Maybe Russia's nukes are in as bad shape as their military

[intrepidity]

What are the chances that they've been investing in keeping their nuclear arsenal maintained properly?

[Mariana]

1. I hope we don't find out. nt.

[intrepidity]

4. Well, I hope we do

but not *that* way, of course.

There are other ways.

[Wounded Bear]

2. I don't want to pull the trigger on that game of Russian Roulette...

pun intended.

[Sherman A1]

3. A distinct possibility

[Cracklin Charlie]

5. It is possible.

These things don’t just sit on a shelf waiting to be used. Money is required for production and maintenance.

I think the Kremlin stole all the budgets.

[sir pball]

6. Very likely garbage, given Russia's lack of supercomputers

Without the ability to live-test weapons, simulations are critical to effective stockpile maintenance - it's why the Department of Energy keeps the work of the third most powerful machine on the planet strictly classified, and why China has been heavily invested in developing their own big iron over the last decade or so.

Russia's most powerful machine is roughly 1/6 as fast as the DoE's (and DoE has more than one), and it's owned by a friggin' Web search company, Yandex. #2 is owned by SberBank. It could all be a front, but that's unlikely as it's a source of pride to publicly display these monster systems - not to mention that the Red systems are far too weak for any meaningful nuke-sim work.

I'd not be surprised if Putin's bombs all just fizzle at this point, if the explosives even go off.

[Nevilledog]

7. Real "Nuclear war is bad, but......" energy

So they accidentally cause a huge nuclear event.....how is that any better than an intentional strike?