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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

#191

Post by jazzyjackson »

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…

Aside from the numbers game, ICBMs used to be the fastest way to deliver a warhead, with the obvious drawback that anyone watching the horizon can see it coming from half a world away.

Nuclear warheads have been further miniaturized since the cold war, it is now possible to fit them into cruise missiles.

> The deployment of Kalibr missiles, long-range, low-flying, capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads, available in land-attack, anti-ship and anti-submarine variants, was said to have altered the military balance in Europe and potentially compromised the NATO missile defence system under construction in Europe. [0]

There's also the rumored/propagandized hypersonic, nuclear powered cruise missiles (skyfall [1]) that are meant to defeat missile defense and circumvent MAD by enabling undetected first strike.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_cruise_mi...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

Disclaimer, I'm just a web developer with access to wikipedia yo

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#192

Post by awb »

rocqua wrote: post #100
moffkalast wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does pose the question what would actually happen should someone bomb the sarcophagus.

Unless the prevailing winds are really blowing towards the west, this would harm Russia and their newly conquered territory much more than it would harm the EU. It makes more sense as a bargaining chip with Ukraine than as a chip with the EU.

> It makes more sense as a bargaining chip with Ukraine

What's the proposition? Russia's already committed to ending the idea of Ukraine as a country.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#193

Post by fancifalmanima »

shawn-butler wrote: post #140
ncallaway wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU and America have promised to help with economic sanctions on Russia and by providing military aid and lethal aid. The EU and America have explicitly not promised to help out with direct military action against Russia. The United States and Biden have said multiple times that the US will not have forces engage Russia directly in Ukraine. What specific promises are you referring to?

The US makes empty promises. Read the Budapest memorandum in which we made security guarantees so Ukraine would give up its nuclear arsenal[0]. Russian aggression would certainly be much more calculated if Ukraine still had that capability. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

If you look at what was actually agreed to, it seems like the US and EU are already doing more than obligated. I don't see any nuclear weapons being used, the west has respected their sovereignty, and is even economically sanctioning Russia and providing intelligence and equipment. Bringing this to the security council would do nothing anyways, as Russia is a part of it and any resolution would just get vetoed. The only party that's actually breached the agreement is Russia.

    Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.[17]
    Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
    Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.
    Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
    Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
    Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.[13][18]

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#194

Post by jacquesm »

agumonkey wrote: post #154
kasey_junk wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO has been on Russias border for going on 20 years. The Baltic states joined in 2004.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO for more details did this affect Russia negatively ? from my seat it was no biggie, and nothing came out of the baltic states joining.. no threats, accident, economic problems in the news.. but maybe i'm just blind

From Russias POV it was.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#195

Post by rmk »

_puk wrote: post #188
rmk wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. But if a NATO member is attacked, then member states are obligated to come to the member's aid. It's essentially tantamount to saying, if you are at war with a NATO member, you are at war with the whole bloc, which includes USA, UK, France (somewhat in/out member over the decades), Germany, Turkey, and so on. It's a formidable group that acts as a deterrent to any would-be aggressor. The US is not obligat…

The scary thing is if NATO decide to get involved, and it turns into war between NATO and Russia, then the security of the Baltic States plummets. Currently, as NATO members, they are not likely to be attacked, but if NATO declares war then that deterrent is gone. Hopefully not a likely scenario, but who knows.. There's been a lot of tension lately, especially with the likes of Belarus bussing migrants across the bor…

NATO is a defensive alliance, so there has to be a provocation for them to act.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#196

Post by dokem »

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

Dirty tricks? In war? Unheard of.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#197

Post by agumonkey »

dathinab wrote: post #47
agumonkey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I get it, I'm not naive.. I'm saying it looks dirty as in dumb/reckless, not efficient. But I may be wrong.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#198

Post by karpierz »

mvc wrote: post #162
mikeyouse wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intervening militarily invites a counter response from Russia and could lead to outright war between NATO and Russia. It's one thing to assist Kuwait, quite another to send troops to fight a nuclear-armed adversary.

So we wait until they're doing this in Poland? I think I've seen this one before. Doesn't end well for anyone involved. Better to hit an enemy when they're not expecting it.

The logical conclusion of this is the "first strike" doctrine of MAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-emptive_nuclear_strike).

Every major power has had 50 years to prepare for it, and it won't work.

You want to respond proportionally, and make it hurt. But you also want to leave room for more pain, to give incentive for the behaviour to stop. And you need to make sure that your adversary believes that you'll keep hurting them. This is why we use some, but not all of the economic sanctions available:

1. If things get worse, we can make the sanctions worse. 2. We're much more likely to be able to maintain sanctions than soldiers in foreign wars.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#199

Post by nojs »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #127
jandrese wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where diplomacy should shine. It's clear that Russia has been hardening against western sanctions for years now, and CIPS is a big piece of that. If NATO can convince China to also shut them out of CIPS at the same time we turn off SWIFT the Russian Oligarchs will start applying pressure to Putin.

I doubt that's going to happen. China has refused to even call this an invasion, and has said that it's the West's fault.

Source?

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#200

Post by progman32 »

kingcharles wrote: post #115
moffkalast wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he invented fighting, and he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honour. Then he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on Earth, and then he herded them onto a boat, and then he beat the crap out of every single one...

I'm so confused by this comment... o_O

That's because we're engineers, and we solve problems.
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