A false flag operation using radioactive warheads is reportedly aimed at spent nuclear fuel
Ukrainian forces have begun preparations to target nuclear waste storage sites at a Russian power plant with radioactive warheads and to then blame Moscow, according to intelligence received by Russia.
“Sources on the other side report that the [Ukrainians] are preparing a nuclear false flag – an explosion of a dirty atomic bomb,” military journalist Marat Khairullin said Friday on his Telegram channel. “They plan to strike the storage sites of spent nuclear fuel of a nuclear power plant.”
The special warheads intended for the attack have already been delivered to the Vostochny Mining and Processing plant in Zhovti Vody, in Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, according to Khairullin.
As possible targets of the attack, Khairullin indicated either the Zaporozhye NPP in Energodar or the Kursk NPP in Kurchatov, noting that the Ukrainian government and its Western backers are “desperate and willing to try anything.”
A security official in the Russian Military Administration of Kharkov Region corroborated Khairullin’s claim to RIA Novosti on Friday. The attack is intended to use radioactive warheads to target spent fuel storage sites at a nuclear power plant, and the ammunition has already been delivered to Zhovti Vody.
Kiev’s intention is to accuse Moscow of a false flag so it could justify using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the security official said. The Ukrainian government has received orders from its Western backers to “escalate as much as possible,” he added.
According to the security official, the intelligence came from Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Sergey Lebedev, introduced as leader of the Nikolaev Region underground, who said the planned attack would be carried out with NATO weapons, with the consent of the West.
Lebedev pointed out that a large number of Western journalists have already arrived in the Sumy Region near Kursk, as well as the Ukrainian-controlled part of Zaporozhye, suggesting that this is part of Kiev’s preparations for the nuclear false flag.
sorry chief but I think we should be aiming for nuclear disarment, not holocaust.
I agree that nuclear disarmament is a lovely utopian ideal to strive for, but is simply not realistic until capitalism is completely destroyed. Until then, there is no way to trust that any capitalist country is actually disarming. For example, if everyone disarms except for the US, then we are even more fucked than if everyone had nukes.
Acquiring nukes is simply the best way for any anti-imperialist country to protect themselves against overt outside interference. If capitalist countries warmonger about invading the anti-imperialist bloc, the logical response is to remind them that they will get glassed if they try. Libya is what happens when you don't get nukes.
See this previous discussion on the topic: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4516648
China's current nuclear stockpile of ~500 warheads is 1/10 the size of Russia's or the USA's (both around 5000) and is around the size of Britain + France (~250 each). China's official reason for this is the country's no-first-use policy, but such a policy assumes that NATO is not insane. Ukraine's recent NATO-backed attempts at attacking/stealing nukes is clear evidence against that. In such a scenario, China's arsenal is simply not enough to protect its 1.4 billion population.
A country must have enough nukes to ensure decently proportional retaliation. If the USA can kill 1 million Chinese, China should be able to immediately do the same ad infinitum. Otherwise, the calculus breaks down in one side's favor. Let's assume a nuclear exchange between China and the USA based on Wikipedia's stockpile numbers for each.
I do not consider nuclear winter in this scenario, only direct kills. Nuclear winter only really affects food production. Recent simulations and the experiences of the Kuwaiti oil well fires and various wildfires actually show that nuclear winter would be much less severe than initially predicted in the early 1980s, decreasing temperatures by only a few degrees for ~10 years in localized areas before returning to normal. If this wasn't the case, Canadian wildfires would be cooling the planet significantly, but they don't. Furthermore, nuclear winter depends on setting flammable cities ablaze. Modern cities are made of concrete and steel, not wood, so would not produce the firestorms and soot needed for severe nuclear winter.
