Russia may threaten and posture the use of nuclear weapons, and have started a losing war with their neighbor, but it’s far less likely that they would actually use the weapons. Even if Putin ordered it there’s a lot of people between him and the weapons that could prevent the use. He’s a dictator but barely, he needs to keep the oligarchs happy to keep his office, and the oligarchs don’t want to live out the rest of their lives in cramped bunkers in Siberia when the earth is irradiated. DPRK on the other hand is an actual dictatorship, with few people between Kim and a launch, and is actually unstable enough to do it. Also, with their carelessness around their “test launches” they’re much more likely to cause an international incident by dropping a half-fueled rocket stage on Japan.
Didn’t the plants all get safely shut down before the Russians got there? If so, they can’t cause a meltdown unless they actually try to start the reactors.
Not to say they can’t cause something bad to happen, especially since they are storing munitions in there but it wouldn’t be a meltdown. I would assume fuel material wouldn’t get thrown as far/the core wouldn’t be compromised but that would take someone more knowledgable than me on this.
Didn’t the plants all get safely shut down before the Russians got there? If so, they can’t cause a meltdown unless they actually try to start the reactors.
Are the shutdown? Yes. Safely? Definitely not. The type of reactor they are and the fuel they use, requires active cooling as it remains hot for years.
Zaporizhzhia is the plant in question, and it’s water supply is in jeopardy after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
With the plant not in active operation, it’s unlikely we’d see an incident on the level of Chernobyl but it’s far from safe.
Putin has killed like a dozen oligarchs, mostly gas and oil people, in the last couple years. I don’t know how much he cares about keeping the oligarchs “happy” lol.
Even if Putin ordered it there’s a lot of people between him and the weapons that could prevent the use.
We don’t actually know that.
DPRK on the other hand is an actual dictatorship
Sure, but their tech sucks, they have no resources and rely on hand outs from the world and the country is still starving to death and their military has no chance of actually winning any offensive war. They can’t even keep their lights on, go look at night time satellite imagery over NK, they’re 100 years behind everyone. I don’t see them as a threat to anybody other than a small part of China, themselves and South Korea.
Meanwhile Russia, while largely unsuccessful in Ukraine, has every nearby European country on edge and unifying and bolstering their own defenses, has waged an aggressive online war that has had real life consequences and likely actually has working nukes and some semblance of a military.
I don’t know, NK just seems highly irrelevant on the grand scale of things.
How would you feel if you were a South Korean? Knowing that your brothers to the North want to kill or conquer you simply because they’re not happy with the half of the continent they chose because, ultimately, the US was a better development partner than Russia and China?
I’d feel pretty bad, but most of the world is not South Korea and global stability doesn’t hinge on one relatively small, albeit densely populated country.
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Russia may threaten and posture the use of nuclear weapons, and have started a losing war with their neighbor, but it’s far less likely that they would actually use the weapons. Even if Putin ordered it there’s a lot of people between him and the weapons that could prevent the use. He’s a dictator but barely, he needs to keep the oligarchs happy to keep his office, and the oligarchs don’t want to live out the rest of their lives in cramped bunkers in Siberia when the earth is irradiated. DPRK on the other hand is an actual dictatorship, with few people between Kim and a launch, and is actually unstable enough to do it. Also, with their carelessness around their “test launches” they’re much more likely to cause an international incident by dropping a half-fueled rocket stage on Japan.
At this point with Russia I’m more concerned with them causing an Ukrainian nuclear power plant to melt down.
Didn’t the plants all get safely shut down before the Russians got there? If so, they can’t cause a meltdown unless they actually try to start the reactors.
Not to say they can’t cause something bad to happen, especially since they are storing munitions in there but it wouldn’t be a meltdown. I would assume fuel material wouldn’t get thrown as far/the core wouldn’t be compromised but that would take someone more knowledgable than me on this.
Are the shutdown? Yes. Safely? Definitely not. The type of reactor they are and the fuel they use, requires active cooling as it remains hot for years.
Zaporizhzhia is the plant in question, and it’s water supply is in jeopardy after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
With the plant not in active operation, it’s unlikely we’d see an incident on the level of Chernobyl but it’s far from safe.
Putin has killed like a dozen oligarchs, mostly gas and oil people, in the last couple years. I don’t know how much he cares about keeping the oligarchs “happy” lol.
We don’t actually know that.
Sure, but their tech sucks, they have no resources and rely on hand outs from the world and the country is still starving to death and their military has no chance of actually winning any offensive war. They can’t even keep their lights on, go look at night time satellite imagery over NK, they’re 100 years behind everyone. I don’t see them as a threat to anybody other than a small part of China, themselves and South Korea.
Meanwhile Russia, while largely unsuccessful in Ukraine, has every nearby European country on edge and unifying and bolstering their own defenses, has waged an aggressive online war that has had real life consequences and likely actually has working nukes and some semblance of a military.
I don’t know, NK just seems highly irrelevant on the grand scale of things.
How would you feel if you were a South Korean? Knowing that your brothers to the North want to kill or conquer you simply because they’re not happy with the half of the continent they chose because, ultimately, the US was a better development partner than Russia and China?
I’d feel pretty bad, but most of the world is not South Korea and global stability doesn’t hinge on one relatively small, albeit densely populated country.
One could make the exact same argument against North Korea… Why is it that our ally should be sacrificed on the altar of global stability?
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How would you like to live in Japan and get actual missle launch warnings?
That alone is pretty fucked up and should be dealt with.
I’d love to live in Japan.