Seems to be a confirmation of the thesis that is emerging after last week Kharkov's debacle: Russia is starting to pivot to the tried and tested strategy of supply line sabotage to try and win.
Putin ruled out voluntary mobilization multiple times, which means that Russia is at a manpower disadvantage and cannot attack(the "voluntary" mobilization story is developing, but anyway Russia probably doesn't want to try to attack in winter). The mobilized Ukrainian soldiers are out of the civilian economy while they are deployed, so cannot contribute. Taking out power also increases civilian migration pressures. Seems like Putin is increasingly going to force NATO/Europe/US to support Ukraine with actual food/electricity/water/etc instead of loan forgiveness and weapons, which will probably be tough in winter.
The above strategy is obviously some sort of war crime, but question is what sort of response will come from US/NATO/Europe that would stop Putin from this pivot(if it is indeed ocurring).
It is certainly plausible, Ukrainians have made no secret of them stationing troops / weapons in civilian buildings, their argument being that since they are defending against aggression on their homeland they can station them wherever they want(and it is a perfectly legitimate argument). I wouldn't really trust Russian MoD either though.
What would be the motivation? What would they gain? It makes zero sense to destroy their own country. Russia, on the other hand, has several reasons to do so.
It's of course ridiculous, together with all the other reasons Russia has given for then having to "protect" Ukraine by invading them and raping, torturing, murdering and deporting their children.
It's unfortunate that they seem to have chosen maximum disinformation as a strategy for their official communications (not maximum confusion which would require significant amount of truth around the fabrications). Meanwhile their citizens say what they believe keeps them away from prison and high up windows.
But that's what the situation is now. Putting any effort into reviewing their claims is a waste. It'll be a hell of an effort for them to rebuild their credibility.
The Russian army parking any asset close to the power plant reactors is basically using all of the downwind population as human shields.
Thyroid cancer much, Vlady?
>* The IAEA pointedly avoided mentioning the shelling (not clear why).
This is the first I've heard this, any good sources on why/how they managed to avoid mentioning the very reason they were there in the first place?
Because knowing the position of the International community on who is right/wrong in this war, it seems very telling that the IAEA would ignore the shelling of the nuclear plant unless their findings suggest Ukraine really was at fault and they wanted to provide cover.
I misspoke above - they did mention shelling offhand and in the abstract but they made zero comment about:
* whom they thought was responsible.
* any attempts they made to discover who was responsible.
* any evidence they had seen, not seen, asked for or not been given access to.
If their genuine, honest conclusion was "we are still not sure who did it" then the appropriate response would be to admit that and to lay out the evidence they had seen.
For whatever reason they chose to boil their assessment down to "shelling happened" and avoid pointing fingers.
I can see why Russia interpreted that as a green light to shell Pivdennoukrainsk.
No. Not rule out. Since they've aimed at a lot of infrastructure, it's reasonably to assume that they knew it's critical infrastructure and wanted to hit that.
Russians camped at Chernobyl, after all. The people who made the decision to shell this reactor might not have much idea that nuclear power generation involves fission and radiation and those sciencey things.
It's probably not a popular view, but I suspect if the West or IAEA condemned Kyiv's shelling of Zaporizhia NPP in the last couple of months this probably wouldnt be happening.
Russia was publicly furious about the shelling. The western reaction was either a perplexing "Russia shelled themselves" or "they asked for it by having their military there / shelling across the river from that location".
IAEA, as a supposedly independent agency, was invited in to have a look and they said nothing about the shelling of the plant at all in their report. Again, Russia was furious.
So, it's not really a surprise that theyve declared open season on nuclear power plants.
Certainly Russia has been shoveling a lot of propaganda, but it seems accepted fact that the shelling around Zaporizhia did damage some parts of the plant. You can find western media confirming damage to a dry storage facility, where casks of spent nuclear fuel are kept, and also radiation monitoring detectors. And the plant did have to shut down one of it's reactors.
I feel like your comment is underrated. That could indeed be one of the reasons for Russia countering in-kind.
Except by Russia, it isn't accepted the strikes were launched by Ukraine. And Russia hasn't provided any evidence to back up their claim, nor were they able to convince the UN delegation.
The UN seems to be admonishing both Ukraine and Russia for it, and deliberately not taking a position on who did it. Fwiw, I'm not a Russian shill...just this one particular event seems different than usual.
>Russia hasn't provided any evidence to back up their claim
They did. They called for a UN security council meeting where they presented their evidence. Thats where they invited the IAEA to visit to see for themselves.