Its real, relatively small effects can be mitigated with large enough stockpiles and rapid deployment of nonperishable foodstuffs, greenhouses, sunlight-independent energy like nuclear/geothermal energy, fossil fuels (which would actually make climate change a good thing to warm the planet), sunlight-free food production tech, climate geoengineering, and other technologies (much research has been focused on this topic already). China and the USA both have enough resources to invest in these and protect their own populations if tensions did spike. Ultimately, the only way to hinder their deployment is again, to kill enough of the enemy.
Based on their strategic warhead arsenal to total strategic arsenal megatonnage ratios), each warhead in both of their stockpiles is about 0.6 megatons, for a total megatonnage of 300 for China and 3000 for the USA. The average population density is ~400 per sq mile (psqm) in China and ~90 psqm in the USA.
Using NUKEMAP to estimate deaths per nuke, we can use Hanzhong, Shaanxi; Hegang, Heilongjiang; and Yuxi, Yunnan with population density around 400 psqm to estimate that the average deaths per 0.6 megaton warhead in China is ~230,000. We use Sandpoint, Idaho; Hillsboro, Texas; and Vermillion, South Dakota with population density around 90 psqm to estimate that the average deaths per 0.6 megaton warhead in the USA is ~10,000.
This means that to match the casualties for every one US warhead, China needs around 23 warheads. If the USA uses its entire stockpile, it can kill at least 1.15 billion Chinese, while China can only kill around 5 million USAmericans. What an amazing deal for the USA, a trade of one US death per 230 Chinese deaths! This is not mutually assured destruction, this is USA assured success. We aren't even counting the nukes that could be shot down by air defenses or destroyed during first strike, which would just make the US situation even better.
To just counter the USA and ensure complete mutual destruction, China needs at least 30,000 nukes with 0.6 megatons each. Notice how conveniently close this is to the USSR's maximum stockpile of 45,000 nukes. The math is valid and has been done before.
An obvious objection to my quick maths is that nukes would be used on population centers first. However, if China and the USA want true mutually assured destruction, they must kill practically every single human. At first, the deaths-per-nuke will be very high. But by the end, all population centers will have already been glassed, so the deaths-per-nuke will be very low, resulting in an overall deaths-per-nuke around that experienced by the average population density.
Even if this averaging assumption isn't true, it simply makes China's situation all the more pressing since each US nuke can kill way more Chinese.
There's too many fellow travellers here for them to see the point you're trying to make, some people in the West resist the New Cold War not out of any moral or principled anti-imperialist reasons but principally a selfish self-preservational fear from a potential MAD scenario they have floating in their heads.
We've been through all this before. Back in the 1980s, you had some Western "leftists" too busy celebrating over the supposed European nuclear disarmament through the "Zero Option" scam that Reagan pitched to Gorbachev to see the capitulation to imperialist hegemony that Gorbachev represented. There was a rather disgusting, though largely unserious at first, struggle session over on Hexbear a while back where they debated whether China should "bother" launching its second strike if the US suddenly launches a first strike against it. "Yes, 1.4 billion people will be murdered, 1/5th of the human race exterminated, but since things are already too late, China should prevent the loss of 'more lives' and let bygones be bygones." I'm sure they thought writing a few articles in Monthly Review afterwards condemning this nuclear holocaust would be a balanced recompense for this fantasy genocide scenario. You don't need enemies with "comrades" like these.
All these nonsense stories about Ukrainian "dirty nukes" or NATO escalatory gimmicks, that tries to make it seem like the Western leadership is more like the fictional General Ripper rather than the chicken-hawk it really is, obfuscates the fact that Russian nuclear superiority, particularly its still-active Perimeter program will always ensure that there is always a bottom line the West will avoid stepping on. China has completely bypassed the nuclear unilateralism nonsense that gripped the USSR, having rejected so far all Western attempts to shackle it to "trilateral arms agreements" (where the West combines its stockpile with Russia's against their own) when it still has not reached nuclear parity. The material conditions of a contemporary arms race are different from the first Cold War in that China's industrial capacity can afford it to outcompete the West in a nuclear buildup when this had once been an active US strategy to drain the Soviet budget.
