. That plus Alaska, coverage in pacific island chains, coverage in Europe via NATO, the US probably has twice as long if not 3-5 times before Russian missiles would hit their cities and home military installations compared to Russia or China for that matter. Yet delusional liberals look at this board and think it’s justified because Russia is aggressive or whatever.

    • SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml
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      5 months ago

      They’ve already had a think tank put out a piece or two on whether to nuke China first in case of a war over Taiwan. Seems like they might have the same unhinged thoughts for Russia. It really seems the US empire is ready to take the whole world down with itself

  • ℝ𝔼𝔻 ℂ𝕆𝕃𝕆𝕊𝕊𝕌𝕊@lemmygrad.ml
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    5 months ago

    I know Russia has been considering it for a while now to shoot a “nuclear warning shot” of detonating a tactical nuke in some unoccupied field in Ukraine to show they aren’t fucking around, I feel that if they chose this option that it would be wise. It would bring the brinkmanship to about the highest level ever but it really seems like NATO doesn’t truly comprehend that Russia has nukes?

    • SpaceDogs@lemmygrad.ml
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      I get that but Russia setting off a nuke in a “harmless” area could be considered a first strike and therefore give a “reason” for NATO to start bombarding them with their own. I don’t know if it’s worth it. I genuinely see this strike as a provocation for Russia to send a nuclear bomb just so the west can justify finally sending their own.

      • Perhaps, but I feel rallying populations to go fight a nuclear armed foe in a nation that, let’s be real, the average Westerner wouldn’t have given two shits about on February 22, 2022 seems like a tall order. However I can see how Russia would likely wait until things get totally untenable first… especially given the fact that they’re already comfortably winning the war.

      • darkcalling@lemmygrad.mlOP
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        5 months ago

        The west has not and never will invite retaliatory full-scale nuclear launch and the end of their hegemony and civilization in order to avenge Russia nuking a field in Ukraine. It’s curious to me that anyone thinks this. If they’re intent on trying to nuke Russia first to take them out, they’ll invent a pretext after the fact rather than waiting for one.

        It would be unreasonable for the US to respond with multiple nuclear detonations to one detonation. Where would they do it? For what purpose? Outside their own borders? Irritating their own citizens and stirring up anti-nuclear sentiment. If they strike in Ukraine at Russian troops with nukes Russia will retaliate and Ukrainians will be upset a bit by the nuclear exchange happening entirely in their borders. Black Sea might be a good place for a detonation. Visible from Ukraine. Problem is clearing shipping and such ahead of time.

        Russia absolutely needs to draw a line in the sand. They are being salami-sliced by western escalation tactics and they need to do something. One thing would be nuking a NATO base but that would demand retaliation from NATO for reasons of face. However dropping a nuclear weapon in Ukraine on non-civilians, not even on Ukrainian troops just as a show and a warning they’re serious would show Russian resolve and give NATO no recourse to striking back without inviting back a full on nuclear exchange which they aren’t willing to jump to.

    • KrasnaiaZvezda@lemmygrad.ml
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      5 months ago

      Russia has been doing a very good job so far of making everyone forget they can use nukes so I’m not really counting on them doing anything regarding this strike or the next few until things get really bad, at which point it may be useless anyway.

      Would like to be wrong, or that Russia at least has a good reason to be doing things so meekly, but I guess time will tell.

  • supersolid_snake@lemmygrad.ml
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    5 months ago

    If Putin isn’t a coward, he would shoot down a IOF jet over Syria. But alas he is. He would have joined the west given a chance

    • darkcalling@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      Yeah it’s unfortunate he’s allowing the west to escalate. I mean there is a danger they become unhinged and triple down on Ukraine all the way to nuclear war and it’s reasonable to try and manage that. But unless Russia has a plan to break the front and end the war effectively by routing Ukraine entirely and hopelessly within the next few months they need to think about drawing lines in the sand. Then again who can say. Biden may just be desperately trying to buy time to prevent the collapse of Ukraine before the election which will look really bad for him and make him look weak and Americans hate weak imperialists on the throne.

      • supersolid_snake@lemmygrad.ml
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        5 months ago

        Imagine the Confederacy had gotten nukes. Slavery/ economic domination or we destroy earth. That’s the American model. And one day someone powerful is gonna look at those choices and not pick restraint.

        Americans hate weak imperialists on the throne.

        Sadly enough, that’s true for even a significant chunk of the antiwar crowd.

