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Comment by bayesian_horse | Hacker News Reader

I think they seized it because they need the general area to move their troops. In that case they can't tolerate Ukrainian troops there, but somebody has to be in control and responsible for this site to ensure, among other things, no terrorists make off with radioactive material.

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!

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> Unlike with the bombing of civilians or the whole damn war in the first place!

Has this happened? Ukrainian civilians bombed?

Never believe anybody who says attacks are "surgical" or "limited to strategic objectives" - bombs and shrapnels don't look at documents. War is war, civilian casualties are always inevitable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to keep their numbers down, of course - in fact, it means war should never be waged, because innocents will always be caught in it.

Yes. A cyclist can be seen going about their life before a bomb lands in front of them. The proximity would have sent shrapnel directly into them. They did not survive. It is extremely sad and awful to watch unfold. Warning: the second video contains gore. https://twitter.com/realistqx1/status/1496757503195029508 and https://twitter.com/zyundex/status/1496735074720563203

Yes, certainly, in many locations

https://twitter.com/euronews/status/1496857321909239818

https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1496912902326005769?cx...

https://twitter.com/N_Waters89/status/1496846533085564929?cx...

https://twitter.com/AlexanderLouri4/status/14967627663166873...

Yep, multiple cities, including Kyiv, Mariupol, Odessa, Lviv were bombed, and there's videos out there of civilian buildings destroyed.

Some Ukrainian Hospitals have been struck by artillery. No one knows if it was on purpose or not, but either way that's pretty bad since the world is still suffering from the COVID19 pandemic.

The Russian Hospital seeking missiles are famous since Syria.

Whether deliberately or not, yes.

>no terrorists make off with radioactive material.

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.

> but somebody has to be in control and responsible for this site to ensure, among other things, no terrorists make off with radioactive material

Please… Russians will just use it for their propaganda as a support to the claim that Ukraine was working on nuclear weapons.

That would be an awkward claim considering Ukraine _had_ nuclear weapons and gave them up to Russia in the 90s for guarantees about Ukraine's territorial integrity. Obviously that didn't work so well for Ukraine now

Awkward? That’s what Putin said before invasion. WMD and nuclear weapons.

I believe they were destroyed, not given over to Russia?

Hmm, various websites disagree. I would guess some were given to Russia and some were destroyed with the uranium being kept for other purposes.

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-...

They weren't activated nukes fyi

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