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Comment by Some20s | Hacker News Reader

Interesting twitter space discussion goign on right now: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1LyxBowlNzoKN?s=20

speakers seem informed

Good discussion. Brings some clarity to this and so far it doesn’t sound quite as serious as you might be led to believe given the headlines.

It's reassuring in that meltdown is very unlikely.

But who the actual fuck shells a nuclear plant? That's not reassuring at all.

It's also against international law.

Nobody shelled a nuclear plant. Russian forces drove into the parking lot of a nuclear plant, had two RPGs fired upon them from an administrative building and fired machine guns back at the administrative building. There were fires and after some time the fighting was sorted out and firefighters put out the fire.

All headlines are about Russians shelling a nuclear plant. You can say that's fake news, but at least provide a shred of evidence (like any article?).

> KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces pressed their attack on a crucial energy-producing Ukrainian city by shelling Europe’s largest nuclear plant early Friday, sparking a fire and raising fears that radiation could leak from the damaged power station.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-a3092d8e476949...

I think the best stance is what we should all know by now: Ukraine is highly propagandistic because their victory scenario involves getting NATO directly involved and escalating a regional conflict into a World War.

So let's treat any information coming out from them as such and wait 1 day for more accurate accounts to come in.

To be fair, I'm certain that the Ukraine does not want to spark a world war, but they certainly would appreciate some direct support from NATO, even just air support. (which is likely to lead to a world war, but that's not Ukraine's intention, they are just trying to preserve their country).

Despite any inaccuracies due to the "fog of war" or even propaganda, the basic facts of this unprovoked invasion are more than enough to justify NATO intervention.

“Just air support” means a hot war between the US and Russia, which would be an extremely dangerous thing. It’s extremely irresponsible to advocate for that. There is a reason they weren’t allowed into NATO before, and that reason has only gotten stronger.

I'm not advocating for any direct NATO involvement, I was just saying that Ukraine would love NATO support, even if just air support (which they've already asked for), but even that would likely escalate this into a world war.

I'm not sure how you read that as me advocating for NATO involvement.

But I disagree with your assertion that the reason to not let them into NATO has gotten stronger, I think this invasion shows that the reason to let Ukraine in to NATO has gotten stronger.

Sorry, I don’t understand, how is air support not direct NATO involvement?

The reason has gotten stronger because if we let Ukraine into NATO now, that obligates NATO to defend them, which makes this into WW3. That would be extremely bad for humanity on a much, much larger scale than Ukraine represents. NATO is not a tool for humanitarian aid.

It is direct NATO involvement, I never advocated for it -- Ukraine did.

Obviously we wouldn't let Ukraine into NATO now during a conflict, but if this conflict somehow ends and Putin withdraws then I think there's a strong case for giving them NATO membership. Letting Ukraine join NATO later is a deterrent from another invastion, letting them join NATO today is just the start of WWIII

Ah ok, I agree. Sorry, I must’ve misunderstood what you meant by “the basic facts of this unprovoked invasion are more than enough to justify NATO intervention” in your original post.

Oh, I definitely think NATO has ample justification to join the battle, and if the adversary were not Russia (or China), I think they already would have.

But I also think it would be a horrible idea to get into a direct war with Russia.

I watched the same livestream the AP is screenshotting. There weren't any signs of "shelling". There were two RPG blasts, and then later on tracer rounds fired back towards the source of the RPG blasts.

Edit: Saw an explanation that media journalists are probably mistakenly identifying the lighting flares launched in the video as shelling. They're way too slow moving to be shells or explosive rockets.

So it randomly invading a country.

International law doesn’t actually mean very much, especially when the violator is powerful and has nuclear weapons.

This discussion has been very helpful for my understanding of the situation and has been reducing my anxiety, thank you.

You are welcome, also I saw you commented about rising radiation levels somewhere else earlier. I think this has been covered perhaps before you chimed in, a physicist claimed that the higher radiation levels, assuming they are actually recorded, could very likely be caused by the weapons used in the are and not reflect the true levels. I unfortunately don't have the necessary expertise to explain that further, but I assume it's simmiliar to smoking a ciggarette into a air pollution sensor.

edit: seems like you just asked for a source, I misread the comment chain

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