(Justin)

Tech nerd from Sweden

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • It’s not confirmed publicly, but Sweden likely ended their nuclear weapons program in the 60s or 70s after pressure from the US. They finally decommissioned Ågestaverket in 2020, though they kept the facility open until then, presumably as a fallback option. Sweden has uranium deposits, so it would have been possible to build nuclear weapons during the Cold War if needed.

    Now with NATO membership, they have instead imported American nuclear weapons to keep on Swedish soil. Not sure what will happen with their Swedish-American SOFA with Trump, it’s possible that Sweden will fall back on British and French nukes.

    But yeah, I mentioned Ågestaverket, since its an example of a civilian reactor that was used for nuclear weapons, something that Ukraine could potentially do as well if the decision came to proliferate.





  • Good detail in that article. With regard to plutonium, Sweden had a plutonium breeding reactor disguised as a civilian power plant called Ågestaverket. I think that Ukraine would be able to use an existing reactor for this, or retrofit it. But yeah, any Ukrainian nuclear program would obviously become a huge target by the Russian military, and potentially other nuclear states. Ideally these installations would be underground like Ågestaverket was. Even more ideal would be military guarantees from NATO.




  • It would take them only a few months. Ukraine is filled with Soviet nuclear technology and Soviet nuclear engineers. They have nuclear reactors. Ukraine is richer than North Korea, and they have their own uranium mines. North Korea spent a couple billion on their nukes, but Ukraine’s military budget is $82B a year, so they could easily surpass North Korea.

    Geopolitics experts agree that Ukraine could build a nuke if they wanted to. The issue is that the west definitely would not want to see a world where countries threatened by Russia turn to nuclear proliferation.

    Here’s a video from a Danish military analyst talking about the decisions that have to be made on how to secure Ukraine after the war:

    https://youtu.be/aTiunvocl5c

    It’s important to note, Ukraine is willing to freeze the front line now in return for security guarantees. But If the US or the EU don’t step up to end the war soon, Ukrainian nuclear engineers will.