The IAEA investigated and subsequently refused to make any comment at all about who was responsible for the shelling. They didnt say that there wasnt enough evidence. They just didnt comment at all.
America has also commented. They said that they think it did happen.
It was already unlikely that Russia shelled themselves. The fact that they went to great lengths to try and prove Ukraine did it and got this vague "both sides" shit from a supposedly thorough investigation in response suggests that, on balance, they were telling the truth.
Now they've proved we're ok with it, they've done it too.
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
^ a very relevant quote given the preponderance evidence and your overwhelming reluctance to accept it.
Just saying "preponderance evidence" doesn't help your point. There isn't any evidence presented by you or Russia for me to consider accepting.
I personally think it's reasonable Ukraine could have fired on targets near the plant – it wouldn't be a hard thing to accept if there was information pointing toward it.
> So, it's not really a surprise that theyve declared open season on nuclear power plants.
So getting butthurt is an unsurprising justification for attacking nuclear power plants?
Don't store materiel inside the nuclear plant. Don't fire missiles from the nuclear plant. Don't use the nuclear plant for cover. Don't invade Ukraine. Problem solved.
I don't understand how any position Russia has in this context, matters at all. Just fucking go away. None of this would have happened if Russia didn't start a war of aggression against its neighbor.
I’m Ukrainian.
Everyone here has a relative or friend who participated in the cleanup of Chernobyl. There were hundreds of thousands people doing this job for years.
This tragedy is one of the defining tragedies of our history. Everyone learns about it in school.
It is inconceivable to me to even wonder if we could shell the Zaporizha power pant. No, we do not want to repeat that tragedy and we love out country. We do not want to make it uninhabitable.
No, it is impossible that we put any military hardware near any of the nuclear plants (besides air defense systems far away from them).
It is very difficult for external observers to verify who shelled the plant, as you need specialized radars for that. Russia has them, and it would make this data public if it could prove that Ukraine did it.
The idea that Russia is using nuclear blackmail, but reframes it as “Ukrainians are doing it” is way more plausible for me.
"And I don't want to say that the Ukrainians haven't fired in that vicinity either because I think there's probably a likelihood that they have, but in good -- in a number of cases, it's returning fire of the Russians who are firing from those locations."
It doesnt seem in the slightest bit plausible to me that the Pentagon would try to justify the shelling if they didnt believe it happened.
The IAEA made no justification as to why they refused to attribute responsibility for the shelling. nor did they state in the report that they needed additional evidence to ascertain what happened. The report treated "who did it" as an unimportant detail despite knowing that it was the only reason they were invited.
> The report treated "who did it" as an unimportant detail ... it was the only reason they were invited.
Might've been why they were invited, I don't think that's why they went.
Their tweet of mission objectives [1], and their article over appeal made for the visit to the UN Security Council [2], merely stated motivation to "carry out ... activities in nuclear safety, security and safeguards and at the same time provide a stabilizing influence", and to "provide an independent risk assessment of the nuclear safety and security risks."
I've yet to read, in those 2 sources or others, assigning responsibility for the shelling in their objectives. Do you have sources that do?
B/c it sounds more like their scope was limited to assessing damage and establishing a presence to ensure safe operation of the plant.
Are you really so stupid as to be supporting Russia, the country that invaded their peaceful neighbors, killing and torturing innocent civilians? On what premise could you possibly be supporting Russia and having any form of intellect?
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 86.1 ms ] threadPutin ruled out voluntary mobilization multiple times, which means that Russia is at a manpower disadvantage and cannot attack(the "voluntary" mobilization story is developing, but anyway Russia probably doesn't want to try to attack in winter). The mobilized Ukrainian soldiers are out of the civilian economy while they are deployed, so cannot contribute. Taking out power also increases civilian migration pressures. Seems like Putin is increasingly going to force NATO/Europe/US to support Ukraine with actual food/electricity/water/etc instead of loan forgiveness and weapons, which will probably be tough in winter.
The above strategy is obviously some sort of war crime, but question is what sort of response will come from US/NATO/Europe that would stop Putin from this pivot(if it is indeed ocurring).
The invasion is the war crime and should have been enough for the whole world to respond en masse to refuse allow it.
The world should do the same if the USA ever invades anywhere again as well.
What would be the motivation? What would they gain? It makes zero sense to destroy their own country. Russia, on the other hand, has several reasons to do so.
