Russia - threadbanned users in OP

When I say direct response, conventional was what I was getting it, per the U.S. noises that they would sink the Black Sea fleet of Russia if Russia used a nuke. More accurately, the US has leaked that it's one option. God knows what US covert forces could get done if push came to shove.

Nuclear escalation theory is probably a hot topic at military institutions throughout the USA right now. First, there was the escalation ladder which details the incremental steps toward an all-out nuclear exchange, and now comes the escalation vortex, which is a more three dimensional way of looking at the possible steps towards doomsday. More leeway for lateral moves, there, which seek to up the ante as little as possible while still hitting back.

Ukrainian military liberated Stelmahivka of Luhansk region

Well a haulage company would just roll up to a warehouse or yard and load up, the driver might even have been told it was munitions going to Crimea.

Plus the detonation looks like it was triggered remotely to coincide with passing/meeting/being passed by the train.

The beauty of a long bridge is that the above is much easier to monitor and respond to.

But how do you get a delivery truck to be in position for exactly when the fuel train is passing? Hard enough to get a delivery driver to arrive on the right day, never mind him to be on a bridge just at the right time.

Even that narrative is full of holes:

• How would Ukrainians manage to sneak massive quantities of explosives into a warehouse inside Russia without being caught?
• How could they be sure that the driver wouldn't find it?
• How could they be sure that the security checks at the bridge wouldn't find it?
• How would they have managed to time it to coincide with the train passing - you'd need all sorts of visuals in the middle of the night?

There are just too many, improbable, things that would have needed to go right. Also, knowingly murdering an innocent truck driver, as part of the plan doesn't seem like something from the Ukrainian playbook*. Sure they know that some civilians would have likely died in a missile strike but that's different from setting out to use someone as an unknowing suicide bomber.

It's just far more likely that this was a precision strike. If it was then it will likely happen again, soon enough so we can just wait and see.

*and yes I am aware that they may have blown up Dugina's daughter in a car bomb. 2 things about that:

1. As someone working as a propagandist for the Russian authorities she (or her father if he was the target) wouldn't have been seen as an innocent victim
2. Although a complex operation that would have been trivial in comparison to this supposed truck bomb operation

Particularly shocking when you consider that 98% of those killed had voted to be part of Russia.

I think it was more a case of him "interfering":-

The headline "Vladimir Putin takes personal control of Russia's faltering Donbas offensive" is a bit misleading when the story actually says "the Russian president is reportedly interfering in low-level tactical decisions usually made by much junior figures", but hey that's journalism.

I accept everyone's criticism of my amateur hypothesis

Wouldn't an incoming missile have been recorded by some means ?

A direct hit with no accompanying near misses ?

Someone commented that a visual inspection indicated the damage wasn't from underneath so it seems no explosives were in place

With a bridge that long, there could be a window of 15 minutes perhaps, and the trains were presumably running to a timetable

Yes, some level of sympathy/loyalty to the Ukrainian cause would certainly have been required on the Russian side, but we already know that's the case

And watch closely:

I wonder if this 20% are part of the reason why Ukrainian morale is so high?

India and Pakistan aren't that mad, though. If they started lobbing them at each other, that's both of their countries destroyed. A mutual nuclear exchange remains just that - a disaster beyond disaster. They can never become an acceptable part of battlefield doctrine because they're too devastating. Having those things flying around makes it all but impossible for conventional war to be fought, for territory to be won and maybe even for life to continue. If war is just another extension of politics, how is politics even supposed to continue if civilisation collapses after some all out nuclear exchange? That's the hard reality and the fear around them which prevents their use from ever being acceptable. Even if there's one situation where you're confident that your enemy won't retaliate with a similar level of force, you can never be totally confident of that, either.

The problem with the above, though, is that it assumes a certain level of reason and lack of desperation. To us, it seems like Putin is becoming desperate about something unreasonable (trying to retain control of territory that isn't even internationally-recognised as Russia's). That's where the worry is. If Putin does use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine at some point, NATO must hit Russian forces in Ukraine with all their conventional might, but not retaliate in kind unless the unthinkable happens and a Russian nuke hits NATO soil. Then.... I'll be looking for those iodine tablets...

Real suspect behind the bridge attack has been found out.

.

.

Probably on some sort of missing list by now:-