Russian deserter reveals war secrets of guarding nuclear base
A combat alert was in place on the day Russia invaded Ukraine, he tells the BBC.
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Well damn, so much for the unmaintained nukes theory
Not convinced by this story. The guy allegedly worked in security on the base, so probably does not know anything about maintenance needed to keep the warheads operational. I also doubt western security services would let this guy speak to the BBC.
You think there's a guy?
The guy allegedly worked in security on the base,
Nothing to keep security over if the nukes aren't functional/maintained.
I find this theory so absurd, i am quite sure it comes out of some psyops organization. The main thing that resembled some of Russias former glory as SU was their nuclear arsenal. And believing they would let all of it go unmaintained to the point that no relevant amount of nukes would remain working is just nonsensical. Hanging on to that arsenal must have been one of Russias top strategic priorities.
It's really not, brain drain, collapse of the ussr, cost to maintain, etc. all of this is why many in the west believe that the stockpile is in ruin. The kursk sunk because they didnt maintain basic torpedoes, what makes you think they have the knowledge/money to do that with nukes. Russia has clearly shown it's a paper tiger.
With which knowledge did they build their nuclear arsenal?
Do you think all the scientists and soldiers just evaporated in 1990?
Even if the nukes are unusable and Russia is bluffing... I'd not be too keen to call the bluff. You just have to assume they are not.
Is it?
The oligarchs has stripped the military of everything they could, replacing armor with paper crap and the such.
Now take nukes, which are notoriously finicky and require a boatload of maintenance to remain explodable, if that is a word... If ever used, it's the end of the world, and it won't matter anymore.
So here you got weaponry you can quite easily siphon millions out of and basically no one will find out, or no one will be left to care.
Do you really think they did their best on those?
We’re also talking about a military that had an endemic of soldiers getting sick and going blind because they simply would not stop drinking the rocket fuel. Their flagship carrier is basically a littoral ship because that’s all it can do without catching fire. I assume they still have some silos with missiles that could launch and make for a decent dirty bomb but primed and functional warheads…unlikely
When you, a corrupt general, get your annual $10 millions to take care of 50 nuclear warheads, that will never ever be used, what will you do?
The care of the warheads is typically done by some central organization, rather than every individual missile base. Its really specialized work, and it doesn't make sense to have teams capable of performing it at every base.
It was just a metaphor for corruption, you are right but the corruption could take place in the centralised organisation, everything is centralised in russia.
I'm sure that officer knows the maintenance situation everywhere in Russia since Soviet times.
Because only 1500 of the 1700 nukes working would make such a big difference.
Because only 1500 of the 1700 nukes working would make such a big difference.
Or 10 of the 1700... Doesn't matter how many, you have to think of it as xxx amount of the top populated cities. The top 10 populated cities will automatically decimate the population of many countries.
I think it's pretty safe to say that they likely don't have ALL their warheads in functional order... but even if it's just 2% of them... it's enough to fuck over several countries for a long time.
There is difference between working and working according to specs. Nukes are very sensitive maintenance heavy and expensive to upkeep. Optimal yeld is easily lost and if exact timing is off, no boom. Wet fissile fasts don't level cities.
But true, even single nuke is a tragedy, even if it ends up being a non-functional dirty bomb.
Russia has thousands of nukes in its arsenal, and this is one person in one base.
Even the US doesn't have all its nukes well maintained, which is why they've been overhauling them for years.
Personally I never subscribed to the "Russia has 0 nukes ready to go" theory because that's just downright idiotic. Bare minimum you keep one well maintained so at the very least you can target whoever targeted you and try to hit their capital with a MIRV.
Since no country really has a problem with taking what it wants from the people, it stands to reason that Russia would just squeeze its population a little tighter to keep as many nukes operational as possible.
However, with that said I also don't doubt a large percentage of it's nuclear arsenal is basically useless.
And anyone who knows anything about nukes can tell you it doesn't matter if they have 10 or 1000, they could still kick off the nuclear apocalypse
