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Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

reuters.com

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Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#41

Post by jcrawfordor »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #23
Calavar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Two, a gun to the head of Europe. They could threaten to destroy the containment, and/or to bomb the reactor building to aerosolise as much radioactive material as possible. If they wanted to go that extreme, they always had the option of just launching nukes. Capturing the reactor and blowing the sarcophagus just seems like a lot of needless extra steps.

Maybe I read too much scifi, but can't nukes be intercepted in key locations? They might be able to land them in more remote places, but wouldn't hitting cities be difficult? I was under the impression developed nations have missile interception technologies. But yeah, I've read books not based in reality and watched some netflix in my days, so I could be in fantasy land. Kind of sobering to write this out and realiz…

The US and Russia long had a treaty which prohibited the development of anti-ballistic missile systems with narrow exceptions. While the treaty agreement effectively ended in 2002, it did effectively stop most ABM work in both countries for an extended period of time. Further, the problem has proven to be exceptionally difficult. The Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as "Star Wars," was an effort towards a comprehensive defense against nuclear ICBMs that was famously declared to be beyond the realm of the possible by some technical groups. While US ABM work as resumed in earnest over the last couple of decades or so, it remains an extremely hard problem and progress has been slow. The prominent GMD system, for example, has the ability to counter only "tens" of warheads (and at tremendous expense, having to fire many interceptors per inbound missile in order to raise the probability of success). Other systems like Aegis are generally even more limited.

So while various countries do possess ABM systems with varying levels of efficacy, in general we could expect only a very small portion of inbound ICBMs to be successfully intercepted... if any. These types of systems have consistently under-performed expectations as field conditions prove to be more challenging than expected, and that's with limited knowledge of the countermeasures an adversary like Russia might employ.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#42

Post by thesaintlives »

throwoutway wrote: post #2

It is worth remembering that the Chernobyl sarcophagus was paid for by the EU. Not sure if that makes it EU property though

Yes! Well worth remembering. Get your best pen out and write a complaint letter to President Putin. For sure it will stop the invasion dead in its tracks. Genius!

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#44

Post by ethbr0 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #25
hwers wrote: post #21

I can't really tell what's going on here. Is the EU and America supposed to be helping out but it's all promises without real counter attacks? Is this just the calm before the storm as russia places their troops in the right spots while everyone looks on? Anyone who's smarter than me who could enlighten me?

The EU and USA can't attack Russian troops directly without escalating the war far more than anyone wants. No one wants to provoke a nuclear nation, not even another nuclear nation. As long as Putin doesn't try to advance out of Ukraine, I doubt that NATO will offer any direct support beyond supplying arms and training.

There was a missed opportunity to seriously prevent war.

NATO should have been requested to by Ukraine and declared a no fly zone for military aviation west of the Dnieper, before Russia invaded.

An inability to use aviation would have severely slowed Russian plans.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#45

Post by ojbyrne »

agumonkey wrote: post #29
uuav wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having news reports about Russian control over Chernobyl is enough to scare a good chunk of European population.

this whole event smells like a hooligan drive-by and not a planned military operation, too many dirty tricks

Really? To me it seems very well planned, but with tons of disinformation to make potential opponents hesitate to act as much as possible.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#46

Post by gpm »

hwers wrote: post #21

I can't really tell what's going on here. Is the EU and America supposed to be helping out but it's all promises without real counter attacks? Is this just the calm before the storm as russia places their troops in the right spots while everyone looks on? Anyone who's smarter than me who could enlighten me?

The EU and America have been clear throughout that they will not be putting troops on the ground or directly fighting Russia in response to an invasion of Ukraine. No one is willing to risk a nuclear war.

The calm before the storm as Russia places their troops was the last few months. This is the storm, as Russia takes Ukraine by force. Assuming they succeed in taking it (which seems very likely) it's unclear what they plan to do - either installing a puppet government or incorporating Ukraine into Russia (or a mix of the two) seems most likely.

