The Russian forces seem to be trying to encircle or assault Kyiv.
I think they've taken the nuclear plant because it is a defensible point along their shortest line of advance. They wouldn't want to move past it without controlling the site.
I think they've taken the nuclear plant because it is a defensible point along their shortest line of advance. They wouldn't want to move past it without controlling the site.
99% of normal people don't know anything about the world. Text inside quotes is how normal people think when they hear Russian forces have captured Chernobyl.
Invasion aside, capturing Chernobyl is good PR. When most people think Chernobyl is already in Russia and most people think going there is instant death.
Are you talking about Americans? Because I can assure you that 99% of the people in Europe knows exactly where Chernobyl is.
It almost wiped out our entire continent, and it’s still an active threat that is going to be a security issue for the next thousands of years.
We’re taught about it in school.
Russia didn’t take it because they wanted to generate headlines, they took it to secure it. I personally believe in the experts who think the Russian army vastly overestimated their first day effort, but whatever you believe, it would be foolish to think that Chernobyl isn’t a very serious thing for everyone involved.
If it was accidentally destroyed in this war, and Russia didn’t immediately fix it, EU forces would be forced to trigger WW3 to recapture it, or 650 million or us, would need to find a different part of the world to live in. That wouldn’t happen or course, because 80% of the Russian population also lives in zones that would become uninhabitable.
But I'm sure you are right, and I hope you are doing well in Europe given the situation.
"Russia bombs Ukraine' "hundreds dead in russian invasion ofUkraine" "Russia implements no fly zone over Ukraine" "Russia incircles Ukraines Capital"
And we get - A long deserted powerplant captured?
I'm totally condemning the Russian actions, but in this particular case they may be acting somewhat responsibly. Unlike with the bombing of civilians or the whole damn war in the first place!
Has this happened? Ukrainian civilians bombed?
Please… Russians will just use it for their propaganda as a support to the claim that Ukraine was working on nuclear weapons.
Gave to Russia:
> Ukraine handed all its nuclear weapons to Russia
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraines-nuclear-lesson-with...
> Ukraine have acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear states and are now transferring Soviet missiles and warheads to Russia for dismantlement on a strict schedule.
https://www.stimson.org/1995/politics-nuclear-renunciation-c...
>The former Soviet Republics where nuclear weapons had been based, namely Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, transferred those weapons to Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio...
> effectively abandoning their nuclear arsenal to Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
> In May 1996, Ukraine saw the last of its nuclear arms transported back to Russia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/science/ukraine-nuclear-w...
> Ukraine transferred its last 40 nuclear warheads to Russia
> Most tactical nuclear weapons were transferred from Ukraine to Russia.
https://www.rferl.org/a/the-destruction-of-ukraines-nuclear-...
> All nuclear weapons were removed to Russia
https://www.nti.org/countries/ukraine/
Destroyed:
> Ukraine gave up a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons left over by the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and used the fuel from its blended-down warheads to drive its nuclear power plants.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/us/politics/putin-ukraine...
> In 1994 Ukraine agreed to destroy the weapons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
> Ukrainian workers cut an air-to-ground X-22 cruise missile into pieces
https://www.rferl.org/a/the-destruction-of-ukraines-nuclear-...
> they had to destroy all of their nuclear weapons.
https://historyofyesterday.com/did-ukraine-actually-get-rid-...
The reactors that aren't infamous have already had all fuel removed. The one that was scattered all over the countryside has plenty of highly radioactive debris but you can't realistically pull out material for a dirty bomb. Terrorists would have better luck stealing cobalt 60 sources and spreading that through a city than trying to break into the new safe confinement, break into the sarcophagus, find a suitably large amount of highly radioactive material, somehow break it into pieces and truck it out of the area, etc.
Terrorists aren't going to try to use the war as cover to sneak into Chernobyl regardless of Russian troop presence.
It is a great position to hold and fight in, because the area is pretty empty of civilians. And russia must avoid ukranian (russian in their eyes) civilian casualties, to not loose the little popular support they have for this war.
And neither side will be so stupid to directly bomb the remains of the reactor, but I think it would need a serious direct bombing, for radiation to leak out. I don't think there can be still a major uncontrolled chain reaction. The worst that can happen under normal circumstances, is radiation leaking out.
(but all this is from the back of my head knowledge, about documentaries about chernobyl, I might be wrong)
It's just that somebody has to be in control of it, and the Russians can't or don't want to depend on Ukrainian forces to do that right now.
Then he would just shell and flatten all the ukrainian cities. Russia has air superiority as far as I know.
