Russia threatens Britain with retaliation if involvement in Ukraine war deepens ( www.pbs.org )

Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities and said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid sharply rising tensions over comments by senior Western officials about possibly deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.

After summoning the British ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, Moscow warned that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.K.-supplied weapons could bring retaliatory strikes against British military facilities and equipment on Ukrainian soil or elsewhere.

The remarks came on the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to a fifth term in office and in a week when Moscow on Thursday will celebrate Victory Day, its most important secular holiday, marking its defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

psycho_driver ,

Aren't they really just threatening to move them up in the queue?

gravitas_deficiency ,

Lmao fucking try it, Putin. Make our day.

EatATaco ,

Holy shit what the fuck is wrong with you basically begging for a war between two major powers? We all hate Putin, but fuck that would not be good for anyone.

gravitas_deficiency ,

Because it’s a fucking bluff dude.

FluffyPotato ,

The UK hasn't been a major power in like at least 2 decades. If you mean NATO then Russia isn't really a major power in comparison to NATO. Not that it's important, Russia isn't stupid enough to pick a fight with NATO.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@startrek.website avatar

It would be really bad for a small group of people and would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of others. Say Putin does strike Britain. A bunch of people die in the initial strike. Then Britain, America, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, France, Canada, and probably a handful of others all collectively turn the Kremlin into glass and dust in a retaliatory strike. China and North Korea both rattle their sabers about it but neither of them wants to throw down with the Allies 2.0 because it doesn't matter who you are, going to outright war with a world cooperative force is a capital-letters Bad Idea.

Otherwise Putin continues to slowly grind his way across Eurasia for the next decade while every other country's politicians hem and haw about who they want to help and how much. Meanwhile thousands of people die daily as the Russian meat wave slides its way down toward the central EU.

There's a very good reason that Putin has been performing military ops in Ukraine and only vaguely threatening everyone else that got involved. He knows that if he manages to actually draw the ire of the full Allied military might the remaining lifespan of his army and capitol will be measured in minutes.

If this were just a straight up shooting war it would have been done and dusted two years ago. Instead it's a political war, and that's stopping a bunch of politicians from actually making a move on it. Nobody wants to be the guy that started World War 3, and Putin is leveraging that to enormous effect.

AngryCommieKender ,

Russia stop! Poland can only get so erect!

fox2263 ,

Come on then if you think you’re hard enough

dizzy ,
@dizzy@lemmy.ml avatar

We are millwall! Super millwall! We are millwall, from the den!

KillingTimeItself ,

they wont. They're too cowardly.

samus12345 ,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

I hope they're more cowardly than they are stupid.

KillingTimeItself ,

they've already exhausted the stupid. There is only cowardly left. Russia bombing the UK, and inadvertently, technically the EU would almost certainly result in US retaliation, let alone the nuclear submarines that britain has. And probably the rest of the EU.

slurpinderpin ,

Send more Stormshadows!

For real though, attack the UK and you're gonna have the USAF and RAF flying sorties over Moscow within a week

Lladra ,

Russia sure talks a lot. They've already lost credibility as a major power. All they have left is "blow everything up", including themselves.

MonkderDritte , (edited )

We call this behavior "Säbelrasseln" in german.

samus12345 ,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

The term exists in English, too, with the exact same meaning - "saber rattling".

tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

Hmm. I wonder where it came from. Might have been German.

goes to check etymonline

Gives the date of first-known use, but not where. I assume that that means that this was in English, since normally they list the origin language.

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=saber+rattling

saber (n.)

type of heavy, single-edged sword, usually slightly curved, 1670s, from French sabre "heavy, curved sword" (17c.), alteration of sable (1630s), from German Sabel, Säbel, which probably is ultimately from Hungarian szablya "saber," literally "tool to cut with," from szabni "to cut." The Balto-Slavic words (Russian sablya, Polish szabla "sword, saber," Lithuanian šoblė) perhaps also are via German, but Italian sciabla seems to be directly from Hungarian. Saber-rattling "militarism" is attested from 1922. Saber-toothed cat (originally tiger) is attested from 1849, so named for the long upper canine teeth.

EDIT: Oooh, etymonline is wrong (or at least not complete). Mirriam-Webster has earlier known uses, says that it was used in the UK first, around the late 1870s.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/saber-rattling-word-history

There is no unanimity of opinion on why we came to refer to this kind of behavior as saber-rattling. Some think that it comes from the practice of 18th-century Hungarian cavalry units had of brandishing their sabers at opponents prior to charging. Others have said that it comes from the habit that military officers had in the early 20th century of ominously shaking their scabbard when issuing orders to subordinates. Our records indicate that the two words began seeing use in fixed fashion around 1880, making it unlikely that it was directly related to either of the causes given above.

Of late it has been in some quarters impossible to mention the word patriotism without having the taunt of being a sabre-rattling BOBADIL thrown in one’s face.

— The Standard (London, Eng.), 19 Feb. 1879

The “Sabre Rattling” of M. Coumoundouros, especially his assertion that by the coming spring he will have 86,000 men in the field, and that this number of troops will have been got together by the 10th of December.

— The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, Eng.), 3 Nov. 1880

The word appears to have begun in the press in the United Kingdom first, and by the early 20th century had spread to newspapers in the United States.

samus12345 ,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

I wondered who was first, too, and looked it up before. The date seems to be in dispute, but English is apparently the original language to coin the term.

reverendsteveii ,

in this case, more like nudelwackeln

bitwaba ,

said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons

That explains why they had everyone dig into the radioactive soil around Chernobyl and get radiation poisoning. Gotta simulate that nuclear fallout environment "for practice"

SkaveRat ,

Build up immunity

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

They believed their own misinformation that it was all western lies. Bet that misinformation is still being pushed.

Sam_Bass ,

Kinda doubt hes in much condition to mouth off too much

pwalshj ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a3d85958-fede-4c1a-8cb1-57adddfd647b.gif

TachyonTele ,

Lol

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