Posted on 11/13/2024 8:52:37 AM PST by marcusmaximus
Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Donald Trump withdraws US military assistance, according to a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.
The country would quickly be able to build a basic device from plutonium with a similar technology to the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, the report states. “Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did within the framework of the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later,” the document reads.
With no time to build and run the large facilities required to enrich uranium, wartime Ukraine would have to rely instead on using plutonium extracted from spent fuel rods taken from Ukraine’s nuclear reactors.
Ukraine still controls nine operational reactors and has significant nuclear expertise despite having given up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in 1996. The report says: “The weight of reactor plutonium available to Ukraine can be estimated at seven tons … A significant nuclear weapons arsenal would require much less material … the amount of material is sufficient for hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons.”
Such a bomb would have about one tenth the power of Fat Man, the document’s authors conclude.
(Excerpt) Read more at thetimes.com ...
You might have had a point back in the 1990s. No longer. Russia not only has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, they have some very new, very fancy stuff.
They are ahead of us hypersonic missile development. We finally got one that works about two months ago.
Also, Russia is winning the war, despite Ukraine being backed and armed by US/NATO.
We have a bloated defence budget in part because we maintain over 750 military bases throughout the world.
Because reality doesn't work like that.
It is unlikely (or total BS) that Ukraine has the expertise and technology to build an implosion device
Also, power reactor plutonium, even if sufficiently separated from highly radioactive spent fuel rods, will cause problems when attempting to build a plutonium bomb, compared to the weapons-grade plutonium produced in shorter reactor fuel irradiations.
That is not true at all. That is why Ukraine is not in NATO. If they join NATO we would have an obligation for mutual defense by treaty. We owe them nothing.
Yeehaw cowboy!!!!
I hope he does, as a deterrent. That will end this war splickety lit. And no more Budapest memorandums. that ship has sailed, and a Mexican standoff is the sole option remaining.
All Putin needs is an excuse. If Zelnesky nukes Russia, Russia will annihilate Ukraine and half of NATO.
"The plutonium in typical reactor spent fuel from a commercial LWR power plant contains a large proportion of the higher isotopes of plutonium. Although all are fissionable in the high energy neutron spectrum of a weapon, they are not desirable for weapons because they produce heat deleterious to weapon stability, emit spontaneous neutrons deleterious to timing of detonation in simpler designs at least, and they decay to other elements that increase radioactivity deleterious to handling in fabrication and in access to the weapons... Plutonium that would require very significant sophistication in weapons fabrication, storage, and detonation isn‘t a likely choice for weapons by a neophyte. The radioactivity of reactor-grade plutonium makes it an unlikely choice for the hands-on work that is necessary in any case."
The Donald will not allow this.
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