Chernobyl protective shield can no longer confine radiation after drone strike | Hacker News Reader

Chernobyl protective shield can no longer confine radiation after drone strike

cnn.com

94 pointsvinnyglennon30 comments

This would in itself be a reason for EU air forces to go in and participate in the destruction of Russian drones and cruise missiles.

It is ridiculous that no decision at least on that minimal thing has been taken.

Nukes.

You can't let nukes constrain you.

It's like somebody pointing a gun at and saying "eat this horrible snail, or I'll shoot you", but there's the possibility that if you eat the snail, he'll shoot you anyway and then you'll die having eaten the snail.

Therefore, as long as you have a second strike capability threats are irrelevant.

Everybody who has a reasonable number of nukes can erase himself and his enemy. That is his business and he can do so independently of what we choose to do. Consequently it's something we can't care about.

Snails are quite tasty with garlic butter

Easy to do if you have a working set of balls, which clearly most of Europe and North America don’t anymore.

> As the world’s largest movable land structure, the colossal hangar is a monumental feat of engineering. Built in 2010 and completed in 2019, it was designed to last 100 years and has played a crucial role in securing the site.

With all that effort, it didn't last 6 years.

I get that Chernobyl is near the border of two countries at war, but why the everloving hell is anyone targeting anything within miles of the exclusion zone? Are there any military units anywhere near there, or is it intentionally being targeted as an oblique dirty-bomb threat?

The whole Russian invasion is one massive exercise in contempt for human life, Ukrainian and Russian. So I don't think they would care about the hole.

There are certainly very real humans deciding if this target gets hit or not and why.

You can be human and not care about other humans.

That's even worse. They are humans who want to see more suffering. The famous quote from one Russian propagandist about Ukrainians dying: "I don't pity them at all". Me and you care and think that losses on both sides are atrocious. Russians don't care.

When you're at war you just want to hurt the enemy; you're not thinking straight so to speak. It takes enormous professional restraint - both personal and organizational - to not say fuck it all and just press the nuclear launch button after a bad day on the ground.

Yes, but one side seems to commit noticeably more war crimes.

The side with nukes you mean?

Yes.

Yup. Science/math/chess/music and literature to name a few are better with russians involved. Then there's the russian government: that's a problem. Their military subdues by shelling to bits civil targets come what may. Then there's the Ukranian POWs and kids ... the Russia gov doesn't give a cats whisker.

Many do not understand the Russian military because it is human nature to search for some kind of reason or logic.

The is no reasoning with a mad man, and that is who is in charge in Russia.

Agree. What putin's government understands is a 2x4 upside the head. I'm reminded of the cool hand luke line: "If that's the way he wants it, he gets it."

Because any resource which is thought to be safe from bombardment will be utilized. Sadly this is extremely common all over the world. In war zones, armed forces use hospitals, schools, etc, as a base of operation (which invalidates its protected status by international law), then cry fowl when their cover is eventually bombed. Not saying Ukraine used Chernobyl for military purposes, but it would definitely not surprise me if they did, or if Russia wanted to rule this out. Either way, war is awful, too bad we are only going towards more war and more conflict. We're a dumb species.

Or maybe they just bombed it to terrorise the population, and the bombing of schools and hospitals in other conflicts is for the same reasons.

> I get that Chernobyl is near the border of two countries at war

Chernobyl is located on the border of Belarus. It's nowhere near any active military action and at least 200+ km from the active front lines.

Diverted from regular target, then they bombed it because it's a vaguely industrial looking structure? I don't really see the logic in deliberately bombing Chernobyl, but Russia has not been particularly discriminate. Active nuclear plants have lost external power for cooling due to targeted strikes on energy infrastructure before.

This is deeply worrisome and brings to mind when Russia attacked Chernobyl, and then their soldiers got radiation poison digging latrine trenches etc. Let us dangerously hypothesize that if Confinement begins to fail catastrophically, who will step in to fix it? Russia? Is it.. possible Russia will allow the leak as a form of weapon?

It's on the border with Belarus, one of Russia's major allies. Any leak would affect them

I don't think that Russians care about this. This whole invasion can be summed by 'Russians don't care about trivialities like human life or impact to nature'.

They care about keeping their tiny number of allies happy though.

There is a hole. iirc it was somewhat patched with more temporary repairs next year. radiation levels are normal

> radiation levels are normal

Yeah, only 3.6 roentgen

Not great, not terrible.

The dome is so much more than a dome. It is a whole work of engineering, from the way it was assembled and installed to the internal structure itself.

It is built in two layers. The inner one deflects radiation and heat back into the core, in the middle there is a cooling layer, I believe they even use liquid cooling to ensure the temperature difference between the inner hot and the outer cold layers are not too drastic which could cause thermal expansion and damage. And then there is the outer layer, designed to withstand heavy winds and harsh climate conditions. Just piercing the outer layer would have damaged the coolant middle layer and ruined a large amount of engineering work that went into this structure.

The dome was also literally built in such a way that it was assembled a few meters away and then slid over. There is no real practical way to fix the hole that appeared. There is no sufficiently tall ladder or sufficiently stable helicopter for this work. Especially in the middle of a war.

Putin should be sent to The Hague for just this, but there are many more reasons too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com