Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.

The existing nuclear doctrine, set out in a decree by President Vladimir Putin in 2020, says Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.

Some hawks among Russia’s military analysts have urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use in order to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the West.

MBFC
Archive

  • @Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    848 months ago

    The SECOND Russia uses nukes, it’s OVER. Russia’s entire existence ceases to exist, as EVERY country will nuke Russia. It won’t be WWIII.

    WWIII would imply two set of countries of roughly equal might, and each side has several countries fighting together.

    This would be more like EVERYBODY vs Russia. And they wouldn’t last more than a few days.

    • @Sundial@lemm.ee
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      538 months ago

      The problem is Russia has the very real capability of really screwing up a good chunk of the world before they get wiped off the map. It’s kind of scary if im being honest.

      • @cynar@lemmy.world
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        168 months ago

        Nukes and ICBMs are extremely complex devices. They also require extremely specialist servi e work to remain functional. Even worse, the only people who can actually check that work are the ones doing it.

        Russia hasn’t detonated a nuke in decades. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of their arsenal are now duds. The money embezzled, while boxes were ticked. Similarly, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of their ICBMs just wouldn’t launch.

        Russia’s nuclear capabilities are likely a paper tiger, and Putin likely knows this. Until they try and use them, they are scary. If they try and they fail, they are in a VERY bad situation.

        Putin is many things, but he’s not stupid. It would take a LOT more pressure from nato for him to even consider using nukes.

        • @jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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          78 months ago

          It’s kind of funny to me that a significant reason Russia is in its current predicament is because of rampant corruption. Putin runs the country like a Mafia state and then gets all surprised Pikachu Face when it becomes apparent that his underlings just stole all the money instead of using it to maintain their weapons stockpile, which is now aging and dilapidated.

    • partial_accumen
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      348 months ago

      I think even China and India would sever any remaining ties to russia if russia uses a nuke.

        • @orclev@lemmy.world
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          198 months ago

          China would just wait until it’s over and then pick through the remains of Russia. Probably try to claim a big chunk of southern Russia using some excuse or another.

          • @Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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            98 months ago

            Well it’s not southern Russia’s northern China’s fault that some mad man in Moscow used a nuke. China will just be generous and help lead the clean up in wonderful north north China.

          • @empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            28 months ago

            Ehh. They’d make a beeline for every natural resource bearing region inside Russia’s borders. The whole south-western Russian region will turn into a clusterfuck free for all that I doubt they’d want to get involved with, but any mining and oil/gas centers east of the Urals will be priority one.

            Empty land is not terribly useful for China right now, although large portions of siberia will likely become arable in the next 50 years. but the dragon is always hungry.

          • @rusticus@lemm.ee
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            08 months ago

            China would be dealing with nuclear radiation fallout across much of its country.

            • @Nutteman@lemmy.world
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              38 months ago

              Unless they are dropping ground detonations there wouldn’t me much. Most nuclear detonation would be airbursts because it’s more destructive than a ground blast. Ground blasts cause major fallout.

      • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        178 months ago

        If Russia uses their nukes, about 30 minuites later there won’t be a Russia left to sever ties with.

    • @riodoro1@lemmy.world
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      298 months ago

      Nato will write a sternly worded letter. Biden will SLAM putin for it. The EU will try to pass chat control.

      • @rusticus@lemm.ee
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        148 months ago

        Ironically Biden was the one who knew Russia would attack Ukraine and spent MONTHS preparing Ukraine for it, which is why it wasn’t over in 3 days. We have also prepped for nuclear escalation. This is what real leaders do. Trump would just continue to give Putin a blow job.

      • chingadera
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        118 months ago

        I don’t think that everyone is ready to cry right after reading this comment. Pls delete

    • @lepinkainen@lemmy.world
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      68 months ago

      We don’t need to nuke them even, we can just use conventional munitions to fuck up every military installation they have to rubble.

      And chuck a few Tomahawks at Kremlin to be sure

    • @HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      This would be more like EVERYBODY vs Russia.

      I do not share your confidence about that.

      Countries with nuclear weapons include China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and possibly Iran. And while I don’t think any of them want a nuclear war, if a nuclear war breaks out, I can imagine three or four of them siding with Russia.

      China might side with Russia simply because they’re sick of the US trying to hem them in militarily through the “island chain” strategy. The US has the entire coast of China surrounded by military bases, which could be used to cut off China’s trade routes, which is an existential threat to China because their economy is so dependent on exports.

      North Korea has a historical beef with the US, and Russia helped North Korea survive through a period when the US tried to starve them.

      India and Pakistan have a long-running dispute over Kashmir, and if India backs the US, it’s possibly Pakistan will back Russia just to oppose India.

      And Russia and Iran have been solid military and economic allies for a while now, working together in recent conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

      • chingadera
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        98 months ago

        If their intelligence agencies are worth anything, they would understand that any action unless directly against Russia would be suicide not only for them but also us. Nukes are a losing strategy no matter what.

      • @InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        The US has the entire coast of China surrounded by military bases, which could be used to cut of China’s trade routes, which is an existential threat to China because their economy is so dependent on exports.

        What is it with you people?!?!

        “it’s not fair that the US DARES to talk to other countries anywhere near us!?!?”

        This is the exact same excuse putin used for invading Ukraine, because no country is allowed to make their own decisions on who they talk to unless Russia and China get a veto.

        We have power they cannot begin to comprehend, they need to learn a lesson from Putin, “Don’t start nothin, won’t be nothin”, because if there’s one thing the US is famous for, it’s ending wars definitively.