The difference in the treatment of Libya and the DPRK, the first having drawn back from its nuclear program and the latter having heroically ensured its sovereignty through a mere modest nuclear capacity is plain to see for anyone in the Global South.
Thank you for your enlightening historical viewpoint on this topic. There is no reason why socialist and anti-imperialist states should allow the West to have nuclear force supremacy. Doing so fixes nothing and instead portends the collapse of promising socialist projects.
Slight correction: A nuclear second strike is any launch after the first one. So if the the US goes for a first strike and China launches its arsenal while the US nukes are still on their way, that'd too be a second strike.
Strongly agree with most of what you're saying.
The calculus for China is even more complex. They need the ability not just to take x lives for x lives. They need the ability to suppress US and NATO capabilities globally. It's not enough to suppress the US mainland when the US stations nukes and has military forces, bases, reserves, pawns all over western Europe, as well as smaller bases in the middle east in places like Jordan, as well as places in Asia itself like Japan, occupied Korea, etc, etc. Nukes could come from anywhere including a pawn which the US disavows.
China needs a nuclear capability that is enough they can wipe out the US in a tit for tat mainland attack but also have enough that if they start with attacking US assets outside the US, they'll have enough after finishing that to still finish the US and the UK. I'd say 1500 bare minimum. Luckily they are on their way to 1000 though it will take time, time in which they're under greater threat.
They must also consider interceptor tech or the math that not all warheads will reach their destination if this is in response to a first strike by the US who is now waiting fully prepared to mitigate as much as possible (to say nothing of the possibility of the US actually managing to take out a chunk of their warhead stock in the first strike). So you need to allocate at least 10-20% more warheads than you think you need, maybe as high as 30%. Having reserves never hurts. Of course this is alleviated somewhat by putting such warheads on hypersonic missiles/delivery systems but I don't think the Chinese have entirely switched their nuclear arsenal over to those yet as they are still kind of a beta product and may not be considered ready for that duty. But even those there's still the chance the US could launch counter-nukes into the atmosphere in the path of incoming weapons to destroy them and a hypersonic missile if caught close enough would be destroyed just the same as a regular one (though I admit given the plasma around them they probably have an advantage in being able to be closer to such a blast and continue than normal missiles).
And I've mentioned this before they need enough to hit all these places plus New Zealand. Why NZ? Because it's where all the big western bourgeoisie have their bunkers and will likely flee and they need to know they'll die because China will drop 3 nukes one on top of the other on them and bury them alive in their now tombs.
I agree. The US and all its vassals and military bases absolutely have to be subdued in the event of nuclear war. In other words, the USSR's 45,000 nuke stockpile should be the goal for China as well, and is even more prescient than we expected.
Russia and North Korea should be encouraged to assist as well, as it increases redundancy and is in their interests also. In the same vein, Iran still desperately needs nukes to defend itself and contribute as well.
As @MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml discussed, unlike the USSR, China actually has the industry to rapidly build up and maintain a stockpile of this size. If China can automate electric car production like no other, it should automate nuke production as well. Nuclear warheads are about the size of electric scooters, so should be able to be built on similar production lines. China's rapid buildout of nuclear reactors should help this along, as nuclear reactors are needed to produce the plutonium for nukes.
It seems many of our considerations have been taken into account by Xi already. If western media is to be believed, China's buildup is real. I only hope that production is scaled exponentially to reach the necessary amounts before it is too late.
As a side note, IDK why western journalists on this topic say that China is building up nukes for "ambiguous political reasoning and muddled thinking". Clearly, Chinese thinking isn't muddled if we here are discussing the same things. It's so funny how westerners will warmonger about destroying China, then act surprised when China prepares by strengthening its arms.
We're already seeing a holocaust against the Palestinians, and the Isntrealis are talking about their "Samson option" as usual.
