President Trump strongly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after a tense argument in the Oval Office on Friday. Trump accused Zelensky of showing disrespect toward the United States…
I wanted to point out something about what Trump said during that meeting...
“You’re in a bad position right now. You don’t have the cards.”
My understanding is that Ukraine did have the cards, they were called nukes, but they gave them up for peace and guarantees of protection from the United States, and others, against invasion.
The Donetsk conflict was started by militias trained, supplied, and paid by Russia. With Russian troops entering Donestk for technical support, logistical support, and really just any help they needed including combat units to beat back the Ukrainian Army at several points.
Donetsk was the actual "Special Military Operation".
Trump, like every arogant POS has overestimated his strength. Europe can and will enter the conflict as Russia has proven itself to be an existential threat. NATO is dead, but EU has been planning for this. I wouldn't be surprised if UKR already has or will obtain a nuke and put on a show of force . Nuking Russian troops on its own territory would be fine- and provide ground denial to the Russians.
They were counting on US support so they played nice.
If Europe fails to do anything meaningful we might see UKR do something incalculable.
UKR knows that the only way to stop Putin is to match his posture.
They have openly stated last year that they should get a nuke since US is unreliable.
Cut off a limb to save the body.
Radiation contamination is a pretty effective ground denial strategy- make those eastern oblasts uninhabitable for a 100years. That would afford some time for Russia to turn itself inside out.
I'm not suggesting it's any planners first choice, but it would certainly protect the border from further ground invasions.
Wouldn't have mattered even if true. Physical access trumps everything. Worst case scenario, if they really wanted to, they could reverse engineer the primer & guidance system, then replace the originals with their own.
Keep in mind that Ukraine was a massive hub for military industry in the USSR.
But also, since they were neighbors, you wouldn't need to launch missiles, you could just take the payload out of a missile, stick it in a briefcase, and walk it over.