[throwaway821909]

This is important to say - but I guess the question still stands, if they had somehow secretly developed nukes in say 2008, would they have been left alone? (and should we let everyone have them for world peace? I don't think I like those chances)

[chasil]

They have several nuclear reactors.

How difficult would it be to divert fuel and processed daughter nuclei to create a few weapons?

[colechristensen]

It is a large scale industrial affair and you don’t just do it without being noticed, likewise weapons are very high precision instruments, moreso when less refined (trying to do things small scale and not being noticed).

The answer comes in the form of another question: how many billions would it cost?

And ultimately building a nuclear weapon would alienate both sides unless it was being done explicitly with help.

[rgmerk]

Pretty difficult but not impossible.

Spent nuclear fuel rods are among the most dangerous and difficult to handle materials available, and ones that have been sitting in a power reactor for years are far more radioactive than ones that spend a day or two in a bomb production reactor. So reprocessing the fuel rods would be a considerable challenge and would require not insubstantial industrial facilities, which would likely be blindingly obvious to superpower intelligence agencies.

Then you'd have to fabricate the plutonium into a weapon. Weapons made from reactor-grade plutonium would be a real pain to handle and store because they would be exceedingly radioactive and would require a lot of shielding. But my understanding is that a nation-state with Ukraine's resources would probably be able to manage it if sufficiently determined. But, again, the idea that you'd be able to do it in secret is highly unlikely.

And then you'd have to deliver it. The resulting weapon would probably be extremely large, unlike the more sophisticated weapons that established nation-states have, and implausible to mount on a missile. So delivery would probably have to be with an aircraft, and then you've got the question of how likely it would be to get shot down before it reached its target.

And finally, you have to consider whether a few small nuclear weapons with not-great delivery systems would be a useful deterrent. It's not hard to imagine Russia's response if a few small nuclear weapons landed on its territory - and whatever else you might say about their military, they have a lot of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Ukraine would be a radioactive crater by the time Putin was finished with it.

[ChuckNorris89]

That's assuming Russia's nukes are maintained well enough to actually work, but judging by the state of their army and navy, where all the tech is falling apart, Russia's nuclear arsenal, as big as it is on paper, might be all duds.

[FpUser]

>"Russia's nuclear arsenal, as big as it is on paper, might be all duds."

And what's your proposal? Start nuclear war hoping that your guess is correct?

[not2b]

They could make a dirty bomb, but it would contaminate their own land for hundreds or thousands of years. So not worth it.