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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

#81

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rmk wrote: post #70
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?

Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so options are somewhat limited. Russia intends to use Chernobyl as a deterrent to NATO, according to the report (how, I do not know). It is also not straightforward to put a NATO ally right on Russia's vulnerable flank (it's endless plains and flat ground from Ukraine to Moscow, which has always been a source of strategic vulnerability for Moscow), so admitting Ukraine to NATO was ne…

> Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so options are somewhat limited

Ukraine not being in NATO means we aren’t obligated to intervene. We regularly intervene in various things without a treaty requiring it.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#82

Post by somesortofthing »

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.

The EU and US have made serious mistakes in the process but it's hard to disagree with that conclusion. Either you have a fairly short(By necessity, since Ukraine is going to remain crossable with armor for maybe a couple more weeks before the entire country turns into a giant bog in spring) proxy war in Ukraine that kills a few thousand and transfers the territory from one bickering cabal of oligarchs to another or you risk global nuclear war with boots-on-the-ground intervention. Putin has been pretty clear that he'll use nukes in the event of a full NATO intervention.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#84

Post by systemvoltage »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #71
systemvoltage wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No this doesn't have anything to do with Nuclear Weapon deterrence. Much of the liquidation effort was literally burying contaminated topsoil in the area. The explosions from conventional bombs would kick radioactive particles back up into the atmosphere. Europe probably does not want to deal with that, so I imagine they will refrain from attacking directly.

If I understand correctly, your central thesis is about deterring EU from attacking. It misses the point that Russia already has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons to deter EU from attacking them. So, why would they rely on an 'offchance' 2nd-hand threat of fallout when they can just threaten to use their guaranteed-to-deter stockpile of weapons?

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#85

Post by ethbr0 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #61
ethbr0 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really doubt that NATO would be willing to enforce this no-fly zone in a non-NATO nation, that would mean being willing to shoot down Russian military aircraft, which would surely escalate the war.

Neither Iraq (1991+) nor Bosnia and Herzegovina (1993+) were NATO members, and it served its purpose there.

And hence declaring it before Russia invaded. Which forces Russia to choose to shoot down NATO aircraft, or operate outside those zones.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#87

Post by f311a »

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?

Russia has nuclear power. That’s the main reason.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#88

Post by rocqua »

outside1234 wrote: post #69
netsharc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they were, what's easier, to honour such an agreement with an expensive (materially and in terms of human lives) and dangerous (would cause the conflict so spread) deployment or to say "Sorry, you're going to have to tough it out yourself.". The USA and UK already abandoned the Afghani people, feels like the once mighty US military really doesn't want to be in a shooting war against Russia. As someone living…

The US will defend NATO. They will nuke Russia's forces if they try to enter Poland. There is no doubt in my mind that is a red line.

They will definitely defend Poland. They won't nuke, not even tactically.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#89

Post by moffkalast »

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…

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...

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#90

Post by Terry_Roll »

whatshisface wrote: post #50
causi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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 on the border with Belarus who are aligned with Russia, and uranium fuel rods are not cheap to make, it takes tonnes of Uranium, so grabbing Chernobyl would seem sensible.

So at this stage, I'm now thinking Russia is the next country to get a massive improvement in quality of life and infrastructure, a bit like we have seen with China over the last decade or so, whilst all the while the West is kept in the slow lane for other less developed countries to catch up.

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