The EU and America (and other friends) have promised severe sanctions on Russia in response to this - which they are currently announcing, and they will probably continue to extend over the coming days. They have also promised to support Ukraine with intelligence, military supplies, and economic aid. They have been providing that over the past months, and every indication is that they will continue to do so as long as it's possible.

NATO is also greatly increasing it's readiness, in case Russia chooses to go beyond Ukraine/Moldova (Moldova is the only neighbor to Ukraine uninvolved in NATO and the conflict, and Russia already occupies a piece of it) into any NATO country. In that eventuality the various NATO countries have all committed to going to war - there's a reasonably high chance it would be a nuclear one - which also means it's very unlikely that Putin will try this.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#47

Post by dathinab »

agumonkey wrote: post #29
uuav wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having news reports about Russian control over Chernobyl is enough to scare a good chunk of European population.

this whole event smells like a hooligan drive-by and not a planned military operation, too many dirty tricks

That's what war is about. (acting strategic)

That's how Hitler was initially so military successful.

Act hard, ruthless and be done before the (main) enemy realizes what hit their ally.

EDIT: Not saying it's ethical to do so.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#48

Post by systemvoltage »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #16
stickfigure wrote: post #6

Is there any strategic significance to this? I thought it was closed?

It is actually deviously brilliant. No one wants to shell the area because it would release all the dust and radionuclides that were buried during the cleanup. It is a perfect staging area because the downside to attacking it is so high. No allied forces in Europe want to deal with the fallout - literally. This is so genius I'm genuinely in awe. This is right out of Sun Tzu: “The art of war teaches us to rely not on…

Unless they're literally housed inside the containment building, this is useless against precision guided missiles and bombs. Are you talking about deterrence to nuclear bombing of Chernobyl? Then it is a moot point because the fallout from the weapon itself would dwarf the dormant fissile material in the containment facility.

Sorry, but this makes no sense. If Russia wants to deter EU with fallout, they already have such a mechanism - their massive stockpile of nuclear weapons to deter aggression by EU.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#49

Post by pishpash »

hwers wrote: post #21

I can't really tell what's going on here. Is the EU and America supposed to be helping out but it's all promises without real counter attacks? Is this just the calm before the storm as russia places their troops in the right spots while everyone looks on? Anyone who's smarter than me who could enlighten me?

Nobody promised helping out for real. It's all posturing to get a proxy pawn to sacrifice for the suzerain's benefit. Ukrainians got sold down the (Dnieper) river and I'm surprised they still have not realized somehow, when they should have realized in 2014 at the latest. I'll eat my words if there is some other grand strategy behind it but from today it would seem that even sanctions haven't been agreed upon and readied to go unlike what we were told.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#50

Post by whatshisface »

causi wrote: post #28
hwers wrote: post #21

I can't really tell what's going on here. Is the EU and America supposed to be helping out but it's all promises without real counter attacks? Is this just the calm before the storm as russia places their troops in the right spots while everyone looks on? Anyone who's smarter than me who could enlighten me?

EU and US will use every diplomatic and financial weapon against Russia, but they've long since decided Ukraine and the Ukrainian people aren't worth actual war over. That call was made in 2014 and stopping Russia then would've been easier than it would be now.

It's not clear whether every financial weapon will be used. For example,

> The foreign ministers of the Baltic states called for Russia to be cut off from SWIFT, the global intermediary for banks' financial transactions. However, other EU member states were reluctant, both because European lenders held most of the nearly $30 billion in foreign bank's exposure to Russia and because China has developed an alternative to SWIFT called CIPS; a weaponisation of SWIFT would provide greater impetus to the development of CIPS which in turn would weaken SWIFT as well as the West's control over international finance.[262][263] Other leaders calling for Russia to be stopped from accessing SWIFT include Czech President Miloš Zeman[264] and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.[265]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai...

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