Disarmament only works if the other side also complies. So- no disarmament, rather, the entire global south, those whose states desire independence rather than being wholly enslaved to the west, should be armed. Nuclear armament is the tangible form of hman dignity and equality in the face of genocidal intent, so long as the west holds the world hostage. The imperialists can disarm first, or they can go to hell.
(edit) and also- why is it a "holocaust" when the Isntrealis bring upon that which they are trying to provoke, and inflicting on others? Was the destruction of Germany during WW2 a "holocaust?" Was the driving out of settlers, in Zimbabwe or Algeria, a "holocaust?" The Zionists can either cease being Zionists, cease being settlers, accept equality, or get the hell out- they are the ones inflicting holocausts on others, and threatening holocausts on other nations such as Iran.
My ancestors also experienced what may as well be considered genocide- in fact, the vast majority of particularly the non-white, non-western world has. Why do the Zios receive special treatment to do the same unto others, and to avoid the consequences of their actions?
please dont insert things that I havent said, I called it a nuclear holocaust because of things like the cuban missile crisis, one nuke is enough to set off a chain reaction that kills everyone.
Its all good and well saying 'deterence!' without factoring in how fucking stupid we all are.
it's a holocaust because it would literally be death by fire, it's not that deep
Fair enough. Though as said above, Isntreal is already inflicting a holocaust on the Palestinians. The west (the Zionist occupation included) is threatening a holocaust on the rest of humanity, as they always have.
Deterrence in kind is the first and only reliable bulwark against a greater holocaust, one that the west has shown all intention of inflicting, which they are already inflicting in part, and which they have already inflicted thousands of times over, constantly moving from one holocaust to another, for 500 years.
we're literally under an article about a war being prosecuted despite a nuclear deterrence (the strongest nuclear deterrence in the world btw) but sure what could go wrong with even more doomsday weapons spread across even more actors with varying levels of security, political stability, and responsibility
isn'treal already has nukes is the problem. The unstable golden child will use them before they topple.
indeed, israel makes a very good argument against nuclear proliferation
Cool, so how would you propose taking away Israel's nukes? They won't give them up willingly. Either you show Israel that if they nuke anyone else, they will also get glassed, or you glass them first.
maybe a campaign of economic interdiction, international pressure, and conventional resistance while maintaining an openness for negotiation so less suicidal zionists see a way out that doesn't involve killing themselves. wait is that what the Iran-lead resistance is actually doing
No fucking shit, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't plan for the worst because it makes you feel icky. The cold calculus of war doesn't care about feelings.
"we" shouldn't plan for worst? what "we" is this, because the nuclear proliferation and escalation being broached in this thread is not the line of the actual antiimperialist or existing socialist states, just a couple lemmygraders playing
So socialist/anti-imperialist states shouldn't think ahead then?
what are you even replying to because this is a comment observing a difference in actual policy between China's numbers of warheads and posturing and Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons versus people advocating immediate and multilateral nuclear escalation.
these places have thought about it, in much finer detail and they don't think they need enough nukes to kill every american or that nukes will singularly dissolve israel. how you can twist an argument for trusting the policy of these states into imaginary criticism is remarkable
Just because someone disagrees with you or points out the flaws in your logic doesn't mean you can strawman them.
It's not imaginary criticism either, and furthermore, no one is pressuring Iran or China into building nukes, it's called discussion about the worst possible catastrophes and how to mitigate the extreme risk.
Its the opposite, nuclear deterrence is one of the very few things that can get the US and its vassals to fuck off. Not having them, especially if you're not a major power, opens yourself up to imperialist bullying.
There is one socialist country in the entire western hemisphere, and one of the main reasons it's still standing, was due to Fidel's correct position on nuclear deterrence (which comes with a 100% willingness to use them, despite the pearl-clutching from imperial-core "leftists"). Nothing caused more strain between the Cuba and the USSR, than when the USSR removed them, Fidel was furious. Compare Cuba with all the other attempts in the western hemisphere: Chile, Grenada, etc.
