Do you think Putin will use nuclear weapons?

[colddayinhell]

I'm getting very nervous about the ramping up of the war and Putin's calling up of 300,000 reservists. It feels like this is a major escalation. I know that any use of nuclear weapons would mean instant retaliation but it no longer feels like a MAD scenario as it almost feels now like he wants a scorched earth and has nothing to lose and doesn't care that it would destroy everything.

What may be more likely is that Russia could detonate a nuclear weapon over the Black Sea, in the Arctic or at one of the old Soviet testing grounds - this would obviously have environmental impacts but in large would be psychological.

This is what I understand to be the most likely scenario for the opening gambit in nuclear use- a 'warning' shot somewhere unpopulated to try and frighten the other side into backing down. In the scenarios I read, NATO would have various options available, such as retaliating with a similar strike into an unpopulated area to show resolve in not backing down.

I'm not sure I buy into the 'Putin is a madman and could do anything' idea. He's a great big bastard and the decisions and actions he has taken are abominable and look completely mad to an observer, but they may well follow some kind of logic if he started this war believing victory was virtually assured. Furthermore, it's also logical in a really horrible way to want to give the impression of being so mad that he would just explode the whole world in a fit of pique- it scares the shit out of everyone. Nixon adopted a similar strategy.

I'm not attempting to paint Putin's actions as anything other than they are, which is evil. But he's already backed into a hell of a corner- if he was keen to escalate towards nuclear war, now would seem like the moment he would take that step to try and frighten everyone into agreeing to an outcome he can tolerate. Instead, he's gone for mass mobilisation. That suggests to me that he still sees nuclear conflict as something to be avoided, whatever he says.

I'm not sure I buy into the 'Putin is a madman and could do anything' idea. He's a great big bastard and the decisions and actions he has taken are abominable and look completely mad to an observer, but they may well follow some kind of logic if he started this war believing victory was virtually assured. Furthermore, it's also logical in a really horrible way to want to give the impression of being so mad that he would just explode the whole world in a fit of pique- it scares the shit out of everyone. Nixon adopted a similar strategy.

Absolutely, and of course he wants everyone to think he's so mad that we'd better back down. It's one of the few cards he has left to him. The problem is that people think because he made one objectively bad decision to invade Ukraine that has bitten him on the arse, that means none of his other processes could be governed by any form of logic.

But will Ukraine let him hold the Donbas? They don't want to give him any territory and let him come back for more when he's regrouped

He probably knows they're getting pushed out of Kherson soon. Only a matter of time. Raises interesting questions about how Russia then supply Crimea of course. Bridges are vulnerable.

I could be very wrong but Putin never mentioned Nuclear weapons, it was a western interpretation. Though it was a deliberate case of "saying it without saying it", his team can easily say that they didn't threaten to use Nuclear weapons and its the west frothing up Nuclear talk.

I do understand the need to not let dictators invade and take countries however how important is this if the cultures match? Like England and Scotland - if Scotland had independence and then England took it back, is it worth a war if day to day life looks the same? This is not the same as the Taliban and the Nazis - is it?

Ukraine and Russia are not one and the same (and for that matter neither are England and Scotland but that's for another day!) Their language might sound the same to untrained ears but they are different people.

And day to day life for the Ukrainians does not look the same as it did before the invasion. Women and children face sexual assault in the name of war, livelihoods are destroyed, buildings and lives are torn apart by artillery and people are disappearing.

Ukraine has chosen its future, and its future is as a European union member and NATO ally, NOT as vassal state of Russia.

Putin directly referred to Western nuclear threats against Russia (which is obviously bollocks but stick with me) and then went on to talk about Russia's willingness to use every weapon it has. Sergei Markov was very explicit in his threats when he spoke to the BBC yesterday, this is not a case of the West 'frothing'.

On this thread there have been several posters (with whom I agree) saying that they would rather be dead in a nuclear attack than cede Ukraine or even give an inch of it to Putin.
Everyone on our terrace is putting up a Ukraine flag this weekend in a small effort to show that we would rather see that flag on top of rubble, as one neighbour said a sign of courage-than be alive and be cowards.
So, I don't know if Putin is mad or not but it's not beyond the possibility that he would rather die than give in-as several people on Mumsnet and throughout the UK feel the same.

We just have to be brave, hope and have faith in our own courage. Put up our flag and the Ukrainian flag this weekend as a sign that we won't give in no matter what the consequences or the price.

The way the Russians have treated the Ukrainians is absolutely Taliban moral territory yes. Bears more than a passing resemblance to the Nazis before they managed to achieve industrialised genocide too. Deliberate massacres of non combatants, stealing children away from their parents, starvation, rape, targeting hospitals... this is a million miles away from day to day life being the same just with a different flag.

Doubt whether he would go for a full nuclear exchange, but he is pretty much cornered, and when you corner people they are likely to react in dangerous and unpredictable ways.

I don't think the idea that he would use a tactical/battlefield nuclear device is entirely out of the question. But if he did, that probably would be it for him.

