Western leaders should not be intimidated by Kremlin threats of nuclear escalation, the head of the CIA said on Saturday, and be willing to consider allowing Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles to be used inside Russia.
Bill Burns, on a visit to London alongside the head of MI6, said the US had brushed off a previous Russian nuclear scare in autumn 2022, demonstrating that threats from Moscow should not always be taken literally.
“Putin’s a bully. He’s going to continue to sabre rattle from time to time,” Burns said. “We cannot afford to be intimidated by that sabre rattling … we got to be mindful of it. The US has provided enormous support for Ukraine, and I’m sure the president will consider other ways in which we can support them.”
I’m not worried about being nuked, necessarily. I’m more worried about our nukes becoming their nukes, by way of installing one particular treasonous orange asshole as president. Again.
That fat orange fuck is going to have the US on a clearance sale.
I’m more worried about their misinformation and meddling.
Putler is [most likely] a sociopath. He’s has no morals but he’s not clinically insane. The only thing using nukes would guarantee for him is his own death, which he must certainly be aware of.
…if Russia even has any functioning nukes.
Putin also has grandchildren. I imagine he cares about a legacy. People like him usually do.
I agree with your first paragraph 100%.
Re: your second, we know Russia has functioning nukes because, at least until a year and a half ago, we used to go and inspect them on a regular basis.
The inspections did not test nav, propulsion or detonation functionality. The inspections only confirmed existence.
Russia’s weapons have been maintained by notorious black market scalpers for decades now. Nearly every gram of fuel, every PCB and every detonation component on the black market in the last 50 years has been from Russian equipment. The world’s intelligence community has noticed and done a little math on the subject.
Coupled with the West’s advanced defense systems, Russia poses almost no real nuclear threat to any ally at this point. Their delivery systems would be more effective if they were DHL deliveries.
Take the recent Chinese intelligence scandals coming out about their nukes having water in the fuel tanks and silo caps that cant retract. I believe wholeheartedly that corruption has stolen most of the nails from the thermonuclear hands in both Russia and China. Probably even NK too, to some extent.
Well sure, for land-based static and mobile systems, but it’s an open secret that the only division of the Russian military that has halfway-decent funding on a consistent basis since the fall of the USSR is their SSBN fleet.
I’m not saying that meaningfully changes the calculus imo, but if any of their shit is going to work, it’s probably going to be the boomers (subs, not the generation)
Putin is a gangster leading a mafia state.
Somehow the threat of nuclear war, billions of deaths and the collapse of society, alongside a climate changing nuclear winter just isn’t that concerning when I already know climate change is going to do as much damage already.
They said the same thing when he was repeatedly lining up troops along Ukraine’s border.
It’s not a problem until it is. They need to be making more progress on peace talks. It’s unacceptable this war has gone on for this long and killed this many people.
Could be over pretty quick if the bully would fuck off back home and leave Ukraine alone.
Agreed, but that’s not happening. It’s wild that the only possible options anybody sees right now are all-out war or Putin suddenly having a change of heart, and anybody who considers there might be other avenues to pursue is ridiculous.
Fine, the war goes on, and we’ll see hundreds of thousands of people continue to die. Nothing else anybody in the entire world can do, it all rests on Putin changing his mind, and we’ll just have to wait it out. Sucks to suck for all of those people, their families, and their descendants who are going to grow up in a country that’s going to take generations to rebuild.
Agreed, but that’s not happening
OK, then we get to see which runs out first, the US military budget from 20 years ago, or Russia’s military age male population.
My money is on our defense spending, and we have lots of video evidence backing that up.
Either he goes home now, or he just runs out of boys. Or Ukraine comes for him at this rate.
He will run out of people, at the expense of both Russian human beings and Ukrainian human beings. That’s the best case scenario with continued war, assuming it doesn’t escalate to directly include other countries.
He’s not going to stop till he is stopped.
The more aid and weapons we give Ukraine, the fewer Ukrainian and more Russian lives are lost.
Hitler taught us appeasement just rewards more aggression, we can’t let this go.
I would like the US to take direct action against Russia to end it. Like a single missile to blow Putin up.
This has the possible side effect of nuclear war.
I’d be happier if he were to say fall out of a window. That or Russia becomes New Ukraine. Or both, both would be good too.
Then Putin should be very scared of that risk and withdraw immediately!
Or the Russian people should be scared of that and force him to withdraw.
Who am I kidding, the Russian people can’t stand up to President Putin, they’re too busy listening to General Stolichnaya.
Then Putin should be very scared of that risk and withdraw immediately!
He should, but he doesn’t appear to be. That puts the ball in everybody else’s court, unfair though it is.
Or the Russian people should be scared of that and force him to withdraw.
Who am I kidding, the Russian people can’t stand up to President Putin, they’re too busy listening to General Stolichnaya.
A large number of Russians are trying to protest. They typically get killed or imprisoned. It’s hard to fault the remainder for not risking their lives for a probably fruitless attempt at dissent.
The ones trying to protest should escalate, cause clearly both the ballot boz and soapbox have become ineffective. Hell depending on how they do it it could be less lethal to them.
He should, but he doesn’t appear to be. That puts the ball in everybody else’s court, unfair though it is.
It is in our court, so we should vastly escalate, both support for Ukraine, and we should start enforcing a no-fly zone.
During WW2, I don’t think the Russians looked at the invading, brutalizing Germans and said ‘well, poor things are being forced by Hitler, we shouldn’t fight back’. And Germans stood against Hitler openly, they died for that.
Every day that goes by the cost for the Russian people increases. This is their country, they can take it back or watch it burn.
But the moronic belief that the west is weak and can’t or won’t stop them, it’s the same belief Hitler had, and will lead to the same place, the utter destruction of their country, and the partition between the west and east.
They said the same thing when he was repeatedly lining up troops along Ukraine’s border.
Who’s ‘they’? The US warned the world repeatedly that Putin was planning an invasion. They spent a month prior to the full-scale invasion herding skeptical cats in Europe trying to get everyone on the same page.
What would be achieved by peace talks? Putin will dig deeper into the lands they occupy and get more time to rebuild their army and strike even harder. It’s been proven that he can’t be trusted.
They need to be making more progress on peace talks. It’s unacceptable this war has gone on for this long and killed this many people.
Vatnik-tier opinion. No need to waste anybody’s time on a serious reply.
Exactly: “more progress on peace talks” in this context is just a tankie dog-whistle for “capitulating to Russia’s land-grabbing.”
Peace with Putin in practice means removing his means of attacking
They’re getting their supplies from North Korea… It won’t be long until they’re fighting with sticks.
Peace talks?! Hahaha
It is not possible for a conservative like Putin to enter any negotiation in good faith. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation.
There is no negotiating with a conservative. It is simply not possible as their words mean absolutely nothing. When dealing with a conservative, there is only submit or fight. “Negotiating” with a conservative is submission.
After all, Putin just wants peace… A piece of Ukraine, a piece of Moldova, a piece of Poland…
Rather offer him a piece of lead, express delivery.
They need to be making more progress on peace talks
Sic vis pacem…
We are having peace talks, right now.
Every bullet we send, every Russian soldier we help kill, is us saying we will never stop until they withdraw every soldier.
They’re Russians, they don’t understand any other language. Crimea should have made that clear.
