Is the UK in danger from Russia?

[hereforalongtimenotagoodtime]

Keep receiving conflicting information. I am sick to my stomach and quite simply hate the unknown. So a simple question - is it likely that the UK will be in danger from Russia? And if so what does that look like? Cyber attacks, bombs being dropped?

@Sunseasun

The US was able to use them against Japan, because Japan couldn't respond in kind. The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction didn't exist. This would be between nuclear powers, and send us back to the stone age. It would be armageddon.

I know. I was just saying that they have been used. Pp were saying they never have never been used.

[quote FatFredsFriedEgg]**@Cyberpunk2077* People keep saying it's nukes but we've seen nukes before*

Oh yes, I remember seeing those mushroom clouds over Manchester and Liverpool. They were nothing. A cyber attack that shuts down power for a couple of days would be trivial compared to the nuclear attacks we've already had.

Arse.[/quote]
I was referring to Hiroshima actually, you know because we have seen nukes being used before.

A Cyber attack could be quite devastating and would go on for a prolonged period of time.

So arse yourself.

Who needs Putin when you can come on MN and tear each other apart for no good reason anyway

Worst case London will be nuked best case cyber attacks either way if UK gets involved we are screwed 1 nuke wipes out 3 5 miles ish then the radiation around 40 miles 10 nukes wipe out the whole of the UK and Russia has nothing to lose but if he is not stopped how many countries will he take every man over 18 has military training in Russia and the UK army is tiny,

@Tealightsandd

Are you really trying to compare post viral symptoms with Russia invading a country and the terror that people in Ukraine are going through? That's in such poor taste it's actually stunned me

Seriously?

You express concern about people suffering terror. What, like the 160,000 people in the UK killed by Covid? And the many disabled Long Covid sufferers.

(Hope, btw that your concern for the people in Ukraine is extended to those suffering in Yemen, Ethiopia, Syria, and other conflict torn regions).

Stunning poor taste indeed to dismiss heart, lung, and brain damage, strokes, clotting, and early dementia, that is Long Covid.

You’ve read about the Ukraine famine, holodor, that killed 3,900,000 in a year right? In living memory. Because the Soviet’s took all the food.

*holodomor

I think nuclear war is highly unlikely simply because it would result in mutual destruction. Putin has strong supporters but I doubt even they would allow him to go that far.

The biggest risk to the UK would be internet sabotage and cyber attacks, on a scale we haven’t ever seen before. The world as we know it without the internet could not last very long, we rely on it for everything. That’s our Achilles heel.

The coming months could get very messy for everyone, especially as he has made his move with no room left for backtracking.

Worst case London will be nuked best case cyber attacks either way if UK gets involved we are screwed 1 nuke wipes out 3 5 miles ish then the radiation around 40 miles 10 nukes wipe out the whole of the UK and Russia has nothing to lose but if he is not stopped how many countries will he take every man over 18 has military training in Russia and the UK army is tiny,

If you must scaremonger could you at least do it coherently?

he's made himself crystal clear....try and stop him, there will be strong consequences....like the world has never seen before he said. now, what could that mean?
Longest Covid.

How is that relevant to my point @LibrariesGiveUsPower?

@Bubblesandsqueak1

Worst case London will be nuked best case cyber attacks either way if UK gets involved we are screwed 1 nuke wipes out 3 5 miles ish then the radiation around 40 miles 10 nukes wipe out the whole of the UK and Russia has nothing to lose but if he is not stopped how many countries will he take every man over 18 has military training in Russia and the UK army is tiny,

The UK would retaliate. Russia's territory is so huge that it wouldn't cause equivalent damage, but it would target population centres etc. They may be able to defeat the UK but it would be a phyric victory.

It's the reason why credible deterrence is so important and why it was stupendously short sighted, dangerous, and irresponsible when Corbyn said he wouldn't use nuclear weapons under any circumstance if he were elected; such a naive policy hands all the power to the aggressor and grants them the power to launch a first strike.

@Tealightsandd

How is that relevant to my point *@LibrariesGiveUsPower*?