  • GenEcon
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    5 months ago

    So Ukraine should just give up or whats your take?

    If Russia doesnt want to get hit they should just stop attacking Ukraine.

    And if they react to an attack from Ukraine with using nuclear weapons, they are the ones escalating the conflict.

    So unless Ukraine attacks with nuclear weapons first, Russia is the only country responsible.

      • LeniX@lemmygrad.ml
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        5 months ago

        You know, I am really confused who should “take the crown” these days - the libs or the chuds, hypocrisy or bigotry. Is that normal?

        • SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml
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          5 months ago

          Chuds at least are more honest about their disgusting beliefs. Non-chud libs can fool well-meaning people into thinking they’re well-meaning

          • LeniX@lemmygrad.ml
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            5 months ago

            Yeah… Foxes or wolves, pick your poison.

            But then again, I’d say it’s a matter of definition. Liberal politicians are always dishonest, but there’s a lot of people who we’d ordinary call libs but are actually just apolitical or ignorant, who may hold these beliefs because they’ve been fed the koolaid 24/7, but who are not as emotionally invested as some rabid lib clowns. Their saving grace is that they are at least sometimes willing to listen. That’s who we should be talking to. The rabid ones I typically ignore - they are definitely not going to be convinced, especially on the internet. I mean, they’ll call CNN “Putin propaganda” if they do a 180 turn, they came up with the “New Orc Times” shtick when they slowly started dumping the Ukraine project.

    • SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml
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      5 months ago

      Based on your instance, I’m adding this as another data point to my hypothesis that programmers in general have some of the dumbest takes on (geo)politics

        • SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml
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          Yup, with an added layer of “I’m very smart because I’m in this profession” coming, I think, from how the industry is perceived by society, with all the “learn to code”, crypto, NFT, AI hype in recent years (although it seems to have started cooling off). Contrast that with the negative image labor aristocrats have in finance, for instance

    • darkcalling@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      Hmm and how does your derangement and propaganda fare against nuclear fission? Will it protect you like an SPF 90,000 sunscreen from the blast and radiation and collapse of society or will you die happy that the world ended so you could remain smug, ignorant, uncompromising and drunk on propaganda?

      This is the problem with the western uni-polar hegemony, they’ve forgotten fear of nuclear weapons, they’ve lost all perspective. To them it’s all a video game. Deaths, suffering, weapons, it’s all just a TV show, a sports game they can turn on and off then go back to their bags of chips and their TV and computers and ubereats. They don’t understand that you can’t turn off the nuclear weapons flying into a nearby city. You can’t turn off the impact, the wave, the radiation, the collapse of society, the disease, the starvation. You can’t just go back to what was.

      They’re so thoroughly racist, these Hitlerite western liberals can’t conceive of their “inferior” enemies being able to hurt them. And just like the original Hitlerites who badly lost their war, these modern Hitlerites will lose their hegemony, their privilege, their treats, everything. And they won’t even understand it after it’s happened, they’ll go to stabbed in the back myths and all kinds of mythologizing and nonsense rather than thoroughly examining material historical forces.

      I assure you Hitlerite. The Russian deadhand system has been activated. There is no winning for the west, if they strike first they’ll still die to that system’s automated counter-launch. You’ll die. Those you care about will die. Your city will be gone, sights, beauty, places you loved, banished forever. If you don’t die in the blasts or from radiation in the following weeks you’ll live a haunted life devoid of happiness or meaning, nothing but base survival and pain in a wasteland.

      • SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml
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        5 months ago

        or will you die happy that the world ended so you could remain smug, ignorant, uncompromising and drunk on propaganda?

        Plenty of incels and Gamers would unironically answer yes because they haven’t outgrown their nihilistic edgelord teen phase and their superiority complex

        • NothingButBits@lemmygrad.ml
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          5 months ago

          Yeah, Western society is so sick that many of it’s youth only see nuclear apocalypse as the solution. The only way to fix society’s problems is through a big reset, and nuclear Armageddon is the perfect solution to this. Really explains why Fallout games are so popular. Also shows how much lack of critical thinking there is in the West. They only know neoliberal capitalism and can’t envision a society that functions differently. Even the older generations seem to have forgotten what Keynesianism was like, they’ll call that communism.

    • Addfwyn@lemmygrad.ml
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      5 months ago

      Really not capable of any thoughts besides “Russia bad” are you? Who cares about the future of the planet when Russia bad!