It seems to be predicated on the idea that Eastern Europe(or any nations directly bordering Russia, for that matter) is Russia's sphere of influence and nothing should happen there without it's say so. Anything the other nations outside of Russia wants is irrelevant because they don't actually have agency.
Indeed which is why we should completely reject such ideas, and the shills who espouse them.
Several NATO and US figures at the time said informally that Ukraine (and several other Eastern European states) would not be offered membership.
declassifieduk.org
Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is itself very weakly radioactive. One of its use is actually to shield against radioactivity (since its less toxic than lead). So long as soldier don't eat the stuff or sleep on it, the risk are really small and about the same as using other type of munition.Maybe we shouldn't contaminate Ukraine with toxic waste is now a controversial position
Exclusive: Army putting ‘outrageous spin’ on depleted uranium science
Scientist cited by British military to justify sending depleted uranium shells to Ukraine had previously criticised use of such ammunition in Iraq.
Those who've researched it's longer term effects tend to disagree. Being around it in an enclosed environment, or allowing it to contact water, both pose toxic risks.
All of this may indeed be a valid point if it was just being left lying around in big, stable blocks in a controlled environment. But it isn't, it's being put inside anti-tank rounds and fired at over a kilometer a second, which means a lot of it ends up as dust. It's also extremely reactive, so over time it will break down into other substances, almost none of which are pleasant to get inside you.
Ok, others have gotten here first, but this is a problem. Tiny particles can be inhaled or ingested fairly easily as dust.
So, there are cases in Iraq where it was quite bad, and where there were whole areas which ended up effectively contaminated. But again, I suspect the problem is very proportional to the amount of material put into the environment. I would guess that A10s and their funny fart-noise cannons that are inexplicably still considered militarily relevant probably deliver a lot more material over a much bigger area than a tank gun.
Oh sure, I'm just wondering how it rates against what happens when you blow up a chemical plant of factory in a city, which also spreads all sorts of rather unpleasant things around, but it's much spoken of.
Allegedly Putin was assured the Ukrainian population was ready to welcome a new pro-Russian regime, which would roll in, kill Zelensky or at very least put him to flight and then install a new Pro-Russian puppet loyal to Moscow with very little effort.
undoubtedly. but they also tend to do it fewer times... depending on how you measure it, I guess. A tank can be sitting around shooting near indefinitely and more efficiently move around when it does have to move while an A-10 can only deliver a few fart volleys per sortie. The intensity of the fighting in Ukraine seems to be quite a bit higher than in Iraq, so one could imagine tanks firing quite a lot without it being tactically gratuitous.
If memory serves, they carry enough 30mm for around 20 seconds of firing.
So, by the sources I can find the DU penetrator on a 30mm cannon shell is about 0.3 kilograms, and the plane carries 1350 of them. So about 400 kilograms in total, a little under half a metric ton of depleted uranium.
Tanks only tend to carry about 40-50 rounds. Obviously, they're tank rounds so they're a lot heavier, making the total ammo weight potentially comparable with the A10. Realistically, a tank wouldn't carry 50 APDS rounds though. 10 is probably a much more reasonable number. The depleted uranium penetrator also weighs proportionally less at about 5kg. So we can probably assume any given tank only carries a maximum of about 50kg of depleted uranium.
