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Comment by derdi | Hacker News Reader

The nuclear power plant is a Russian talking point. Ukraine is not into nuclear terrorism, not even as quid pro quo.

Setting the power plant up as a goal in people's minds just helps Russian propaganda. Ukraine doesn't go there = Ukraine didn't reach its goal = heroic Russian victory. Let's not proactively fall into this trap.

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That doesn’t seem obvious to me at all. Seizing the plant and rigging it to explode as a quid pro quo demand for Russia to leave the Zaporizhia NPP seems perfectly reasonable.

It’s not like “nuclear terrorism” is morally superior to threatening nuclear annihilation via MAD

Its also one of the few exit plans for a raid deep into enemy territory with no logistics.

> Seizing the plant and rigging it to explode as a quid pro quo demand for Russia to leave the Zaporizhia NPP

I honestly don't see that happening. There's a diplomatic game being played around Russia's nuclear threats, I don't see Ukraine being so dumb as to undermine that.

The west is supporting Ukraine. The west wouldn't like if Ukraine starts engaging in nuclear terrorism because that would remove legitimacy from West's support in the eyes of the rest of the world. So, regardless of whether Ukraine would like to do some terrorism, the west is asking it: don't.

This would not be a good bluff from Ukraine, even if it considered nuclear terrorism an option. The prevailing winds blow from the east, as we know all too well since Chornobyl. Blowing up the plant just east of the border would mostly terrorize Ukraine itself.

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