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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

God damn, is the Russian army really this stupid?

Is this an act of desperation, ignorance or spite?

None of those. Destroying critical infrastructure like power plants and radio towers is a common step on the invading a country checklist. Of course considering this was a nuclear plant, one should hope that they were careful enough to limit the damage to prevent nuclear fallout.

Causing a nuclear incident in a place you want to occupy is profoundly stupid.

You're making a pretty serious assumption that they're doing something haphazard rather than something calculated and planned. What's your reason for first assuming incompetence?

Does Hanlon’s Razor apply in times of war?

The last time I checked, being Russian doesn't make you immune to radiation. Controlling land is pretty pointless if you've poisoned it into uninhabitability for the next few generations or so.

What makes you think that what they're doing has significant risk of making the land uninhabitable? All we know is that there's a fire at the perimeter. That's it. It could be that what they're doing has little risk. From reading the twitter threads, seen elsewhere in this comment section, that seems to be the case. Not surprisingly, nuclear power plants are made pretty well.

I don't think there's any evidence that they're acting irrationally, from within their context. Making the land uninhabitable would be irrational, for everything we know of their context.

Their whole invasion has screamed incompetence.

Could you give some examples of what you see as incompetent?

All the videos of abandoned tanks and vehicles, some with fuel.

I'm not sure I understand. Were they captured? Were the drivers killed? Did the drivers perhaps have relatives/friends in Ukraine? Were they told to leave them there?

IMO we want to believe that the second best military on the planet is not competent because it is more comforting than the idea that the second best military actually planned out this assault on a sovereign country.

This powers 1/4 of Ukraine. Holding the plant will give them a lot of leverage.

They could have just thrown breakers at junctions or cut the power lines. No need to set the reactor on fire.

They can already easily cut (or threaten to cut) main power lines anywhere nearby. It’s not like ukrainian army controls all the area except for the the plant itself.

So we’re back to the question: how can they be so stupid to attack the facility itself?

It could be for psychological reasons. Threatening nuclear war has been part of Putin's strategy and this reinforces that message. It is also a very visual way to drive the message home that they have leverage over Ukraine's power.

Spite

A lot of what people believe about what's happening at the plant is based on the statements of Ukrainian officials, who by some accounts are using it to call for NATO to impose a no-fly zone. A disaster at this plant would cause huge problems for DNR/LNR/Crimea, which Russia does not want. Amid the fog of war it's often a good idea to take a step back and wait for more evidence to present itself.

My best mental model for the leadership of Russia's Ukraine invasion is an abusive parent who can't get his kid to bend to his will. Repeated failed attempts cause the parent to become more emotional, destructive, and out of control of himself, so we've gone from just an unprovoked invasion with airport attacks, attacks on radar sites, and occupation of the exclusion zone; to trying to assassinate Zelenskyy and starting to target refugees, residential areas, and shooting at nuclear plants.

As Ukranians continue to fight back and the West plays economic games instead of taking decisive military action, the escalation will continue until, by the end, everyone will agree that we should have just risked the initial nuclear threats of Russia rather than having Putin start launching nuclear weapons after having also leveled most of Ukraine and done whatever other increments of catastrophic forms of abuse come to his team's minds unyil then.

Alternatively, Putin wins before he feels backed that far into a corner, or maybe he's deposed before we reach nuclear weapons. But I really can't picture him backing down from confrontation, given that he was of a mindset to invade Ukraine.

Right now, the trick would be to drop a line of bombs on that stalled convoy heading for Kiev, and to establish a no-fly zone. That would turn the tide of war. I don't think that's more likely to risk nuclear retaliation than actions we'll be forced into in two weeks. It is more likely to risk nuclear retaliation than simply moving NATO troops into Ukraine two weeks ago.

As with COVID, we seem to always do too little too late.

I agree completely (except I think your timeline for troop movements would be a little late). Putin even told us 'your move' when he called the troop movements an exercise. If we had responded forcefully, they would've gone away with nothing to show for it except some new propaganda.

This is exactly the logic of 1st strike lunacy that we avoided in the 60s by not listening to some military brass that wanted nuclear war.

You summed it up perfectly. If we had listened to these idiots in the 60s none of us would be here.

I think a more accurate modal is an incel. Russia is a corrupt country nobody wants to be with. Ukraine wants to be more western and rejected Russia's advances, so Russia lashes out at Ukraine instead of improving itself.

Most likely ignorance, seems like they have soldiers who still think they are on a training mission.

Initiation of an actual radioactive disaster near your own border on purpose…

Does that matter?

how could any of them possibly still think this is a training mission? they're in a different country shooting actual people and buildings, and actual people are shooting back at them.

Wow! These scenario role players are incredible. I'm getting so much training value! They fall down, cry, bleed out, and die just like somebody would in real life!

The 'training mission' trope is as old as the Red Army and it's bullshit.

They pulled the same shit in 1956 when they got captured by the Hungarians and in 1968 when they invaded Czechoslovakia: 'We were told it was a training mission'. This is straight-up a survival tactic for the prisoners. They're playing dumb and acting innocent. It's impossible not to know by now where, what and why you are doing in a foreign country, in a fucking military convoy.

"peacekeeping" "mission"

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