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President Zelenskyy congratulated Vasyl Malyuk, Head of the SSU, on the "absolutely brilliant result" of Operation 'Spiderweb'. (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 88 points 6 days ago

“Preliminary estimates indicate that enemy aviation has suffered over $2 billion in damage,” the source said. “Enemy strategic bombers are burning en masse in Russia.”

41 bombers successfully attacked, apparently.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/ukraine/ukraine-drone-strike-on-russian-airfield-rcna210210

[-] [email protected] 57 points 6 days ago

They're saying they got a Beriev A-50 AEW&C plane too. There were only eight of those when the war started, and Ukraine has already taken a few out

[-] [email protected] 43 points 6 days ago

Just about every facet of their Soviet military inheritance has been seriously diminished or depleted at this point, with the exception of their nuclear warheads. I can't see them ever recovering from this war.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago

There’s a lot of speculation that their nuclear capabilities are severely diminished as well, but I think it’s all just speculation.

For example, any weapons based on tritium have to be replenished fairly often since tritium has a shelf life of only 12 years.

Then there are the explosives used to initiate the nuclear reaction. The nuclear material is surrounded by a high explosive like RDX, which compresses the nuclear material into a critical mass, triggering the nuclear reaction. But explosives like RDX also have a short shelf life measured in a handful of years.

So maintaining nuclear weapons is a time consuming and complex process. Given the poor economy of Russia, the known corruption at all levels of the military, the fact that the Russian army has had to round up weapons, vehicles, etc. that are 50+ years old to fight Ukraine, etc. it makes people wonder if they still have the ability to maintain their nuclear weapons.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Graft is a big component here too. We saw how bad it was during the initial invasion in Feb 2022. And that was with items that might actually be used at some point (tanks, trucks, etc). When you are in charge of maintaining nukes, and you are given a pile of money/material to do it, what percentage of that even makes it to the final product? If you are in charge of 50, maybe you just fix up 5 and siphon off what you can for the rest.

Who is going to check, who is going to know? I mean, you do have a few fully functional units, if someone pokes around too hard (they won't), direct them at one of those.

There’s a lot of speculation that their nuclear capabilities are severely diminished as well, but I think it’s all just speculation.

I fully expect Russia to have fully functional nukes. It's likely a small minority of their full compliment, but they certainly do exist. Let's not find out for sure though. MAD sucks for everyone and is best left alone.

Also fuck Russia for constantly threatening to use the nukes. If you have some spare cash Ukraine could use it.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I was also thinking about this around the beginning of the war. It is very logical that for the reasons you explain, their nuclear capabilities are not as great as the world thinks. After the shitshow we have seen, it’s obvious that corruption and incompetence wouldn’t allow for this level of delicate nuclear maintenance on a large scale. I heard something like the US spending on nuclear arsenal upkeep is comparable to the Russian pre-war military budget.

However, according to the START treaty (iirk), US and Russia regularly checked each other’s nuclear arsenals (I assume until the start of the war), to confirm the numbers and status. Based on those inspections, the Russians seem to be still cooking. I don’t know how deep these inspections go, maybe it’s easy to put on a show. Also, I think Putin knows that MAD is the only reason he and his country still exists, so maybe they have at least a few dozens warheads in good condition, personally managed and checked by a trusted associate of his.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Suchomimus on YouTube was saying he thinks it might be their only functional one which, if true, would be such a coup.

[-] [email protected] 32 points 6 days ago

The source inside the SBU confirmed that the remarkable attack was indeed in the works for over a year and a half. According to the source, the SBU first smuggled drones into Russia, followed by mobile wooden cabins.

I guess if they'd have called it "Operation Baba Yaga" it would have been too obvious