In general, when it comes to anything in war involving the word "nuclear," we would be unwise to plug our ear's to the enemy's motivations.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jSQw35mJrA
But that's what the situation is now. Putting any effort into reviewing their claims is a waste. It'll be a hell of an effort for them to rebuild their credibility.
EUFOR Ukraine, I would guess...
You're expecting countries with a history of war crimes to do more than condemning war crimes?
Nonetheless, acts of aggression have never been treated as an excuse to commit war crimes by any state.
This is the first I've heard this, any good sources on why/how they managed to avoid mentioning the very reason they were there in the first place?
Because knowing the position of the International community on who is right/wrong in this war, it seems very telling that the IAEA would ignore the shelling of the nuclear plant unless their findings suggest Ukraine really was at fault and they wanted to provide cover.
Or am I missing something..?
* whom they thought was responsible.
* any attempts they made to discover who was responsible.
* any evidence they had seen, not seen, asked for or not been given access to.
If their genuine, honest conclusion was "we are still not sure who did it" then the appropriate response would be to admit that and to lay out the evidence they had seen.
For whatever reason they chose to boil their assessment down to "shelling happened" and avoid pointing fingers.
I can see why Russia interpreted that as a green light to shell Pivdennoukrainsk.
Russians camped at Chernobyl, after all. The people who made the decision to shell this reactor might not have much idea that nuclear power generation involves fission and radiation and those sciencey things.
Russia was publicly furious about the shelling. The western reaction was either a perplexing "Russia shelled themselves" or "they asked for it by having their military there / shelling across the river from that location".
IAEA, as a supposedly independent agency, was invited in to have a look and they said nothing about the shelling of the plant at all in their report. Again, Russia was furious.
So, it's not really a surprise that theyve declared open season on nuclear power plants.
I feel like your comment is underrated. That could indeed be one of the reasons for Russia countering in-kind.
They did. They called for a UN security council meeting where they presented their evidence. Thats where they invited the IAEA to visit to see for themselves.
The IAEA investigated and subsequently refused to make any comment at all about who was responsible for the shelling. They didnt say that there wasnt enough evidence. They just didnt comment at all.
America has also commented. They said that they think it did happen.
It was already unlikely that Russia shelled themselves. The fact that they went to great lengths to try and prove Ukraine did it and got this vague "both sides" shit from a supposedly thorough investigation in response suggests that, on balance, they were telling the truth.
Now they've proved we're ok with it, they've done it too.
^ a very relevant quote given the preponderance evidence and your overwhelming reluctance to accept it.
I personally think it's reasonable Ukraine could have fired on targets near the plant – it wouldn't be a hard thing to accept if there was information pointing toward it.
So getting butthurt is an unsurprising justification for attacking nuclear power plants?
Don't store materiel inside the nuclear plant. Don't fire missiles from the nuclear plant. Don't use the nuclear plant for cover. Don't invade Ukraine. Problem solved.
I don't understand how any position Russia has in this context, matters at all. Just fucking go away. None of this would have happened if Russia didn't start a war of aggression against its neighbor.
It is inconceivable to me to even wonder if we could shell the Zaporizha power pant. No, we do not want to repeat that tragedy and we love out country. We do not want to make it uninhabitable.
No, it is impossible that we put any military hardware near any of the nuclear plants (besides air defense systems far away from them).
It is very difficult for external observers to verify who shelled the plant, as you need specialized radars for that. Russia has them, and it would make this data public if it could prove that Ukraine did it.
The idea that Russia is using nuclear blackmail, but reframes it as “Ukrainians are doing it” is way more plausible for me.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/...
It doesnt seem in the slightest bit plausible to me that the Pentagon would try to justify the shelling if they didnt believe it happened.
The IAEA made no justification as to why they refused to attribute responsibility for the shelling. nor did they state in the report that they needed additional evidence to ascertain what happened. The report treated "who did it" as an unimportant detail despite knowing that it was the only reason they were invited.
Might've been why they were invited, I don't think that's why they went.
Their tweet of mission objectives [1], and their article over appeal made for the visit to the UN Security Council [2], merely stated motivation to "carry out ... activities in nuclear safety, security and safeguards and at the same time provide a stabilizing influence", and to "provide an independent risk assessment of the nuclear safety and security risks."
I've yet to read, in those 2 sources or others, assigning responsibility for the shelling in their objectives. Do you have sources that do?
B/c it sounds more like their scope was limited to assessing damage and establishing a presence to ensure safe operation of the plant.
[1] https://twitter.com/iaeaorg/status/1564097055798075393
[2] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/hostilities-at-zaporizh...