They are outside of Russia and from all the lunacy we have seen from Russia why would you not at least think of the possibility that they would be treated like every other thing item that the Russian military can steal and sell? Basically I'm asking if the security will be the same as when this crap was in Russia.Yes they aren't washing machines but these people are truly nuts as we've seen of late.
It wasn't all that long ago (30 years?) when the USSR broke up and everyone was all of a sudden fearful of having nukes in Ukraine under the control of a non-Soviet administration and military.
As I said above, I have not seen any evidence that Russian tactical nuclear weapons are outside normal Russian nuclear controls. The fact that no tactical weapons have shown up in the hands of rogue actors up to now I think is a good sign that they are under the same controls as the strategic weapons.
If you have some evidence that these weapons are not under the same controls, please post a link to the information.
The issue is to do with maintaining the safery margin required to get an assured nuclear fusion reaction, rather than a "fizzle". All stages of the process have tolerances, and as the device becomes smaller so the likelihood of cumulative tolerance stack-ups being on the low side becomes more probable. With a larger device one simply makes everything slightly bigger and/or increase the number of redundant things so as to minimise the probability of a fizzle. As the device gets physically smaller the design constraints prevent brute-force assuredness solutions. The most obvious single issue is to do with the decay rate of the tritium boosters, hence needing to pull a tactical weapon fairly frequently (say, every five years) as opposed to pulling a strategic weapon (say) every fifteen years for maintenance. The main task during maintenance is to regas with the right amount of tritium. Tritium has a relatively short half life so when one gets down to the micro-scale nuclear suitcase demolition devices and shell-sized devices, then for sure a safe shelf life of as little as a year might be fair.
The easiest way to get dial-a-yield devices is to choke the amount of tritium involved in the early stages of the nuclear reaction process. That can turn a large strategic weapon into a smaller bang, but it doesn't get round the issue that it is still a large form-factor that is carried on a device that (in the recipent's eyes) still looks like a strategic strike inbound. But I digress.
en.wikipedia.org
It is not just the tritium, but the tritium is the main thing. Other nuclear materials also decay and get checked during maintenance. So too do the conventional explosives in the system which also have safe life spans. Etc.
As the nuclear material decays it will also cause damage to the material within the bomb too. Modern electronics are very sensitive to radiation and need to be hardened to work in high radiation environments. Hardening electronics is expensive and a specialist area of industry.
I work for a company that makes equipment to test integrated circuits as part of QA processes. The bulk of their customers are testing new consumer grade devices, but the owner of the company was telling me about one customer who was testing parts to go on satellites. A device that you costs a few cents for the commercial grade version costs $1500 for the radiation hardened version. It was cheaper for them to find where the problems were on these devices and repair them rather than throw them away and make new ones.
The electronics on bombs are bombarded with radiation constantly. At minimum they need to be taken out and tested fairly frequently to ensure they still work. Tritium is still hydrogen and hydrogen leaks out of any vessel making metal brittle as it does. The tritium chambers need to be inspected regularly too.
The US defense budget allocates $10 billion a year to nuclear weapon maintenance. I think the schedule has someone look over each bomb every three years or something like that. Russia's military budget in 2021 was $66 billion USD (several trillion rubles). Russia gets more bang for their ruble than the US does for its dollar, but we also know that a huge chunk of the Russian military budget is stolen too.
It's obvious that Russia is not maintaining their nuclear arsenal to the levels of the US weapons. They may have some that would work, but I would expect a high percentage to fizzle if used.
I've not seen anything to suggest that in reality the Russian nuclear devices on Belarus soil are not fully in control of only Russian forces. If indeed there are any actually on Belarus soil at all - as opposed to there being the relevant bunkers/pads/etc in situ.
Yes, there is no proof they are there. It might all be a PR stunt.
It all makes sense to me. Prigozhin had avoided criticizing Putin directly. I was very interested in seeing what Putin's reaction would be. I felt there was a chance that Putin would side with Prigozhin and use this as an opportunity to make the MoD the scapegoat for everything that went wrong with the special military operation.
