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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure he means the Ukrainians inside the nuclear plant, not Ukrainians in general.

Operators of nuclear plant are civilians. They are not part of force. Civilians can be captured, they cannot surrender, because nobody asks them to do that. I never heard that police or army asks somebody unarmed to surrender.

Really? You have never heard anyone ever describe regular citizens surrendering to the invader? I feel like you are arguing a technicality here - if you are faced with people with guns of course you'd say "I surrender" even if technically that's not what you're doing.

Welcome to HN. The home of "Well, technically".

Yeah, it’s why I feels so at home here and the primary source of my relationship issues.

Well, technically that's Reddit and not HN.

Do you have a source for that?

TBH, Putin is not calling a war a war, the turkish governemnt took some time to say it's war too, etc. ('cos calling it a war would mean triggering consequences). So, government's are super technical too... (not saying it's good or bad, I don't know, just saying that they are extremely technical with their words)

Keep in mind, not everyone here speaks English proficiently or primarily. Nuances in definitions can lead to widely different interpretations.

Given recent moves to allow Ukrainians everywhere to bear arms in response to the invasion. It's rather reasonable to see that the Civilians, once they enter into defending a stronghold (in this case, just a power plant), that they are now considered a militia, which can surrender.

But not all civilians bear arms so not all are considered militia thus they can't "surrender"

I looked up surrender in a few dictionaries, and none of them even mention this constraint as a secondary definition, much less the primary meaning. It just means: to give oneself up, submit, yield; relinquish possession or control over

So yes, those in charge of the plant surrendered it to the attackers.

"I never heard that police or army asks somebody unarmed to surrender."

I don't understand the statement. Either it is completely oblivious to daily reality, or it is hinging on some pedantic / language dependent semantic detail that should really be explicitly addressed.

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