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Another option for Russia after the first deep strike: An EMP attack on the Ukraine. That would collapse the AFU, the Ukraine government and unleash 20 million refugees into Europe. Game set & match.

Oh, and not to forget: It would also serve as a warning against any other funny business.

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Which raises the question why Russia did not do this long ago, if they could.

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Because they see Ukrainians as their brothers. That's what the civilian casualties are so low compared to other wars.

That's the thing the Western people don't get, Putin fills pitty for ordinary Ukrainians and the West thinks it's weakness.

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Sounds like cope, since Ukraine does not see things in a similar light.

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Has nothing to do with cope.

Just look at how Russia has been reacting to all the provocations. With each provocation/escalation from Ukraine/Nato, Russia has been targeting important infrastructure.

They could have done it from day one.

What the West doesn't get is, the more the West escalates, the less will remain of Ukraine. It's that simple.

Fact also remains, the ratio between civilian to military casualties are the lowest in any war after WW2. Compare how many civilians died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or even Gaza.

The Russian are mature and know what has happened to ordinary Ukrainians is not necessarily their fault. Their are simple being used as a pawn by the Western/Ukrainian elites.

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Russia has been targeting infrastructure? Where? Last I checked, the trains are still running and the bridges standing, the water running and sewage processed.

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70% of all electricity is gone.

Again, it's a war against the army not against the population. I know Americans fight wars differently. That's because they have no hearts.

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Yup, and nobody in Kiev, Brussels or Washington cares, since it's not as if Ukraine is producing the weapons it uses.

A farmer doesn't care about the comfort of his chickens, either.

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Actually Farmers do care about their chickens - you city folk are a lot more ignorant than you realize.

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I grew up in rural Iowa and I know enough farmers to know better.

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There are 3 kinds of Ukrainians: the Russian Ukrainians, the Ukrainian Independence Ukrainians, and the Polish Ukrainians. Separating the people into 3 groups can be done in theory. However, their claims on land cannot be simultaneously satisfactory to all.

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Poland will end up with its former historical territory. Hungary will get back what Stalin stole from them. They are very much ready to act. Nobody will want a moonscape Western Ukraine.

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Yes. But with Poland in NATO, there is an issue of whether Russia should push all the way to the Galicia border. I think they should, and leave no rump state between Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. As for the Ukrainian refugees who fled into Poland, I think Russia should NOT take them back unless they swear allegiance to Russia.

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they do but politics and events suppress such sentiments. Historically they are very close to each other both coming from the early Kievan Rus period. No significant dna differences. Don't forget, the Ukies hate the Poles about as much.

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Beyond pity I think he would prefer not to have a damaged and lawless political entity right next door.

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Russia already had that for eight years.

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Simple answer: Because Russia is not the west.

They don't think and act like we do. Your question presupposes a lot, most of which does not apply to Russians.

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This is one of those thought-terminating clichés that is used to excuse Russian indecision.

Russia had no such qualms st various other times in its recent history.

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Cliche: That does not make it untrue.

Qualms: Care to offer examples? An EMP would cost many lives, so I would be looking for an example that would cost at least, say, 50.000 civilian lives and hardly any military.

Btw: I do not expect Russia to use an EMP against the Ukraine. Its only something they could do.

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Sure, WWII, Operation August Storm, the Second Chechen War, etc..

If Russia had such a weapon, they would have used it.

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Pre nuclear, there were no such weapons, not even comparable. Thus the first two don't count.

The second Chechen war did not have even close to the number of civilian casualties that we are talking about.

Edit: In WW2, yes I am convinced they would have used it if they would have had it.

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All of which is a distinction without a difference. Russia and the USSR used what weapons they had and weren't overly concerned with being nice.

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They didn't use a nuke in the second Chechen war, do you think Russia does not have nukes?

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They didn't need to.

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Lets circle back; they didn't (don't) need to EMP the Ukraine so far either.

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Everyone talking about various kinds of EMP attacks makes me wonder just how focused such an attack can actually be. For instance, one thing going around has Russia setting off a nuclear blast in space, destroying all satellites. How is Russia able to shield its own orbiting equipment from such a blast?

Or another: Is it even possible to set off a blast that will reliably limit its effects to, say, Ukraine alone, without the risk of affecting any of the surrounding nations?

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It is possible to affect the circle of impact on the ground by controlling the height of the detonation.

I do not know about satellites. I presume those sat-killers do not use the earth ionization layers but have some other mechanism. Problem with sat's is that these are distributed over the entire earth, and simply killing all in a radius of say 200km will not affect that much sat's. Besides sats are made to survive a very dangerous environment, and are probably less susceptible to emp blasts.

The weak point of a sat is its orbit. Orbits are very well known and bringing an object on a collision course with a sat (with possibly some fine-tuning towards the end) would seem to be the easiest/cheapest way to destroy one.

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If helps to have some sort of medium surrounding a nuclear blast, otherwise a neutron bomb would probably be the better choice, but even that would be a rather inefficient means of taking out satellites.

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