Look at the fate of east asian countries also: compare the DPRK to Indonesia, Vietnam, and all the other interventions after the 1950s.
Cuba had a nuclear deterrent for all of 13 days 60 years ago. They've signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Cuba as a very stable and well defended country that is no danger to its neighbors wouldn't worry me at all anyway. the persistent thread here is the suggestion that places not like Cuba and the DPRK should have nukes
And what a difference that threat made, even after the US got rid of Kennedy and had more openly warmongering administrations, they never on-the-ground attempted troop invasions like a repeat of the bay of pigs in Cuba again. And look at the 70s-80s especially: a LOT of US troops were on the ground in the caribbean, and central and south america.
Most of us here are advocating that AES countries should have nuclear weapons, opposing the pearl-clutching imperial-core tendency of disarmament for thee, not for me.
Are you opposed in principle to imperialized countries like Palestine having a nuclear deterrent?
Cuba does NOT have a nuclear deterrent! the threat made in 1967 had no power after those weapons were removed. the suggestion that simply expressing you'd use a nuclear weapon is analogous to actually having one is ludicrous.
are you operating on a completely abstracted level? an Actually Existing Socialist Palestinian State might be a place that could use nuclear weapons. but that doesn't exist! "nukes for palestine" in the real world is nukes for multiple non state groups just barely cooperating in a time of grave struggle. can you not recognize the danger that a reactionary force could seize control of them? that a nation divided against itself is a ripe opportunity for the infiltration and influence of imperialists?
And how do you think that war would be going, if Russia had not had that deterrence? Russia's arsenal is the biggest reason why things are only officially a "proxy war."
Frankly, I would trust any non-western, non-western backed states or even most non-state entities with nukes over the western imperialists. If you want to talk about reducing the number of doomsday weapons, perhaps you should look at the ones who introduced them to the world to begin with, and who are being the aggressors across the entire globe, rather than those who are simply trying to resist.
what if Ukraine had nuclear weapons? you can't account for every state's internal security & political rectitude in perpetuity, if Ukraine had kept nuclear weapons to protect itself from the west nazis would have inherited them today.
Almost all countries in the world are run by normal people who simply want to improve the status of their country (and also possibly personally benefit in the process).
The only countries in the world that would benefit by nuking people is the USA, Israel, and maybe NATO allies. This is because they are the current dominant global powers, so nuking anyone else cements their position.
That means giving nukes to any stable country who is not them is objectively a good thing, as it reduces the likelihood that USA and co. can glass others without consequences.
no non-imperial countries ever have wars or competing interests, they've never done bad things to one another. listen to yourself.
if this was a salient strategy the USSR and China would have shipped off nukes to everyone who'd take them, but thankfully they were run by less impulsive people than you
If palestine got nukes the palestinians would not have been genocided
fantasist shit, when were you going to give them one, before the Nakba? the whole fucking conflict springs from Palestine not being a real state that can control things like its borders, a formal military, or a nuclear arsenal.
If yemen got nukes, the yemen people would not have been genocided. If syria had nukes, same. If afghanistan had nukes, same. And of course, libya.
childish magical thinking, an a-bomb would magically reconcile North and South Yemen, all Afghanistan would start holding hands if whoever's in control of Kabul had a nuke silo.
the Jamahiriya is the only state that didn't and reasonably could have but why analyze nuclear weapons as part of the whole conditions of a state? they're instant sovereignty devices apparently
I don't care about your weird technicalities. Give them nukes ASAP.
"weird technicalities" a country having a government not in danger of losing its control of its weapons to a rebel group? what is with this attitude its a two day old thread and you weirdos are still going "nu uh!" without adding literally anything.
Strawmanning much?
Nuclear disarmament will need to be forced when the Amerikkkan regime can be beaten down enough