But this time they're closer than ever to being able to invade North America. These countries don't value life, not even their own lives.

No, they're as close as they've ever been, which isn't close at all, Lol.

Better chance of us all winning the lottery than Russia or China deciding to commit suicide against America.

China doesn't even dare to help Russia (directly) with Ukraine, what makes you think they'd help Russia pick a fight with America? What makes you think Russia who can barely take on Ukraine who are on paper far less equipped than Russia would take on America, Russia's entire pathetic smoking navy would be swimming at the bottom of the ocean before they even got a single Russian soldier on American land.

Because Russia is an arrogant terror state that thinks it can get away with anything, and China isn't happy that America is siding with Taiwan.

We'll be in WW3 when we're in WW3 and nobody will know that we're in WW3 until we're actually in it! Lol. That will be when someone actually attacks us, not when someone takes a little peak at us via our massive ocean or sky space. The fearmongering about WW3 is annoying and likewise nukes. It doesn't help this thread. It doesn't help Ukraine. It doesn't help anyone.

In fact, if anything, it likely causes less support for Ukraine because now we have people panicking about the possibility of WW3 starting over absolutely nothing. It only causes useless anxiety based on zero critical or logical thinking. All you're doing is either hurting yourself and your own mental health in which case I would suggest you try to step back from the situation and at worst you could hurt Ukraine's support.

That's what I have to say about the topic.

I know you supported Ukraine, Captain, but you aren't helping anyone here and especially aren't helping your own mental health and I've given so many chances by now, more than I should have. I wanted as much support for Ukraine as possible but you aren't helping Ukraine. You're only causing unnecessary debates, making users uncomfortable or annoying them and harming your own mental health, so a thread ban it is.

A long overdue thread ban.

It's this art of self-intimidation that has crippled support for Ukraine for so long. Dictators like Putin know that a main weakness of democracy is that its leaders need to be re-elected in a fair process, so they are obligated to take the general opinions of the populations into account. That's why Russia runs so many troll farms, because it is very much possible and realistic to sway minds on social media.

Surveys in Germany have shown for a long time that the population is about evenly split regarding the question of weapon deliveries to Ukraine. That's one of the reasons why Germany's leadership has been so hesitant to get something done, and it should be clear that they and France are the main decision-makers for the EU as a whole. The other reason is that Scholz is a coward with no balls whether that concerns inner or foreign affairs. The guy and his party are constantly scared of slamming their fists on the table to declare that they'll just do the right thing regardless of the population's current opinions. The worst thing about all this is that the next election in Germany is in 2025, yet they have had their pants full in 2022 already. The irony is that their cowardice is what is sinking them in surveys, because one thing that the vast majority of Germans actually can agree on is a lack of leadership from their leadership.

Meanwhile, I've read an article about Austria taking the second spot on the list of Russia's useful idiots. Apparently we have a natural gas contract with Russia that obligates us to pay regardless of if we want to, and this fabulous contract runs until the year 2040. Gosh, why did we ever elect a school boy to be our chancellor...

This is hilarious

One may wonder if they have any nukes left considering they're constantly boasting but not following up with anything, including tests...

Nuclear testing is essentially banned worldwide via treaties and informal agreements.  Russia and the USA haven't conducted a test in about 30 uears.  And testing nukes is a good way to end up a pariah.  Just ask North Korea, the only nation in the 21st century to detonate a nuclear weapon.  

Russia is obviously already heavily sanctioned, but conducting nuclear testing would make things much, much worse.  Especially with nations like Hungary, Austria, Turkey, and other nations in Europe and abroad who have stayed fairly neutral.  And of course there's China, who has made it abundantly clear that nuclear weapons are a major red line with them in this whole situation.  Such a thing would royally piss them off, which Russia can't afford.

But perhaps most important of all, nuclear weapons testing has an intensely negative image in Russia and it's CSTO allies, more so than most places, due to the numerous unethical practices surrounding Soviet Russia's testing.  Resuming testing would be very unpopular in Russia and would destroy their relationship with Kazakhstan and other CSTO neighbors.  Worst of all, the most severe unrest within Russia would be in regions near those pissed off allies as well as Ukraine. 

So yeah, don't expect to see resumed testing in Russia (or really any developed nation).

I didn't mean the nukes themselves, though I certainly didn't make that obvious with my wording.

What I meant were the missiles that are supposed to transport the nukes to their destination. From what we know, those were all built during the soviet era and being within their silos ever since, so it's quite possible corrosion has had a toll on them, especially since most of those rockets use corrosive hypergolic fuels. For reference, the UR-100 are from 1967, the UR-100N are from 1975 and the R-36M2 are from 1988. The RS-28 Sarmat was supposed to replace the latter starting 2022 while the UR-100N are supposed to be retired... but nothing new has come out about them.

In other words, their ICBMs are all at least 35 years old and with the war and the sanctions, maintenance and getting their replacements online will get even more difficult. And while their tactical nukes are newer and much more numerous (the vast majority are tactical nukes by now it seems, they will also get hit hard by the sanctions.

Ukraine evacuating a big area with plenty of settlements east of Kharkiv.