It makes sense that Prigozhin's abrupt about-face was due to Putin's speech. I don't see any other reason for it.
The video below makes the case that the Wagner coup signals the end of the current Russian government. I don't totally buy it, yet. I would certainly not rule it out. ISTM this coup attempt (or whatever) was a big deal. I'd be surprised if there were not significant repercussions.
Prigozhin's rebellion planted a seed in the consciousness of the average Russian that rebellion is possible. Something considered unfathomable a few days ago. That could spell the eventual end of Putin's regime.
It's clear that quite a few people in Rostov are not happy with Putin's rule returning and were quite happy with Wagner being there.
@wdolson and
@unk45 I appreciate the informative if sad perspectives on the situation of Jewish peoples in Russia. How damn sad.
I'm no expert on Judaism. I did have a friend who was a Jewish Russian born in Crimea in the 1980s and her family moved to Israel in the 90s. I've lost track of her in the last decade, but she was quite an interesting person. She had the most amazing talent with languages I've ever seen.
I learned a fair bit about Russian Jews from her. I've also done reading over the years.
From what I've read, Prigozhin's father was Jewish, but it's unclear what his mother's religious background was.
Gulagu.net is allegedly a Russian anti-corruption and anti-torture and human rights organization and website, but I'm not familiar with that site. This is allegedly according to gulagu.net:
Generals Surovikin (Spelling?) and Alekseev were involved in Prigozhin's coup attempt yesterday, and the coup had been planned for more than eight months. The plan was to take Gerasimov (and probably(?) also Shoigu, although he is not named in the article). The statement Surovikin made against Wagner was due to him being arrested as an accomplice, so he was forced to make that statement. Several entire units, specifically the 2nd and 15th GRU Spetsnaz brigades had also joined Wagner et. al. Other units received explicit orders from Surovikin and Deputy Defense Minister Alekseev not to resist. At least fifteen preliminary investigations into treason have so far been opened, and Gulagu believes that these 'traitors' will be liquidated or imprisoned before the end of the year. According to Gulagu they were not covered by any amnesty.
A comment about this (not mine, but seems plausible):
Something very 'radical' must have happened to cause Prigozhin to back off from eight months of planning and what looked like so far a successful operation, especially when you consider that GRU Spetsnaz joined with two brigades (where the deputy head of the GRU sat beside Prigozhin in that film from Rostov-on-Don).
There is speculation online that FSB or FSO got to Prigozhin's daughter somehow, prompting Prigozhin to back down. The daughter is allegedly supposed to be in Dubai, but that may (of course) not prevent FSB/FSO. Or Prig got some other 'good offer'...
If the information at Gulagu.net is correct, then this was a very well-planned and sharp coup attempt, which also explains why the Russian elite fled(?) in their jets, and the Russian Dictator trying to bomb the highway ahead of the Wagner column. Prigozhin, Alekseev and Surovikin may not survive 'that long' or end up behind bars.
We may never know exactly what happened. Putin and his cronies will be working overtime to spin this however they can, but it will likely look hackneyed because the evidence we do have shows Putin's regime is very weak.
I keep expecting to see Surovikin taking Gerasimovs job. So far we have not seen any recently. maybe they all get whacked. Irony being that Surovikin is maybe the best general they have
Somebody posted a Tweet yesterday that Surovkin was getting promoted into Gerasimov's job. Maybe that was in error?
This does have echoes of the 1944 coup to take down Hitler. Rommel was implicated and offered to shoot himself rather than be arrested. Historians have found evidence that Rommel probably knew about the plot, but there is little evidence he had any participation in it.
The disappointment around here is palpable that Russia has not erupted in mass civil war, but it has not been a bad week:
Surovikin and accomplices are toast;
Prig is toast;
25k Wagnerites are headless
10k Chechnya clowns are camped out on a road somewhere
The result wasn't ideal, but you are right, some of Russia's best assets are off the board. Losing Wagner is going to be a blow for the effort in Ukraine.
