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Comment by oddmiral | Hacker News Reader

Anything can go wrong AFTER takeover. Russians can convert power plant into nuclear landmine and blow up it on retreat. This is war between two nuclear states, so nuclear weapon will be used eventually.

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> This is war between two nuclear states, so nuclear weapon will be used eventually.

Ukraine is not a nuclear state as it does not have nuclear weapons.

We promised to not have it in return for not being invaded, so technically we are a nuclear state without any weapons present at this moment (as far as publicly known).

Since we have both technological expertise and practical means (from uranium ores to delivery systems), it’s a matter of time.

No nukes means not a nuclear state.

The former nukes belonged to the USSR and only they had the codes to arm them.

So tell us, which of the letters in USSR is for "Russia"?

RSFSR - Russia is officially recognized as continuation state of USSR by the UN

Can you point to an official document, such as voting by UN members, to put RF into security council of UN? I cannot find any. RF is not a founder of UN, so it puzzling for me, how they are able to sit permanently in Security Council. Is there an exception for RF in UN statute written somewhere?

> Can you point to official documents, such as voting by UN members to put RF into security council of UN?

No idea, I haven't seen any. Another thing Russia inherited from USSR war nukes as well as debt.

> from USSR war nukes

edit (I misspelled): from USSR was nukes

I wondered the same thing recently. Found this legal academic analysis of the succession of member states.

The conclusion part made me think that the subject was negociated between constituant parts in the devolution treaty. However the paper does highlight that the UN is under ever more pressure for rule-based functioning and transparency, so who knows.

Personally if it were me, I'd rather try and get Russia's membership or voting rights suspended, based on the fact that article 4 states that the UN is for peace loving nations. In the current climate this has a chance of passing in the general assembly, where the veto can not be used. Russia has evoked article 41 'right of self-defense' but that seems problematic.

Another question is if you want to exclude Russia. It sets a precedent, and erodes the position of the UN if not (near-) unanimous. The previous vote had 144 out of 193 voting against Russia, with only 5 against (Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, etc)

https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

Turns out it's just inertia, also the last constituent member of USSR to leave (and thus logical successor) is... Kazakhstan

Not just inertia, but also military and nukes

None, but unlike Ukraine, russia had the codes and took them when they left the USSR

>so technically we are a nuclear state without any weapons present at this moment

You'd still be prevented by NPT (which Ukraine is part of) like all other non-nuclear states, even without the Budapest Memorandum.

-Unless the Russian forces have way better connections than we give them credit for, they can not control which way the wind blows. At the moment, the winds come from the southeast, so a lot of the fallout would end up in Russia.

As far as I can tell, this power station is in the south-east. A wind from the south-east would dump fallout in central Ukraine, not Russia.

-Most definitely, but there'd be plenty to spare for Russia, too.

Blown up nuclear power plants are equal opportunity weapons.

Judging from the way this war develops, it’s nit like they care about Russia that much

I wouldn’t count having nuclear power plants as being a nuclear state. There’s a world of difference between power plants and weapons. A war between two countries with nuclear weapons would be on a whole other level.

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