Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities and said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid sharply rising tensions over comments by senior Western officials.
Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities and said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid sharply rising tensions over comments by senior Western officials about possibly deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.
After summoning the British ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, Moscow warned that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.K.-supplied weapons could bring retaliatory strikes against British military facilities and equipment on Ukrainian soil or elsewhere.
The remarks came on the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to a fifth term in office and in a week when Moscow on Thursday will celebrate Victory Day, its most important secular holiday, marking its defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if the Kremlin isn't happy with the current state of the war with Ukraine, that probably wouldn't produce a situation more to their liking.
Russia has lost half a dozen ships to a nation with no navy. And they want to throw down with one as experienced as the UK? "Attacking the home of Storm Shadow missiles is a good thing" is the thought of an idiot.
They’re still following their WWII and czarist military doctrine of “we have more people and resources than you”. It’s a shame that Russian military leadership will forever be associated with this instead of having a second chance to demonstrate the actual might and strategy of Trotsky’s red army.
It sometimes seems like being in power in Russia destroys your ability to have sensible military strategy
They could deploy their only aircraft carrier, that’ll show ‘em.
Oh, wait, never mind.
“The ship has been out of service and in repairs since 2018. The repair process has been hampered by accidents, embezzlement of funds, and other setbacks. After the floating drydock PD-50 sank in Kola Bay (Murmansk) in an accident that killed one worker in October 2018, the ship was towed to Sevmorput Yard No 35. In another mishap in December 2019, a major fire killed at least one worker and injured ten others. In June 2022, the ship was transferred to a drydock at the 35th Ship Repair Plant in Murmansk, where it remained until February 2023. The current projection is that repairs will be completed and the ship will be transferred back to the Russian Navy sometime in 2024, however this may be pushed back to 2025 if issues arise during overhaul and testing”
To add some icing, the phrase was originally Russian and was a household joke in Russia for decades. Russians (and Vlad Puta) know very well how unserious and comical numerous "final warnings" are.
Ukraine is faring fat better than one would have expected, but they're not getting their asses kicked. The tide of the battle seems to be shifting in Russia's favor due to Ukraine being depleted of troops.
Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities
This is equivalent to USA threatening to strike North Korean, Iranian or Chinese facilities (all of whom have been arming Russia). No such threats have been made.
Every time Russia says "there will be consequences" they're just throwing threats around like a dog barking from the other side of a fence
All their cards are on the table. The only things they could pull off are drafting more people or going nuclear
They're now scrambling to find soldiers from other nations because announcing another draft would obviously shake Putin's control over Russia
I just wish Europe would stop playing this war like a political game. SEIZE RUSSIAN MONEY! What are you afraid of? Ruining relations with Russia? Fuck off! Ukraine won't have people to fight forever
So true. By this point, Russia is already using everything it can, short of an actual, hot war with the west. And their military is stretched to the limit already without that.
I think this sabre rattling is still useful to them as a one-two-tactic:
Public threat from Russia, mentioning but not directly threatening nukes (the "push" side)
Russia-aligned media in the west publish articles saying "Putin's threat should be taken seriously," Russia-aligned western politicians smearing their opponents as "irresponsible war mongers", followed by pushing for existing sanctions to be lifted, etc. (the "pull" side via stooges/crooked politicians)
This is exactly what they should do. But they won't, because most of it is held in the City of London's offshore boltholes. Seizing anything from them would scare the shit out of every big-time capitalist and corrupt politician on the planet. Would be good for us though.
Yeah if we’d done this in Vietnam it wouldn’t be great because Ho Chi Minh was the elected leader of Vietnam, but the Vietnam war wouldn’t’ve been the absolute shit show it was. Frankly most of our wars should’ve been this
Times are tough for Russia. Putin has put a lot of his resources into cheaper alternatives like threats and cyber warfare. He is hoping, and aiding with psyops, his ally stooges, the House Putin faction and Donald Von Shitzinpantz to steal the presidency soon.
I have complained to the chancellor about that and will continue to do so. But they do provide Taurus to allies who in turn send their stock of older but similarly capable systems to Ukraine such as storm shadow.
Still, it's silly and our weapons are only for defense against Russia anyway. We will only need Taurus ourselves if Ukraine loses. Might as well put them to use.
It seems the Brits are doing something right, keep it going. Would love to see our chancellor doing the same instead of repeating the russian propaganda...
It genuinely baffles me how the conservative parties of more than a few western countries went from the hawkish party during the Cold War to Russian apologists today. The mental gymnastics are truly astounding.
There's something weird in Putin's hand... it's super blurry... I think he's shaking it really, really fast... hang on, I have a high-speed camera. Let's see what it is.
Edit: and given russias use of China and Iran weaponry
The US and Russia have historically been the world's two largest arms dealers. You can begrudge China and Iran for getting a slice of the action, but I have to imagine pulling them directly into the conflict would not improve matters for any Ukrainian.
US assessment is that China is providing the majority of what Russia needs to make those weapons, which is critical to russias ability to maintain their offensive.
They're using loopholes to bypass sanctions by posing as civilian gear.
Ukraine is also finding critical Chinese parts on captured gear that used to be from other countries honoring those sanctions.
“Our view is that one of the most gamechanging moves available to us at this time to support Ukraine is to persuade the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to stop helping Russia reconstitute its military industrial base,” the official said.
