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Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

reuters.com

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Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chernobyl disaster was first detected in Sweden, and in this nuclear plant would be like six Chernobyl, is closer to Europe than Chernobyl was and we can add the 3 reactors still active in Chernobyl also in hands of clueless 20 Yo soldiers. Some of those people claimed that they don't really know whom are fighting, or what are doing here. By the way, I never say that I was concerned by an explosion blowing half of th…

Chernobyl was a different era and mismanaged for days too. If something happened to the Ukrainian power station we'd know about it sooner (the proof of that is the fact that we know enough to have this discussion to begin with) and could react sooner. We've learned lessons from other meltdowns and nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents that have happened since Chernobyl and thus are better equipped and educate…

No post body was provided.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#772
post #643
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that instituting a no fly zone means the US shooting down Russian aircraft, right? Which means a hot war between US/NATO and Russia. That is something that the US should absolutely not engage in, because the stakes at that point are the survival of the species, rather than just Ukraine. We need to not normalize the idea of a no fly zone, no matter how gut wrenching watching this war gets.

A no-fly zone is no justification for nuclear escalation. Internationally, the only justification for a nuclear attack is in retaliation to another nuclear attack. That is it. Putin has made it clear that he will also launch a nuclear attack in case of an "existential war", which means a war where Russia itself is being attacked with the purpose of conquering or destroying it. A no-fly zone is not that. There is no r…

> Internationally, the only justification for a nuclear attack is in retaliation to another nuclear attack. That is it.

Neither the US nor Russia accept this premise.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument you made is about the importance of nuclear because of russian gas. So the question is - see above. If you already forgot what you wrote I would be extremely happy to quote you.

And I answered. Have troubles with reading comprehension?

Talk to me about reducing energy from nuclear after you've done something to reduce energy from russian oil and gas

what did you do?

I donated money to the Ukrainian army.

----

Like I said, a special kind of stupid. Keep driving that SUV in your fight against Russian oil.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#775
post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no “demonstration nuke”. If Putin sets off a nuke it’s doomsday. The time between Russia being the second country to use nuclear weapons and our current concept of countries becoming totally irrelevant would be measured in minutes. Having said this he might still do it.

demonstration nuke - it's called tactical nuke, which is different to strategic nuke. Imagine Ukrainian army winning and move towards Russia and Belarus. Putin may decide to fire a tactical nuke to "escalate to de-escalate"

If the Ukrainians push the Russians back to Russia then that is a de-escalation. The Ukrainians are not the aggressors here. I see no reason Ukraine would cross their own borders.

If Putin decides to escalate to nukes as a final act of failure then the de-escalation would be the complete annihilation of Russia as a country. In minutes.

The idea of getting away with a tactical nuke strike is insane.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#776
post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is war between two nuclear states, so nuclear weapon will be used eventually. Ukraine is not a nuclear state as it does not have nuclear weapons.

We promised to not have it in return for not being invaded, so technically we are a nuclear state without any weapons present at this moment (as far as publicly known). Since we have both technological expertise and practical means (from uranium ores to delivery systems), it’s a matter of time.

>so technically we are a nuclear state without any weapons present at this moment

You'd still be prevented by NPT (which Ukraine is part of) like all other non-nuclear states, even without the Budapest Memorandum.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#777
post #594
post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you are using salami tactics. Salami tactics works in both ways. You say that nobody will went crazy when a tactic nuke will be used against RF army. Right? Can you draw the line, please? When this war between two nuclear states will be nuclear, if even use of tactical nuke is not enough for you?

I’m just saying that the US isn’t going to engage in a massive species-ending strike over the Russians using a tactical nuke in a conflict with a non-NATO country. No idea what salami tactics means.

The idea is that a tactical nuke requires at a minimum proportionate response. The history of large attacks is that the response is always disproportionate. A German plane accidentally drops their bombs on London leads to a dedicated air raid on berlin leads to the blitz.

A tactical nuke used against Kharkiv would certainly lead to either a Ukrainian dirty bomb strike against Moscow and or a NATO intervention. Why would Russia stop at one nuke when fighting NATO? For each tactical nuke against NATO you would expect at least one in return, or worse a megaton +x% for megaton exchange.

This spirals into full nuclear war very quickly once one side believes that they are going to lose without strategic weapons, or one side believes they have been or will be the victim of a strategic attack.

Speaking of, how long until the country with all of the old Soviet weapons facilities decides to re-enter the nuclear club?

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#778
post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian language has three words for lying, two for truth. And one of those (pravda) is a kind of a half-truth used to keep moving from the current situation. Russians know they are and have been lied to, but the culture is to keep going anyways, because that's how things have been done since forever.

Pravda means truth. Pravda was also name of state journal. The half-truth is said as half-pravda. English has many words for lie too: misinformation, lie, untruth, false, deceit, deception, dishonesty, disinformation, distortion, evasion, fabrication, falsehood, fiction, forgery, misrepresentation, perjury, slander, tale. I got them from synonyms dictionary. That does not say anything about English speaking people ot…

English has a lot of synonyms, redundancy, alternatives, ways-to-say, and overlapping constructs. In that context, the many English words for lie is an uninformative truth. English has so many words for lie because English has too many words for everything.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#779
post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given recent moves to allow Ukrainians everywhere to bear arms in response to the invasion. It's rather reasonable to see that the Civilians, once they enter into defending a stronghold (in this case, just a power plant), that they are now considered a militia, which can surrender.

But not all civilians bear arms so not all are considered militia thus they can't "surrender"

I looked up surrender in a few dictionaries, and none of them even mention this constraint as a secondary definition, much less the primary meaning. It just means: to give oneself up, submit, yield; relinquish possession or control over

So yes, those in charge of the plant surrendered it to the attackers.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#780
post #718
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German are uneasy because of irrational fear and exaggerated risks. Even if the worst happen at that nuclear power plant, it will still be a small disaster compared to all the causalities that already have happened in Ukraine the last few weeks (you know: the war)

> "it will still be a small disaster compared to all the causalities that already" Maybe I'm missing something regarding this specific reactor but how is a war that will eventually (hopefully) be over worse than a nuclear fallout that would make large areas unlivable for thousands of years and affect multiple countries and also killing a lot of people.

> make large areas unlivable for thousands of years

I think you are over-estimating the cost of this. I contest the use of 'large'. The 30km radius exclusion zone is nothing compared to the surface occupied by deserts, ice floe, or whatever of the many others existing unhinabitable places.

> and affect multiple countries and also killing a lot of people.

Because the war has been doing that already, at a even larger scale: thousands of civilians killed, many wounded, millions displaced. That's already worse than the consequences of a nuclear meltdown.

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