Top Russia diplomat warns west not to fight ‘nuclear power’ in UN speech

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 110 points – Top Russia diplomat warns west not to fight ‘nuclear power’ in UN speech
theguardian.com

Sergei Lavrov accuses west of using Ukraine ‘to defeat’ Russia days after Putin shifts Moscow’s nuclear posture

Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN general assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.

Three days after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the west of using Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade”.

“I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is,” he said.

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Notice how china and the USA never bother waving their nuclear dicks in the air. Fucking Pakistan doesn’t bother with that shit. The blyats, on the other hand, have promised nuclear war how many times, now?

These fucking idiot blyats can’t take a lesson from history. TF they think is gonna happen, Ukraine is just going to roll over? It’s going to be a long, bloody war of attrition, and in the end, the defenders always win.

Two things here:

  1. If this is true, and we cave and let them take this, why on earth would they not demand more? It seems like they would have to, especially considering they have to make up for all they spent so far on Ukraine. We open the door to infinite nuclear blackmail, which we didn't touch even in the worst of the cold War, and modern Russia is nowhere near as powerful as the ussr was. North Korea, otoh, will demand Seoul surrender tomorrow.

  2. If they're really concerned, they are always free to leave. Nobody is keeping them in Ukraine at gunpoint.

All that means is they are getting desperate, the worst possible state for a nuclear power to be in.

Again, then they should clearly just leave.

Never mind, that assumes they're not a mentally handicapped nuclear power...

Most of their technology, including their nuclear technology, was produced in the ussr by Ukrainians...

They're not as desperate as you think. Putin has grandchildren and legacies are generally important for dictators.

So, y’all remember that twitter profile “Shit My Dad Says”?

One of them was “when people start talking about sick size, don’t whip out a ruler; keep your mouth shut, stuff your crotch and keep your pants on.”

(Or something like that.)

The more they insist that their nukes … whelp. The more we think we should let them whip one out.

Another such wise man once told me that prefacing a joke with "Oh, man, this is hilarious" is not unlike telling people you're a sexual teeranna'soris. 🤌🏽

The more that Russia threatens nuclear war, the less I believe they are going to do it.

It’s likely their shit doesn’t work anymore anyway. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Unknown if their warheads work.

Known that their ICBM's don't work and the ICBM's they got from Iran were blown to high hell a few days ago.

It's like your neighbor making empty threats every weekend about your dog pooping on his lawn. Except, you don't have a dog. And this neighbor has three.

I’m sure they have a lot of nukes but how many have been stripped for parts (by them or for the black market or by spies)? I’m not saying they have zero or that their stockpile isn’t 2nd or 3rd in the world. But the more they mention them, the more I wonder why.

It's less being stripped, and more a lack of maintenance. Nukes have a shelf life. The elements inside then can decay, this means they need replacing. This is a highly specialist job. It's also expensive, and can only really be cross checked by the same people who do the work (or detonating it).

Uranium isn’t subject to export sanctions because the United States buys a lot from Russia and France gets all theirs from the Sahel region Russia is somehow making worse than a European colony.

I’m pretty sure they have fissile material. I’m not sure they have copper wiring left. It’d be small time theft.

A modern nuke is FAR from the "bang 2 rocks together" designs that were first designed. For a start, most are fusion devices. Fairly exotic reactions are used to make a small amount of fusion material to go critical. This creates a shaped charge on a fusion core. The compression wave sets fusion happening, which releases 95% of the energy. Most of Russia's arsenal is of this sort.

The downsides of these is the use of exotic elements. They often have a short half life, e.g. tritium, with 12.5 years. This means they decay. Even worse, some of the byproducts will actually poison the reaction. E.g. Rather than producing a flood of neutrons, they absorb them.

If any of this chain fails, then your fusion nuke becomes, at best, a low yield fission nuke. More likely, it becomes a dirty bomb. It's still nasty, but not the city destroying terror weapon it would be intended as.

More than any other country on earth, and the only thing of value is the core, so probably not many have been stripped.

as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically

It was you who invaded them dumbass

Remember when Gorbachev said he would bury us?

Well he's dead, I'm alive and my fear of Russia using nukes is non existent after hearing them drone on about it for literal decades.

Krushchev, and the idiom was a bit lost in translation. As I understand, the meaning was closer to "We will outlast you."

Not that that worked out either, but it's less aggressive and more defiant.

Gorbachev said he would bury us?

I don't subscribe to that point of view.

It would be such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians love their children too.

can we get some kind of UN resolution telling russia that if they launch a nuke we will all kick their ass?

Not sure a UN resolution is needed for that. Russia already knows.

i imagine that's what Biden has been doing constantly in this conflict

If nuclear extortion is permitted to work, it will inspire proliferation like we have never seen before.

Old man scared for his position is fearmongering.