I'd take it more seriously if the West actually became involved, but regardless of Frenchmen "shooting their mouth off" nobody's sending troops to fight a nuclear power.
Maybe double check to see if they actually still are one. All these decades of sabre rattling and corruption in the defense industry, wouldn't it just take the cake if hardly any of their nuclear capabilities still worked?
A 99% failure rate would still leave them capable of MAD. That they don't have that capability is a dangerous pipe dream, which I see nowhere except Lemmy and Reddit comment sections.
I would say no-one is sending troops yet. I really dislike any country ruling it out entirely, better to just say nothing. If the conditions change, we (NATO/Europe) will need to act. Otherwise, our leaders may well be judged by the same yardstick as the leaders keen to appease a certain country in the late 30s.
Allow me to rephrase: We're not going to involve our troops first. NATO territory is a total red line that would lead to direct conflict, and there's been specific, limited consequences set for their use of various non-conventional weapons. All conventional weapons are now being given to Ukraine, to match the ones Russia is bringing to bear.
Because of that, I don't worry too much about appeasement of Russia specifically at this point. I do worry about appeasement policies in general, though. Specifically towards various factions within the West.
I was wondering if that would get brought up. It's sure ballsy on the UK's part. The deniability is the thing that makes it different, though. Russia doesn't have to respond to a few spies the same way as they would to an open confrontation. The reports also suggest it's very small numbers of people.
He didn't threaten to use nukes. He threatened to run drills where his soldiers pretend to use nukes. Probably so that he can actually follow through on an ignored threat.
But that still doesn't change the fact that any actual nuke use would result in an escalation regretted by both sides, even if it doesn't result in an alpha strike.
Holy shit what the fuck is wrong with you basically begging for a war between two major powers? We all hate Putin, but fuck that would not be good for anyone.
It would be really bad for a small group of people and would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of others. Say Putin does strike Britain. A bunch of people die in the initial strike. Then Britain, America, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, France, Canada, and probably a handful of others all collectively turn the Kremlin into glass and dust in a retaliatory strike. China and North Korea both rattle their sabers about it but neither of them wants to throw down with the Allies 2.0 because it doesn't matter who you are, going to outright war with a world cooperative force is a capital-letters Bad Idea.
Otherwise Putin continues to slowly grind his way across Eurasia for the next decade while every other country's politicians hem and haw about who they want to help and how much. Meanwhile thousands of people die daily as the Russian meat wave slides its way down toward the central EU.
There's a very good reason that Putin has been performing military ops in Ukraine and only vaguely threatening everyone else that got involved. He knows that if he manages to actually draw the ire of the full Allied military might the remaining lifespan of his army and capitol will be measured in minutes.
If this were just a straight up shooting war it would have been done and dusted two years ago. Instead it's a political war, and that's stopping a bunch of politicians from actually making a move on it. Nobody wants to be the guy that started World War 3, and Putin is leveraging that to enormous effect.
The UK hasn't been a major power in like at least 2 decades. If you mean NATO then Russia isn't really a major power in comparison to NATO. Not that it's important, Russia isn't stupid enough to pick a fight with NATO.
they've already exhausted the stupid. There is only cowardly left. Russia bombing the UK, and inadvertently, technically the EU would almost certainly result in US retaliation, let alone the nuclear submarines that britain has. And probably the rest of the EU.
type of heavy, single-edged sword, usually slightly curved, 1670s, from French sabre "heavy, curved sword" (17c.), alteration of sable (1630s), from German Sabel, Säbel, which probably is ultimately from Hungarian szablya "saber," literally "tool to cut with," from szabni "to cut." The Balto-Slavic words (Russian sablya, Polish szabla "sword, saber," Lithuanian šoblė) perhaps also are via German, but Italian sciabla seems to be directly from Hungarian. Saber-rattling "militarism" is attested from 1922. Saber-toothed cat (originally tiger) is attested from 1849, so named for the long upper canine teeth.
EDIT: Oooh, etymonline is wrong (or at least not complete). Mirriam-Webster has earlier known uses, says that it was used in the UK first, around the late 1870s.
There is no unanimity of opinion on why we came to refer to this kind of behavior as saber-rattling. Some think that it comes from the practice of 18th-century Hungarian cavalry units had of brandishing their sabers at opponents prior to charging. Others have said that it comes from the habit that military officers had in the early 20th century of ominously shaking their scabbard when issuing orders to subordinates. Our records indicate that the two words began seeing use in fixed fashion around 1880, making it unlikely that it was directly related to either of the causes given above.
Of late it has been in some quarters impossible to mention the word patriotism without having the taunt of being a sabre-rattling BOBADIL thrown in one’s face.
— The Standard (London, Eng.), 19 Feb. 1879
The “Sabre Rattling” of M. Coumoundouros, especially his assertion that by the coming spring he will have 86,000 men in the field, and that this number of troops will have been got together by the 10th of December.
— The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, Eng.), 3 Nov. 1880
The word appears to have begun in the press in the United Kingdom first, and by the early 20th century had spread to newspapers in the United States.
said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons
That explains why they had everyone dig into the radioactive soil around Chernobyl and get radiation poisoning. Gotta simulate that nuclear fallout environment "for practice"