r/worldnews • u/Raj_Valiant3011 • 11d ago

Russia/Ukraine Zelenskiy: "There is updated intelligence indicating that Russia is ​preparing a massive attack on Ukraine"

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-intelligence-shows-russia-is-preparing-massive-attack-2026-10-06/
30.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

6.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

509

u/killerkadugen 11d ago

Putin probably hit Ukraine with their plague

284

u/Slipped-up 11d ago edited 11d ago

It would be a stupid decision to use biological warfare on a country you’re actively invading with hundreds of thousands of your own citizens in that country with tens of thousands of people crossing the border of the country and your own country each day. You may as well save the trouble and just set it off in Moscow because it will reach Moscow in a week anyway.

537

u/ricosmith1986 11d ago

Being an incredibly stupid thing to do hasn't stopped modern leadership for a while.

53

u/InformationHorder 11d ago

"Those kids would be really upset if they could read."

14

u/cryptolyme 10d ago

they could make a "center for kids who can't read good"

6

u/Holiday-Prune471 10d ago

how will they fit inside?? :(

2

u/cryptolyme 10d ago

it's a center for ants

119

u/Chumlee1917 11d ago

If there is one constant in Russian history, the leader doesn't give a single fuck how many of his own people he takes out during war

25

u/GoodIdea321 11d ago

During peace time too.

9

u/Latter-Block132 11d ago

Those leaders aren't immune to the bioweapons. They become just as mucch at risk as their citizens

3

u/NavidsonsFall 10d ago

Not really. From what people have been saying, a solid supply of antibiotics effectively treats what they thought this thing was. Leadership can stockpile that, soldiers on the front line and a country you have been pushing to the brink for years, not so easy.

3

u/Latter-Block132 10d ago edited 10d ago

If it's just the plague. Normal plague doesn't exactly make for effective bioweapons. Things like chimeras do.

A chimera is a biological organism which has been altered so that the ‘new version’ also has characteristics of another biological organism. Russian scientists were experimenting with the idea of taking Y. pestis and inserting various other known toxins into the cells. One day, the announcement was made at Biopreparat that such a design had been successfully made. They inserted a plasmid containing the gene for myelin toxin into Y. pestis . The design was simple and disturbing. If a patient were diagnosed with pneumonic plague in time to be treated, the antibiotics would attack and lyse the plague cells, thereby releasing the plasmid coding for myelin toxin which would cause paralysis, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, and changes in behavior. Heralded as a major triumph for Mother Russia, Alibek explained, “A toxin-plague weapon was never produced before the Soviet Union collapsed, but the success of this experiment set the stage for further research on bacteria-toxin combinations.” (Alibek 1999).

The next step was initiated by Deputy Director Sergei Netesov who suggested putting Venezuelan Equine Ecephalitis (VEE) into Y. pestis . The was based on the same idea of treating plague with antibiotics, thereby releasing something else. This time, however, the result would have more dramatic consequences. By the time VEE would have lysed from the bacterium, it would have bypassed most of the body’s defenses, allowing it to travel directly to the brain. The patient, being treated for plague, would be dead from encephalitis within 7 to 10 days. US intelligence combined with information gleaned from Russian defectors made the picture very clear for the US: Russia was creating superbugs for the purpose of biological warfare and among them were superversions of Y. pestis .

https://www.montana.edu/historybug/yersiniaessays/hale.html

Edited to add the second part about VEE

2

u/NavidsonsFall 10d ago

Yeah, you are totally right, but that's the point. It isn't a great option for mutual destruction. But for further stressing your adversary in the front lines, and distracting their allies as they deal with it themselves? I'm not trying to fed post here, I just don't trust really any leadership to do the right thing. And while I am nowhere near saying this is "what's going on", it isn't impossible for this kind of thing to be exactly the kind of tool cowards would use in this situation. There is no reason for leadership to be concerned about being one of the affected when all it takes is some money and planning to ensure you are reasonably safe. I legitimately hope that is completely wrong. I just don't have much faith anymore. Either way, well organized information is always welcome, so thanks for the quality post.

1

u/Latter-Block132 10d ago

What do you mean that isn't the point? Its entirely the point.

Myelin toxin kills you too. Encephalitis is swelling of the brain that also kills you. Antibiotics treats the plague, then releases something else that still kills you. What do you not understand about that?

2

u/NavidsonsFall 10d ago

I said "thats the point". As in "that IS the point", not "that isnt the point". I was saying even if this ended up being the non-chimeric version that everyone rightfully says isn't a huge issue, it could still be used effectively as a resource stressor in a warzone. I was just reiterating that it didn't need to be worst case scenario to still be a poorly planned thing.

1

u/Latter-Block132 10d ago

Dude my original point was that bioweapons aren't just a threat to soldiers on the frontlines, they are also a threat to the leaders behind those soldiers and thats why they aren't used on a wide scale. That extends far beyond just the plague, and again, the normal plague would not make an effective bioweapon because of how easily treatable and preventable it is. Put all soldiers and government officials on antibiotics. Extend to civilians if necessary. Boom done, normal plague neutralized. See how pointless that would be?