Yes, but although Putin is a bloody bastard, he's not stupid. His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days, he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukraine will essentially (if not effectively) annex itself to Russia, with both the EU and US doing nothing but economic sanctions Putin and the oligarchs were long prepared against. Most of Europe depends on Russian gas, which means the moment those sanctions become too harsh is the moment he'll either cut our supply or further raise the prices (my last heating bill already doubled). That's his guarantee against any real action. I'm sorry, but Ukrainian people are screwed.
What's done is done. Europe has enough wind potential to power the world [1]. Add solar [2], batteries, transmission, pumped hydro, remaining operational nuclear, and electrify everything (EVs, heat pumps, etc). Fill the remainder with LNG shipments from the US in the short term [3]. It's a national defense/security/sovereignty issue now to get off of Russian gas, and it should be treated as such with regards to allocation of resources to speed the effort.
[1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/europes-onshore-and-o...
[2] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/solar-seen-clai...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europe-remains-top-d...
I confirmed it’s in SciHub if you want to grab a copy.
> The continuous development of onshore wind farms is an important feature of the European transition towards an energy system powered by distributed renewables and low-carbon resources. This study assesses and simulates potential for future onshore wind turbine installations throughout Europe. The study depicts, via maps, all the national and regional socio-technical restrictions and regulations for wind project development using spatial analysis conducted through GIS. The inputs for the analyses were based on an original dataset compiled from satellites and public databases relating to electricity, planning, and other dimensions. Taking into consideration socio-technical constraints, which restricts 54% of the combined land area in Europe, the study reveals a nameplate capacity of 52.5 TW of untapped onshore wind power potential in Europe - equivalent to 1 MW per 16 European citizens – a supply that would be sufficient to cover the global all-sector energy demand from now through to 2050. The study offers a more rigorous, multi-dimensional, and granular atlas of onshore wind energy development that can assist with future energy policy, research, and planning.
But it's obvious that it was too fast too soon. Capability should have been built up before decommissioning.
And everything not send to EU and USA is bought by China.
Everywhere Russia has taken to date was already a separatist region, but I'm really racking my brain to think of times when a country 'just simply annexed' another area by force since the fall of the Raj.
From 1912-1950, Tibet (due to its remoteness) acted as an de facto independent region, despite Western legal precedent stating it was still under the control of Beijing.
When attempting to get de jure independence from China in 1951, China asserted control over the region.
So sort of, but not really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Extension_o...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration
(Although now too late)
Again the original point is that it was never an annexation, but even if it were, there was minimal protest and discontent in 1997.
As for Tibet, repeating an earlier comment:
Tibet was under control of the Qing Dynasty (i.e. China) until its end in 1912. From 1912-1950, Tibet (due to its remoteness) acted as an de facto independent region, despite Western legal precedent stating it was still under the control of Beijing.
When attempting to get de jure independence from China in 1951, China asserted control over the region.
So sort of, but not really.
Smaller states, though, yes. But not major powers. This may have more to do with shifting priorities for major powers, than with anything else.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Goa
edit: my bad, I missed the "unwilling nation" part of the parent content
So I agree you’re right, but I also hope you agree that Ukraine is very different.
I wouldn't be so certain. I don't think Ukrainians would just comply, many of them would fight against such a thing and would know the new regime is fake. Furthermore, Kyiv is a big city with peculiar geography. Urban fighting is hell, and if Ukraine decides to make a principled stand there it could take weeks of bloody fighting before it falls; and if Ukraine's government evacuates to Lviv in time, and continues the fight from there, it might result in a long struggle, regardless of who gets installed in Kyiv by Putin.
Oh and we don't know how the Russian public will react if the war gets to an urban bloodbath going for weeks or months.
I'm not sure Russia has much left to lose politically by stooping to that.
There's a reason sanctions are being applied to rich families.
If it didn't matter, internal Russian propaganda organs wouldn't be firing on all cylinders. The press is not just a 'jobs' program.
Every government requires the consent of the governed. Democracies, semi-democracies, dictatorships, autocracies, theocracies, all of them only work because people believe in them.
For this reason, all forms of government put a lot of effort into manufacturing consent among the people they govern.
The US, China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, are effectively untouchable by conventional military means, because they are able and willing to unleash nuclear holocaust in return - no matter what they do.
- United States
As for projection capabilities of FR-UK, they are small and old and creaky and everybody knows it.
In a country the size of Ukraine, controlling cities isn't easy, the risk of transforming the conflict into a guerrilla is too dangerous. Tanks would have to level down entire cities block by block to get full control, and that would likely result in a bloodshed with lots of casualties also among Russians. As much as Putin acts like a dictator, he still need some kind of support from his own people and pro-Russia Ukrainians.
You mean like this?
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-chernobyl-russia-invasion...