I saw a clip of the strike the night it happened. It looked like a nuke at first glance, but not conclusive. I didn't bother researching it because it turns out no one really cares about analyses such as these. (Much easier to make stuff up or just ignore it, you see.) I was finally triggered (haha) to take another look by this story:
Exclusive: IAEA Said BIG Tactical Nuke Used by Russia Near Kherson, US Ordered It Covered Up (Confirmed) (The Intel Drop 5/5/2023)
Why precisely did the US order it covered up? That's what I wanted to know. I didn't find out in the article because it has no text. Knowing their (purported) calculus could be important and it's still an open question.
But let me note here that many, many dozens of nuclear devices have been used in various hostilities over the decades. That includes in the current conflict, like this 2014 blast at a depot in Czechia holding munitions for (you guessed it) Ukraine:
A Look Back At The Deadly 2014 Czech Depot Blast That Prague Is Now Blaming On Russian Agents (RFE/RL 4/18/2021)
Look at the size of the crater, and how almost all of a reinforced concrete bunker was obliterated by a blast centered outside the structure. Oh yeah, and the dude in the full hazmat suit.
The night of the Pavlohrad strike, there was--interestingly enough--a rumor on 4chan reposted on Reddit that Kiev got nuked. Maybe it did too, but I have no info:
Kyiv nuked according to 4chan, thoughts? (5/1/2023)
First, was there anything in Pavlohrad worth nuking? Maybe. Estimates in the recent "leaks" were that Ukraine was going to run out of air defense missiles later this month. This strike may have moved that up to about... now. The third-hand rumor you can read in this tweet claims two divisions (up to 16 installations) of S-300P, along with supply vehicles and reloads, were destroyed. One would guess these were staged for whatever spring Kherson "counter-offensive" Ukraine/NATO has in mind. Maybe it's off the table now.
On to the meat of the analysis and the article I stumbled across today:
Incredible Destruction Seen At Ukrainian Rocket Storage Site That Detonated After Russian Strike (Updated) (The Drive 5/4/2023)
About 2/3 of the way down you'll find this tweet with b/w security cam footage of the event. What you'll see is this: First, far in the distance, a conventional cruise missile strike. Then at 0:25, there are two more or less simultaneous detonations. The closer one is another conventional warhead, and you can't even see the shadow of the column of dust and smoke for a few seconds because the camera sensor had it's soul blown out by the glare of the nuke behind it.
There are a few things to notice about the nuke blast. It's obviously different than the other two, dwarfing them. The glare is huge, and persists for quite a while. The shockwave is clear and titanic. Chunks of flaming missile propellant and explosives are scattered very, very far. Also note that it's "all in one go", not the slow "cooking off" process of an ammo depot fire.
Now to orient yourself, I refer you to the last couple of sat pics in the article. The security cam was off to the "left". You can see the pinprick of damage by the conventional warhead on the left, and the devastation on the upper right. They knew just what bunker to hit and they annihilated it. The blast also ravaged all the nearby bunkers. Remember these are reinforced concrete behind earthen berms.
Finally, the first half of the article includes closer photos of the bunker. More precisely, where the bunker used to be. Note that the extreme heat of the nuke and wide scattering of flaming debris burnt all the greenery for hundreds of meters around the site.
So did the Ukraine War go nuclear, yes or no? You probably didn't expect it, but it's really a philosophical question, isn't i? As I mentioned, nukes have been used in anger numerous times.How do they keep it secret? Easy: they don't tell you about it. Well, you'll say, people could find out for themselves. I know. I just did. But virtually no one else does. That's my point. Not hard to keep a secret when no one is looking for it.
Using inductive logic, we can do some further thinking:
First, let's dispense with all the talk of a "fake war". What do you need real nukes for in a fake war? People that buy into this seem moronic to me. I invite any morons to declare themselves.
Second, there's so much talk about NATO conducting a "nuclear false flag". Well, they could have just called this one out for what it was, right? But they didn't, and there's something to be learned from that. (Personally, I think "They" do not have control of any nukes any longer.)