Even Ukraine would be able to get the antibiotics readily.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Mysterious-Plan93 10d ago

Putin has never been one for great decisions

2

u/ExcellentTart2384 10d ago

Not like American leaders care too much or any other country’s leaders. Most of them just probably hide it better

90

u/ticklemesatan 11d ago

You say this like they weren’t building foxholes in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl.

6

u/hawley788 10d ago

Or droning the shit out of the reactor 4 sarcophogus

48

u/Acrobatic-Part-7322 11d ago

When has Putin ever cared about the lives of his own citizens?

14

u/anyavailablenameplz 11d ago

Not just Putin, you can look back at Russian history and you’ll see the same pattern.

8

u/Stoudamirefor3 11d ago

Putin doesn't care about his people.

11

u/punkrocktransbian 11d ago

Putin has already authorized biological warfare on his own people in Moscow during a terrorist hostage takeover in the Dubrovka Theater. Security forces used an experimental gas that succeeded in knocking everyone out, but killed 130 civilians. He doesn't give a fuck about anyone in Ukraine, he just wants the land and resources.

27

u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 11d ago

That's chemical warfare. A very different discussion.

-6

u/Crazy_Specific8754 11d ago

True , but the results are the same no matter the category of weapon

8

u/Illustrious-Share312 11d ago

No the results are wildly different between biological and chemical weapons.

-2

u/Crazy_Specific8754 10d ago

Well ok, perhaps in quantity of deaths or type of injury.. But for the dead individuals, death is still death regardless of the type of weapon that killed them.

2

u/Illustrious-Share312 10d ago

Oh well sure. But you can't control bio weapons when you release them.

10

u/Front-Category-5705 11d ago

Wasn’t that a fentanyl derived drug they pumped in? That’s not biological.

0

u/punkrocktransbian 10d ago

Sure was! I wrote a paper on it a while ago and was going off of memory lol. Thanks for the correction!

2

u/Front-Category-5705 10d ago

I was trying to remember it from the back of my mind too lol. I think I only remembered because of the somewhat recent opioid problem and the large amounts they pumped in. But your point still stands that Putin doesn’t care about the people under his purview. He sucks.

1

u/coolman1488 10d ago

You’re forgetting that terror attacks in Russia are borderline unwinnable. You’ll have guys with hundreds of hostages and they are armed to the teeth and wearing suicide vests and they have explosives rigged everywhere with deadman switches. I dont think the west could do much better.

2

u/yanansawelder 11d ago

It would be a stupid decision to use biological warfare on a country you’re actively invading with hundreds of thousands of your own citizens in that country

Do you think he cares?

2

u/nanaki989 11d ago

So you are now in their mindset. See why they may do it?

1

u/mezolithico 10d ago

Plague is curable if caught early

1

u/randomblack1 10d ago

Unless Russian troops are vaccinated.

1

u/PyroIsSpai 10d ago

We can say the quiet part out loud that Russia and Putin want to genocide Ukraine. They've tried for centuries now.

1

u/polarphantom 10d ago

Isn't the entire history of Russia just a repetition of making mental decisions with total disregard for the lives of hundreds of thousands of your own citizen?

-1

u/birdyturds 11d ago

Chernobyl would like a word….

10

u/jeevacationrentals 11d ago

Yea why the fuck do they have a plauge facility

57

u/DarkestLore696 11d ago

The same reason every first world country has disease research institutes. People are quick to jump to biological warfare but there are two ways you can study a disease. You can watch it evolve naturally in the wild and deal with the consequences, or you can study it in a lab. There you can subject the bacteria or virus to different stimuli and watch for potential mutations and adaptations in a controlled space.

5

u/nebulosus_nefarium 10d ago

Im a researcher in a bacterial research wetlab - glad to see others who understand it.

6

u/martin0641 10d ago

It's so odd to me that this isn't obvious to people.

Literally everything that exists has experts, and if the thing is dangerous or can be turned into a weapon, especially a WMD - then the place where those things are studied are going to be high security and likely in a government lab and not in a strip mall somewhere next to TGI Fridays.

It's like people think that just because something is dangerous that you're just supposed to ignore it somehow, and not figure out how to mitigate, prepare, understand, study, or regulate it.

And these people vote.

1

u/nebulosus_nefarium 10d ago edited 10d ago

Reading this about to go 200m underground into a BSL-5 to work on prions. lol.....I wish.

Yeah having been in academics and bioresearch for a few years now - it's really shown me just how uneducated the general public is on even basic biology and chemistry, let alone their own nutrition, anatomy or behavioral psychology on even a general interest level. I know I probably sound pretentious, but holy hell are some people significantly behind. Hell our high-school interns have already done gels, transformed e.coli. I graduated in 09 and never got to do anything like that.

1

u/martin0641 10d ago

Which is the scary part of dual use technology.

