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Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

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Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#581
post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every Russian general is born with the ambition of driving his tanks to the Atlantic Ocean. And that won't be much different from what Tsar Alexander did in 1812/1813 with similiar meager resources. So yes, Putin probably is considering this scenario at least in his wet dreams... And it seems like largest country in Europe (by area), with 200 thousand strong army, tons od most sophisticated NATO weapons and 8 years o…

>Every Russian general is born with the ambition of driving his tanks to the Atlantic Ocean. France may not like that. They're not in NATO. But they have nuclear weapons.

France is a founding member.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#582

I'm very skeptical of the following question, but I found from a reputable reporter on Twitter, and seems like at least not an obvious fake website. But I don't see how this can be true... Anyone smarter than me care to alleviate the following concerns: Increased radiation. On this map some of the levels go from ~750 nsv/h to 10,200. one at the center went from 2,000 to 65,000 in the last day. seems crazy and inconce…

No, that actually seems extremely plausible. Thanks for posting actual numbers and units!

Look at the units. That's NANOsieverts. So the old radiation level was ~2x of what https://xkcd.com/radiation/ lists as the normal background level. Which m akes sense, because most of Chernobyl really isn't that bad nowadays.

The new level is 65 microsieverts per hour. That's notable, but not some huge release of radiation, and it would still take days for you to hit the (annual) occupational hazard limit.

The most plausible explanation, in my opinion, is that all the traffic kicked up a lot of contaminated dust. (Which is one of the reasons why you don't want to live there despite the "safe" radiation levels. The radiation level is only safe-ish as long as you don't breathe the dust.)

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (exaggerated) scenario is less of an attack but thought exercise on where the line for taking action lies. I went with belligerent actions over attack or small land grabs without casualties. Escalation from NATO let's say is "NATO declares war on Russia for violating sovereignty of Poland". Next? Will NATO liquidate Russian tank columns? As long as I've been alive, neither US nor NATO have ever actively engaged a…

Turkey (a NATO member) “liquidated” a couple of Russian fighter jets when they violated Turkey’s airspace during their Syrian assault.[0] So it’s not a stretch to think that once a Russian tank would cross into Poland it would be met with immediate lethal force. [0] https://news.yahoo.com/downing-russia-jet-stab-back-putin-13...

> “liquidated” a couple of Russian fighter jets

It was one jet, and it wasn't fighter jet, but assault jet, it didn't carry any AA missiles and couldn't defend himself.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#584
post #560

Most documentaries I saw said that the Chernobyl plant is totally destroyed. So why capture it?

The other reactors in the plant were operational until 2000. It's not about the plant though, it's about the city and the path to Kiev that it frees up.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#585
post #464

I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization? Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation an…

Even if Russia nuke a Ukraine city tomorrow I don’t think the West would get involved directly. Do you really want to fight a mad man who already used a nuke once?

They absolutely would get involved. You can't just light off nukes in Europe, because it poisons the whole continent. Strategic or tactical nuclear weapons usage (or even threatened usage) to annex border states requires a response or else you're going to be skipping straight to "full scale launch" when the aggressor asks for something you're not willing to give up.

Fortunately the bet in that regards is that Putin's own military and associates would depose him almost immediately - intentional nuclear weapons usage changes the calculus on a lot of things, since you're now into "you, your family and your country will definitely die if he stays in charge". The Russian people aren't behind this war.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia and China have developed their own equivalent of SWIFT, so again this is a sanction which will benefit Russia just like the oil price going up will benefit them because Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world. Plus with Chernobyl, some of the fuel rods may well be weapons grade still, and Chernobyl almost bankrupted Russia, it certainly helped break up the Soviet Union according to Gorbachev, its also…

> I'm now thinking Russia is the next country to get a massive improvement in quality of life and infrastructure That's practically impossible. They could have done in in last 30 years, but almost all the profit went to pockets of Kremlin's pyramid of power and tunneled to tax havens across the world. Corruption, laziness, incompetence of key people, and in some form also in the rest of nation will effectively preven…

But during the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian govt gave shares in all the state assets, as the rouble collapsed, but the shelves were bare, everyone with anything decent only wanted dollar, like you see in African countries, and so the rich with international financial connections offered to buy the shares awarded to the Russian public in exchange for dollars in order to buy food.