Atm if he stopped the war quickly and went for peace then within a couple of years the west would be back on speaking terms with him.

If he lets off a tactical nuke then there is no way that would happen, Russia would become a pariah state like North Korea and would only return to the fold if Putin was removed and even then probably only after many years.

The gamble for him is probably whether the consequences in world terms of letting off a nuke are outweighed by the benefits(?) he would get from it in terms of political support on home soil. I have no clue what these (potential) benefits are.

no doubt, Putin has people monitoring social media sites like this one and it's no bad thing that they get the loud and clear message that Ukraine is a hill we're willing to die on.

What you are not taking into account is that we already know enough about Putin's mindset and behaviour not to have to base our views on how other people might behave.

We know he's very keen on his own survival because of how he responded to covid. We know there have already been multiple occasions during this war when he's been losing face significantly and still not chosen to use nuclear weapons: the Kiev debacle, for example. It makes sense to interpret his behaviour through what we already know about it.

Certainly agree the West shouldn't be backing down though. Doing so now will only make it more dangerous once he tries this again because this one concession wasn't enough. He isn't the sort of person appeasement is going to work on.

On this thread there have been several posters (with whom I agree) saying that they would rather be dead in a nuclear attack than cede Ukraine or even give an inch of it to Putin

I'm sorry, this isn't intended as a personal attack as you said that several share the sentiment but I'm calling BS on this. This is a site made up largely of women mothers.

No woman/mother I know, or have ever known, would choose to be killed in a nuclear attack and accept that fate for her children, as opposed to accepting that Ukraine may fall to Putin.

If anybody does genuinely feel that way then there's something intrinsically wrong with them. You'd be mad to prioritise some unknown people abroad above your own flesh and blood. Youe own babies, parents. Stop it with the silliness.

"some unknown people abroad" - Jesus wept!

If Ukraine falls then no one is safe, they are fighting (valiantly) for us all.

Not everyone is a self-centred arsehole, you can't speak for us all.

China did not just buy up the world’s minerals for Putin to fuck this up for them, imo. So no, I think he’d be taken out before nuclear.

Thanks for that@Parkingmoan1 Nice for us to have our thoughts referred to as bullshit and something "intrinsically wrong" with us.
Have you ever read about the bravery of ordinary people-including mothers-in wartime or do you think all mothers are appeasers. Even mothers in WW! sent their sons to the front, knowing there was a high risk of death. Mothers let their children join the army and go to dangerous places.
All those who urged Kenndey not to give in during the Cuba Nuclear Crisis-nutter were they?
Must have been something wrong with them I suppose.

Still, your post will give comfort to Putin supporters so job done!

They are unknown people abroad though, however you wrap it up.

They are fighting valiantly yes, but let's not pretend it's for anybodies sake but their own.

Thinking of your own children before somebody else's isn't being a self centred arsehole. You bring children into the world under the assumption that you'll do everything in your power to protect them. They are not collateral so you can puff out your chest and show people how brave you are for standing up to a a dictator thousands of miles away.

It's just frustrating to read when it isn't the reality of how people feel, not really.

Hypothetically ofc: if Putin turned up at your door and said if you let me blow your children up then I'll leave Ukraine alone, you'd say yes? Come on.

One of the above comments brought to mind a speech from 1938 (before even I was born) and a much more recent Madeline Albright tweet:

"British PM Neville Chamberlain in 1938 called the conflict between Nazi Germany and my native Czechoslovakia a "quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing.”

Less than two years later, the Nazis were bombing London."

....

Well I'd sooner cross that bridge if we came to it than encourage a wholly avoidable nuclear war.

The chance of that happening though is even slimmer than the chance of Puting sending nukes. His equipment, men, morale, weaponry is failing miserably in Ukraine so I don't see him having the resources to 'drop bombs' on London anytime soon.

Yes, this is the problem with the argument about choosing our own security now over Ukraine. Those are not actually the options we are picking from.

Yes but the Nazis had widespread German and Austrian support, some of the best military technology in the world bar none and a country that was late to the western colonial carve-up so wanted a piece of the imperialist action. Russia can't even hold the parts of Ukraine they already have and is expending vast amounts of weaponry and manpower - they have no capability or appetite to widen their horizons of that we can be certain.

Yep, exactly this.

I hope not, I've just renewed our National Trust membership and if there is a nuclear holocaust that'll be money down the drain.

The National Trust is a Nazi Trust smash the National Trust!

(you had to be involved in anti-fascist action in the 70s to get that one!)

The chance of that happening though is even slimmer than the chance of Puting sending nukes. His equipment, men, morale, weaponry is failing miserably in Ukraine so I don't see him having the resources to 'drop bombs' on London anytime soon.

But what about if China got involved and if the China-Russia-Iran axis consolidated against the West?

China itself has began speaking out against the war/escalation. They certainly don't want a nuclear war or for the war as it stands to go on and on and on.