        • @HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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          -18 months ago

          “it’s not fair that the US DARES to talk to other countries anywhere near us!?!?”

          I don’t believe that’s what I said.

  • partial_accumen
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    558 months ago

    Putin, you can’t invade another country killing thousands of their civilians and then get upset when that country comes into yours and starts taking your territory. Using a nuke here doesn’t make you look strong, it makes you look extremely weak.

  • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    288 months ago

    In Putin’s eyes:

    Putin = Russia.

    So, “threatens the existence of the state” means “I might personally lose power over this”.

    It wasn’t that long ago troops marched towards Putin, and while he meant to teach the lesson “go against me and die” what he really taught everyone was “next time don’t negotiate and don’t believe anything I say”.

    All it takes is letting some fall guy with a personal grudge against Putin get close to him with a gun.

    Everyone gets to pretend that they didn’t want him dead, and the fall guy gets killed immediately after but got to settle his score first.

    Without Putin the focus goes back on making money, and Russia stops invading people and threatening nuclear Armageddon.

    The people around him are definitely considering if he’s worth more as a myth than a man at this point.

    • @lepinkainen@lemmy.world
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      128 months ago

      Putin has no endgame.

      There is no timeline where he can step down and live peacefully.

      His one in a million is to conquer enough of Ukraine and somehow be allowed to keep it - but that’s not happening unless Donald wins the election.

      • ms.lane
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        48 months ago

        Even if crooked Don wins the election, Ukraine now has a nice Kursk that will need to be traded back.

        The more Ukraine grabs now, the less Russia is able to claim if crooked Don gets back in.

    • Random_Character_A
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      98 months ago

      True. Dictators like Putin don’t usually retire, alive at least and the end is not usually pretty, so he hangs on, and on.

  • defunct_punk
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    168 months ago

    And we can assume that these nukes, unlike the conventional armory, have been maintained since the Cold War and not sold off to private interests?

    • @orclev@lemmy.world
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      78 months ago

      I seem to recall a big kerfuffle around a decade and a half back about Russia not actually knowing what became of a whole bunch of nuclear weapons in the aftermath of the USSR collapsing. There were also rumors of Soviet nukes being sold off to various unsavory groups. It really wouldn’t surprise me to find out there was some truth to that.

      I have also heard that ICBMs and the like require regular expensive and specialized maintenance in order to remain functional. Knowing what we now know about Russia what do you figure the odds are that some general or other decided those maintenance funds would be better used to line their pockets since the odds of actually using those nukes were so low?

  • @Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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    138 months ago

    Russia: We’re updating the conditions required for the West to glass us when we get too big for our britches

    What the fuck Russia?? How hard are you planning on rattling that sabre?

    • @Zron@lemmy.world
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      38 months ago

      MAD is like 2 men standing in a lake of gasoline, one man has 3 matches, the other has 5, both threaten to use their matches if the other uses his.

      Russia is saying they’ll use their matches if the other guy throws a rock at him. The fucking situation is stupid and I hope that my ashes get blasted to a different planet when the bombs go off. I don’t want to even be a part of this stupid planets carbon cycle anymore.

    • @nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      58 months ago

      They’re not being actively held hostage in that there’s no giant prison with all their families in it.

      They are being held hostage because of the implication. The whereabouts of their family is well known so are they going to toe the line? Of course, because of the implication.

  • @SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    If their nuclear bombers went airborne the second Ukraine troops crossed their borders people would’ve taken them seriously. It would’ve shown how serious they were. But here we are, weeks after the invasion onto Russian soil, and their strong man argument is changing a few words on paper. It’s not very impressive or convincing.

  • @JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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    118 months ago

    I guess they’re relaxing the policy, since they’ve hinted previously that they viewed attacks on Russian territory to be a threat to the existence of Russia and would use nukes in response. But they didn’t.

  • @Coreidan@lemmy.world
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    58 months ago

    Oh no he’s gonna write something on a piece of paper!!

    Still too much of a little bitch to ever use nukes tho.

  • @mindlight@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.

    Oooh… Someone’s realized that a substantially smaller country with Jewish Nazis in the government is way more competent when it comes to specialized military operations?

    This is more a sign of desperation than a sign of either strategic military confidence or a booming economy.

    Moscow accuses the West of using Ukraine as a proxy to wage war against it, with the aim of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia and breaking it apart.

    Dude, you’re making yourself more important than you actually are. No one cares about you.

    Edit: if you’re quoting something, it’s kind of expected that you copy the correct quite… duh…

    • Flying Squid
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      38 months ago

      a substantially smaller country with Jewish Nazis in the government

      What the fuck are you talking about?

      • @mindlight@lemm.ee
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        68 months ago

        How could you have missed that the only reason Russia started on their glorious 3 day special military operation was to liberate Ukraine from evil Nazi Jews ?

        • Flying Squid
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          38 months ago

          Oh I see, I thought they were claiming the Nazis were in the military, not the government. I mean it was a bullshit pretext either way, but I misunderstood.

          • @mindlight@lemm.ee
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            38 months ago

            Why choose when you can have both?

            Russia have claimed both that the regime and parts of the military were Nazis.

  • @Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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    28 months ago

    Fuck it, if that’s how we go that’s how we go.

    I think there are enough people with more brains than putler over there.

    I hope this does scare his Chinese and dkpr allies a bit though.

    This one barking Russian bitch is the reason so many flowers are growing?