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Comment by ttybird2 | Hacker News Reader

I do not understand, why are they fighting near the reactor? It only makes sense to keep troops of both sides away from something as dangerous.

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From the Russian perspective, taking out Ukraine's power is strategic and demoralizing.

Though I think we're seeing the Ukrainians are fierce when cornered, so probably isn't the morale breaker they think it is.

"From the Russian perspective, taking out Ukraine's power is strategic and demoralizing." It would seem to me as though the Russians are living in a glass house when it comes to energy sabotage. The map of Russian petroleum pipelines going through Ukraine is substantial.

At this point it seems as though Putin won't back down for fear of being perceived as weak. He'd rather be seen as a madman. Which may be why some of these choices seem, well...mad.

One side goes “hey they won’t shoot us if we’re near the plant”. The other side goes “hey no fair”. Things escalate. It’s war, and it sucks.

One side was unarmed civilians blocking the road to the plant for couple days until Russians started to shoot and wounded several civilians.

In other conflicts those are known as human shields.

Human shield is when forced. In this case it were willing people, a lot of older and mid-age people to whom it was their way to resist.

Up until this conflict it was never required that human shields must be forced into that position.

If you don't move aside when ordered to by a man with a gun, you might get shot.

War is the ground-truthed rule of kill or be killed. This is artillery being used to cause a nuclear incident. Maybe it’s to draw international troops in for emergency remediation. Maybe it’s to spread radiation to demonstrate the consequences of resisting.

Russia is trying to move northwards to Zaporizhzhia city. Leaving Ukrainian troops roaming freely in the Energodar town would have left their supply lines / flanks exposed, so they needed to drive in and clear troops out of the town (which mostly consists of a nuclear power plant).

I'm guessing the Ukrainian troops fell back to the nuclear power plant hoping they wouldn't get attacked there.

I wonder if Russia thinks it gives them a strategic advantage to be able to turn the power on and off at will? (Hypothetically, if they have full control of some city, they can turn the power back on and the people are less likely to revolt.)

This whole situation reminds me of the Mosul dam in Iraq, which was controlled by ISIS for awhile. The dam is kept stable by continuous grouting operations, which I believe were on hold for awhile.

Without knowing the particular reactor designs, I'll just say it's extremely unlikely they can turn it on and off like a tap (or even up and down significantly) due to the resulting poison transients.

I'm thinking maybe their long-range plan is to turn the reactor off and then damage it in some way that it can never be used again without rebuilding from scratch. Russia's main export is fossil fuels, and it's in Russia's economic and strategic best interest for Ukraine to be dependent on them for energy. Nuclear enables Ukraine's energy independence, and thus can't be tolerated.

If enemy troops are hiding there and shooting at you, what are your choices?

Sense? What about any of this makes sense?

That is indeed the fundamental issue still. The invasion of Ukraine is simply insane and will absolutely hurt Russia far more than it can ever benefit. That's the really scary part which makes this all terribly unpredictable.

I do not think Putin gives a flying fuck whether it benefits Russia. He acts like a rabid dog.

Russia may be just trying to take it off line.

they could blow up the substation connecting it to the grid in that case.

If in future you want to force your new vassal state to buy your gas, you disable their nuclear plants.

That's not the point. People don't really seem to get that Russia is basically a terrorist state right now. The goal is not only to cut power but to terrorize - striking a nuclear plant and preventing firefighters from intervening is, as you currently see, scary as fuck. They're sending a message.

If you want an actual explanation for the extension of NATO into the former communist countries, look no further. East Europeans have a collective memory about how the Russian military operates.

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