Third, Russia is "in it to win it", and they are going to do what they feel is necessary and appropriate to accomplish that. So many people say, "Russia issues all these warnings, but the pussies never do anything about it!" Well, now we've all seen them do something supposedly "unthinkable", they just didn't bother announcing it. So again, all the people that include "russkies are pussies!" as part of what they call thinking seem like total ignoramuses to me.
If you read this far, thanks, and I hope you got something out of it. Also, congratulations on having an attention span on the far-right of the bell curve.
What I'm tracking, in the wider view of a WW3 that everyone likes to prognosticate on so breezily, it that Russia alone has already gone a very long way towards "demilitarizing" NATO through reduction of their combat potential. There are many similar articles, but here's one angle on the bigger picture:
Senior Officer Says British Army Has Been So Degraded by Cuts UK Is No Longer Capable of Fighting A War on Its Own (Fars News 3/12/2023)
On the one hand, one may say this is simply a tactic to get more money in to the British MIC. Well, it is undoubtedly such a tactic, but anyone who says that it's simply that declares themselves the shallowest of analysts.
First, just because they want more money does not mean the appraisal of the British military is in any way incorrect. And he's not just saying "improvements can be made", he's saying his institution and all his colleagues and friends are punk-ass bitches impotent and ncapable of getting the job done. Far stronger rhetoric than is needed.
Second, the incessantly fear-mongering West lowers the "cone of silence" over such reports. As you can see, we've got to hear about it from Iran. Why? Because in their thorough inversion, They only monger phantom menaces. Real ones that threaten Their power are carefully edited out of existence.
Third, he really gives away the game with the comment, "we have been resting on the assumption that we would not be required to fight at scale." So again, we see that for decades, the real battle plan of the Neo-Imperialists was no "battle" plan at all. Conquest was to be done in the 5th Generation-style: color revolutions, terrorism, subversion, election rigging, etc, etc. They never prepared for a clash of arms. Russia, over the last couple of decades, really did, and we see the difference manifesting now.
You know me, I would be the first to agree that we have seen a significant reduction in western munition stockpiles, everything from bullets to tanks, even aircraft.
Initially this seemed natural and par for the course, but it has extended into the absurd, to the point where each and everything we send would be better off heading to the scrap yard right off.
If the intent was to 'rebuild' arsenals then I think we fell short of that goal, it is clear all the things we sent are old hat and basically completely ineffective.
I think the people that write that stuff are pushing for a new level.
I liken this to the suggestion that they don't want the plebs to work with it, and all the so called players involved are already aware.
And of course you are right on the mark for the 5th generation stuff the criminals are projecting.
When it comes to the situation in Ukraine my take is that the situation is real in that there is a long history of work to subvert and control the entire region.
However no significant gains were had by the nato trained forces since the battles begun. (I exclude Kherson and Kharkov regions, the Russians left)
The rationale I have used to date is that Russia has been biding its time carefully invoking the battle slowly, concerned that a full deployment would trigger a global response.
Silly and stupid, the SMO elicited a global response from all relevant players, so might as well get er' done, But that has still not happened and Russia continues to play the slow game, the biggest thing that bugs me is that Donetsk and Sumy regions continue to be blasted by the so called enemies daily. When will this become something worth dealing with?
It is clear the west never prepared for this conflict, unless there is some super secret doomsday weapon they plan to use.
Everything in the western military sphere is weak and lacking, 0 innovation has occurred worth speaking of and that is why they don't share anything.
Could be there has been nothing new since 1972.
They just never needed anything new to shoot farmers and merchants.
I always try to imagine what these American drones flying overhead are like to the residents of the regions where they operate (aside from the terror and trauma). It would be like, "That drone overhead is worth way more than everything in this entire village put together, and each missile it fires costs more than I could pay for a lifetime."
It would be as surreal as if the Chinese invaded the US in triangular flying saucers, then went tooling up and down the streets in their hovercraft shooting "terrorists" with their disruptors.
Moving in time with no comprehension for impacts. Like an petulant child pissing all over everything around it.
Without an understanding of being numb and ignorant to the pressure created.
The result of the pressure on these countries around the world has been tremendous. The tone and messaging, signals have been hardened to a point far beyond anything in the past decades gone by, nobody cares.
It just continues daily with the onslaught of perpetual mayhem and criminal activity at the highest levels.
People that just want to live get to idle by and work on survival.