Moving from a world where the reason people can't do something terrible is because they lack access to equipment, information, or capability to one where the stuff can be delivered from Amazon, you can teach yourself how to do almost anything online and an LLM can nudge you along.

We're moving to a security model where bad things don't happen because most people can't do them to a model where they don't happen because MOST people don't want to do them and the larger the number gets, the more likely even unlikely things happen.

Stay safe in there ☺️

42

u/Avocadonot 11d ago

Don't worry, most countries do also

1

u/Abeestungmyhead 10d ago

Hey the united states does i sure hope the guy running plague control in the US is good

Oh wait its someone that reports to trump isnt it? Oh well we are fucked.

0

u/oogiesmuncher 10d ago

Most countries aren’t as stupid and evil as Russians tho

29

u/Current-Treacle9465 11d ago

Because that region has a lot of issues with plague, so thats why theres a research institution there dedicated to its study.

3

u/Dunnersstunner 11d ago

I imagine because Siberian steppe is a place where Yersinia pestis likes to hang out and has been there since at least 5,000 BCE. If not evolved there outright.

4

u/lilislilit 11d ago

I mean, if you want a serious answer, the regions it's located in have endemic plague. Mostly due marmots.

2

u/IntelligentTank355 10d ago

Marmots are to blame?!

We need an anti-marmot movement

1

u/lilislilit 10d ago

Noooo they are cute tho. It's not their fault people can't stop messing with them. It's kinda like with armadillos and leprosy

8

u/Early_Macaroon_2407 11d ago

The Soviets/Russians had/have the most extensive biological warfare program in human history. They spent decades developing weaponized strains of plague — it was arguably their agent of choice (although they liked anthrax, too).

4

u/Future-Side4440 11d ago

Natural plagues do not develop extreme lethality because the host needs to survive long enough to continue to propagate it. Without a host, bacteria die and virus protein shells decompose.

A research lab can continue to develop extreme lethality using cell cultures and store the results in shelf-stable buffered storage or with cryogenic freezers.

5

u/The_Phantom_Cat 10d ago

Natural plagues do not develop extreme lethality because the host needs to survive long enough to continue to propagate it

We have had three entire plague pandemics that disprove this, and many other very deadly pandemics of other diseases too

1

u/Future-Side4440 8d ago

The modern situation makes things more complicated. In the past, people did not travel very far very quickly, so a pandemic could wipe out a village and die out as everyone declares the place cursed for a while.

Now we have planes zipping across the planet and widely spreading diseases faster than was ever naturally possible.

3

u/Brave_Maybe_2891 11d ago

This isn't exactly true. Its extremely lethal to humans but we aren't its main host so its evolution isn't really effected by how lethal it is to us. It's bubonic plague which is carried by certain rodents that are common specifically in that region.

1

u/Koloamanmaxi 11d ago

Apparently the region where the plague is caused by people eating marmots all the fucking time so they had no choice but the build a research facility there

1

u/pathings 10d ago

do you think we don’t have plague facilities? lol

0

u/Mishka_1994 11d ago

Russia accused Ukraine of having “biolabs”, so of course every accusation is an admission of guilt when it comes to Russia.

3

u/nvpat 10d ago

Hard to tell Russia apart from the GOP

1

u/IntelligentTank355 10d ago

Both red to the core

0

u/cryptolyme 10d ago

they use facilities like that as cover for bioweapon development

1

u/KavanSeraph 10d ago

That was my very first thought when I saw this news last week (was it last week, six months ago, or this morning? I can't keep track of the crises.).

Awfully convenient to accidentally on purpose release a potential bioweapon right around the time when many countries, not just the US, are having elections of significant magnitude. And the Federal Bestiality Institute director is currently there? That's one fuck mothering coincidence. And, and the US president just committed treason on live tv (again) last night? And, and, and the Lincoln is supposed to be pulling into port just as seditious president has invited another nation to turn the biggest port in the US into an active theater? Andx4 said nation is the one which was dragged into an illegal war via commission of egregious war crimes?

Idk, you guys.

Like I said, I'm losing track of all these crises.

1

u/Fresh_Passion1184 10d ago

It sounds like something out of a bad movie but i wouldnt put it past Russia to try germ warfare. Risking starting another pandemic (not with the bubonic plague. We can cure that with antibiotics now). I despair for this planet.

1

u/duaneap 10d ago

“For every two of our hospitals we have to shut down, I expect to shut down at LEAST a half of one of their’s!”

-4

u/morgano 11d ago

I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but it would be an interesting scenario for plausible deniability.

"oh no one of our plague researchers accidentally dropped a vial and died"...
"we're in lockdown everything is ok"...
"oh no it seems to have spread to Ukraine and we did everything possible to contain it".

Having an "accidental" release and announcing it to the world, whilst simultaneously getting some infiltrators to start releasing it in Kyiv. Then start knocking their energy infrastructure out making it difficult to communicate and treat patients.

2

u/AbilityRelevant4543 11d ago

The problem is that the city where this happened is pretty far from the border with Ukraine.