Could Zelensky use nuclear bombs? Ukraine’s options explained

Sine_Fine_Belli@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 55 points –
Could Zelensky use nuclear bombs? Ukraine’s options explained
thetimes.com
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Ukraine is facing an existential threat. If they have the in-house knowledge and capability to do this, they absolutely should.

If Russia gives up tomorrow, the war will be over. If Ukraine gives up tomorrow Ukraine will be over.

Ukraine is the only country in the world that has the full moral authority to develop nuclear weapons. We are the only country to give up nukes and look where that got us.

That being said “moral authority” isn’t worth shit in this world.

South Korea, Poland and the Baltic nations should honestly try and develop their own nukes too.

Viewing the situation in the Middle East, all of those treaties and beaurocracy amount to dick all. Defend yourself, Ukraine.

At this point it might be their only option to be secure from invasion. I mean look at North Korea they're still there. No nukes is becoming like no flag.

Well, test them on ukrainian soil first, so that russians know that the stakes have risen.

If you lop em over there without warning they'd have "no choice" other then to completely nuke ukraine in retaliation.

That's actually not too crazy of an idea. A large part of land is mined and basically unusable for a long while and modern nukes are way less and way shorter radioactive. Blasting away a large part of Russian soldiers at once would send a big message.

just out of curiosity, would a nuke blow up most of the mines? like 90% or more?

maybe it's hard to know, but this is just a thought experiment

Depends on the size of the area you're considering. In some area, one nuke would blow up 100% of the mines. But in some other, larger, area, it would only blow up 50%.

But to be fair, using nukes to clear mines is probably one of the least effective methods considering all the collateral damage on villages, fields and nature.

Use? Absolutely not. Manufacture and stockpile? Absolutely. The sad state of world affairs at the moment seems to be that this is the one and only guaranteed deterrent.

Sure, open the floodgates, what could go wrong?

Easy to say from the sidelines

The next time a nuclear weapon is used, none of us will be on the sidelines:

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on February 6, 2018, then–Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated “I do not think there is any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. Any nuclear weapon used any time is a strategic game changer.” Russian leaders have made clear that they would view any nuclear attack as the start of an all-out nuclear war.

I’m no expert, but it just feels like dropping nukes on Russia is a good way to get WWIII.