Do this en masse and you have your present day Russian oligarchs.

All Putin & the KGB have been trying to do since is rebuild Russia whilst getting people adjusted to capitalism. Many people in remote rural areas still wish for the old communist days where there was much more state support like with better infrastructure thats now crumbling away.

Communism started in Russia in 1917, its an ideology just like there is a new AI ideology in play right now, but these ideologies are/were designed to further human advancement, and even the Chinese recognise, Capitalism has so far one out, at least the illusion of Capitalism if you ignore how search engines can control a countries economy.

All ideologies have their faults, but some are also dependent on technology, so I dont know if an AI communism/capitalism mix could be seen in the future?

So look at teh buildings that are being destroyed, are these happening to make way for a new supermarket, shopping mall, road interchange once the building starts?

Just look at what happened in Iraq, private companies stormed in there and capitalism was in full flow because of Uncle Sam, however I suspect its Mother Russia now looking to splash the cash which means likely many Russian firms getting a govt handout disguised as war disguises these things.

Revisit this comment in ten years time and see if your opinion changes!

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAD works both ways. And some European countries (like the above mentioned France) have nuclear weapons. So I don't think Putin would make it to the French coastline easily. Ukraine should have made use of the material from the Chernobyl power plant while it had the chance. A threat of dirty bomb being delivered to Moscow would have stopped Putin. I guess their politicians are too naive and didn't consider this an op…

MAD was only really feasible when just three countries had nukes. It was abandoned a while back. Russia chose to pursue nuclear supremacy over conventional defense. They have the biggest arsenal, as well as super-nuclear and super-sonic ICBMs to deliver them. Russia is the only country I know that thinks it might actually be able to win a nuclear war.

All ICBMs are supersonic and hypersonic too. What super-nuclear ICBMs are?

Anyway, a retaliation strike from the USA would wipe out enough of Russia to end the war in a draw, if we can say so. They only have to remind Putin the common wisdom from all those years of cold war, if any of us attacks we are all toast.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#588
post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every Russian general is born with the ambition of driving his tanks to the Atlantic Ocean. And that won't be much different from what Tsar Alexander did in 1812/1813 with similiar meager resources. So yes, Putin probably is considering this scenario at least in his wet dreams... And it seems like largest country in Europe (by area), with 200 thousand strong army, tons od most sophisticated NATO weapons and 8 years o…

>Every Russian general is born with the ambition of driving his tanks to the Atlantic Ocean. France may not like that. They're not in NATO. But they have nuclear weapons.

> France may not like that. They're not in NATO.

Yes, they are, and have been since NATO was founded. From 1966-2009 they did not participated in the Integrated Military Command Structure, despite remaining fully in the alliance.

They still don't participate in the Nuclear Planning Council, and their troops are not put under permanent UN command in peacetime.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a disgruntled climate scientist, I think Europe needs to get off natural gas by 1990. It’s not as if the security benefits weren’t obvious when we all were buying from the Arab world, or the wider global security destabilization caused by climate change.

The cancellation of the NS2 pipeline has been a silver lining, even if it's hard to compare the long-term quanta of brutality a given amount of CO2 leads to vs the short term brutality of war.

It's not enough: they need to actively get rid of the parts of it that are built. The problem with sanctions at the moment is Russia is betting that once they win, give it a few years and business sycophants will be arguing that Ukraine is "ancient history we can't let hold back THE ECONOMY".

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey (a NATO member) “liquidated” a couple of Russian fighter jets when they violated Turkey’s airspace during their Syrian assault.[0] So it’s not a stretch to think that once a Russian tank would cross into Poland it would be met with immediate lethal force. [0] https://news.yahoo.com/downing-russia-jet-stab-back-putin-13...

> “liquidated” a couple of Russian fighter jets It was one jet, and it wasn't fighter jet, but assault jet, it didn't carry any AA missiles and couldn't defend himself.

Was it a frogfoot?
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