It is very, very likely. Russian leadership see Ukraine as a Russian province, and the heart of the russian motherland, and they will treat western armies there as invaders - they are prepared to risk everything to keep that from happening.
“Which aircraft? Oh, this one? It’s not a military operation, just our pilots doing some sightseeing. Just like your lads did in Crimea in 2014, you remember?”
It doesn't matter what Russians think, it matters what Dughin's fanboys holed up under Altai Mountains think.
Go back to 1986, and imagine what the Soviet response would be if NATO would have breached the Iron Courtain and would have fighter planes and tanks in Kiev. This is what we're dealing with here.
They probably think that being czar-for-a-week of a nuclear wasteland is something that's only attractive when literally all other options are exhausted.
When we talk about the risk of a nuclear escalation we talk about the risk of this or that country launching nuclear armed missiles at an other country.
How would the posession of nuclear reactors factor into that?
Ukraine is the post-nuclear country. Ukraine has 4 working weapons grade nuclear stations.
If Russian will capture nuclear reactor, they can convert it to nuclear landmine, because reactor uses enriched Uranium, to create equivalent of 10k Chornobyl's.
Ukraine has know-how and nuclear materials (Plutonium) to create nuclear weapons at will. The only thing that stopped us is USA, Britain, France, and Germany, which used Budapest memorandum as leverage against Ukraine to prevent that.
I'll be the first to admit I don't know a lot about nuclear power, but I'm pretty sure you're talking nonsense. To say that a nuclear power reactor uses weapons-grade uranium is akin to saying that a car works by lighting its gas tank on fire. For nuclear power you want a carefully controlled reaction, while for an explosion you want to release as much energy as possible as quickly as possible.
Now, maybe if Russia captures a reactor they could send a scientist down to repurpose its parts to make an improvised nuke, but if that's the goal, what would be the point? It's not like Russia doesn't have nukes already.
Just having plutonium and knowledge is not enough to build a nuclear weapon. No country has ever developed nukes while its main territory was being invaded. For one, even if you can build a device, you'd need to test it at least once. What would you do if you had nukes and you detected that the non-nuclear-capable country you're invading has just run a nuclear test?
You are talking nonsense. I will write it again just for you: Ukraine has 4 nuclear stations with 15 weapon grade nuclear reactors which are producing Plutonium and use enriched Uranium.
The point is to use the nuclear reactor like a nuclear landmine, to blow up at retreat, to do maximum amount of damage. It's called «scorched earth tactics».
Ukraine, as part of USSR, developed nukes decades ago. Ukraine is the fist post-nuclear country in the world.
It was not unlikely two weeks ago that Russia launches a full scale war on Ukraine. I don’t know how or why this false assertion spreads the way it does.
"Putin is crazy." 8 years of warning that he will do a thing if a red line is crossed and he does it? The jingoism permeating the west is the crazy thing. People are swallowing propaganda whole and blindly repeating talking points designed to create animus against a foreign power. No mention of the war crimes conducted by literal nazis of azov battalion in the Donbas that we begged outing to intervene over for 8 years...
We have a lot to hate about putting,but it comes from his inaction to solve a genocide on his very border. Instead, he only acted when russia was threatened. Sounds logical to me.