It’s as relevant to your point as your point oflong covid/covid deaths is to the original post.

The chances of the UK coming under attack from Russia while not negligible are quite remote for a variety of reasons.

Although Vlad is acting the hard man, Russia's capacity to wage war on multiple fronts would be limited. Western Europe would be a different proposition. Any attacking forces would have to get past multiple hostile NATO powers before they reach us. We can also fight back. Russia does have the nuclear option, but so does NATO, and Russia would suffer terribly in a reprisal (MAD). They also have limited manpower.

A serious escalation cannot be discounted, but the greater likelihood is for a limited, if incredibly unfair, regional conflict.

The reality is that Vlad would never have attacked Ukraine if he didn't have a good chance of winning, however this will damage Russia's International standing for a long time.

Putin has little interest in Britain and does not want a big war. Putin does however want to be remembered in the history books as the man who recreates the Soviet Union (and preferably also who made Russia the top superpower).

So, Putin has a problem. Many ex Soviet states are now in Nato and if/when he attacks them, he has to deal with all the Nato countries. This makes Putin very angry. (Bit like if Scotland declared independence, then joined the EU, and Britain wanted it back but didn’t want war with the whole EU.) So Putin has devotedbyears to weakening America and Europe: his fingerprints were all over Trump, Farage etc. Now post-covid he reckons Wurope and US are as weak as they’re gonna get so he has invaded Ukraine before it joins Nato, which it has been saying it wants to do.

Bombs will not land in Britain over Ukraine. You might see some retaliatory cyber attacks but let’s face it they do a lot of that anyway - our elections, our vaccine research, etc.

The much more dangerous issue is what happens if/when Putin goes after the countries that are now Nato members: Albania, Romania etc. Bit shocked Britain has vowed to go to war with Russia if needed to protect Albania but there we are.

And the very serious question is: has Putin still got all his marbles?

@Tealightsandd

I get the memo and will fuck off.

Yet here you still are, disrupting a completely different discussion. Maybe you couldn’t find where you needed to be, here’s a hint…

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus

Surely Putin wouldn't have risked this unless he could be sure of China's support? Only a few weeks ago, they made a public pact to co-operate with each other much more. I do wonder if there's a mutual support deal ("we take Ukraine, you take Taiwan"). I also wonder if Russia annexed Crimea as a test to see what the West would do. When we did (virtually) nothing, Putin started a long term plan to build up his foreign reserves and make Russia less vulnerable to sanctions. Covid slowed him up, but now that he sees how weakened the West (USA - withdrew from Afghanistan, UK - Partygate, Germany - weak government post-Merkel), he has decided now is the time to pounce. Russia and China - now, that's a formidable enemy.

@Thewindwhispers

In what way did Trump "weaken" the US? Especially in comparison to Biden - the reality of which is that he's equally divisive (the state of "cold civil war" in the US continues) - he's just more ineffectual both domestically and internationally and can't carry out his agenda.

Trump sent mean tweets. But given that the UK is principally affected by the US' foreign policy - that's my primary interest in the US president - did you feel more or less safe with Trump as president? What has changed positively since Trump left office, apart from the media hysteria dying down?

Bombs dropping on the UK is pretty unlikely. Cyber attacks on the other hand are very much the style of the modern dictator. The biggest effect on us though will be that oil and gas prices are going to get even higher than they are now.

The UK is heading for a massive economic shitstorm for sure.

The region itself will be unstable for a while with a strong possibility of a drawn out civil war. Any direct action against us will most likely will be a cyber attack.

I find it extremely disconcerting being represented by Boris at this moment in time. 😶

Things appear to have gone a bit quiet. Do we expect further escalation tonight?

We may have seen nukes before but the bikes of yesteryear were VERY different. Hiroshima was the equivalent about 20k tonnes of tnt. Current Russian nukes (and modern nukes in general) are so much more powerful. Russia has a bike the equivalent of about 100 megatonnes of TNT.

We really haven’t seen anything like that. It would be utterly devastating to the world.

Bombs * not bikes

To report or not to report? That's the question. I'm surprised by the longevity thus far