THIS PREVIOUS COMMENT FROM MALPEARCE IS EXCELLENT:
Happy Independence Day.
You do know that the IAEA has *confirmed* that Russia had previously mined the ZNPP complex and had definitely been storing munitions inside it, as well as military vehicles - in violation of international principles?
They predicate the current observations (to the effect of, no current signs of nefariousness by the Russians) with the fact they don’t have unhindered access to all areas.
“As Director General Grossi said last week, no mines were observed at the site during his visit to the ZNPP on 15 June, his third in less than ten months. However, the IAEA has been aware of a previous placement of mines outside the plant perimeter, which the Agency has reported about earlier, and also at particular places inside.”
“The five basic principles for the protection of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant (NPP) ... state that there should be no attack from or against the plant and that it should not be used as storage or a base for heavy weapons – multiple rocket launchers, artillery systems and munitions, and tanks.”
“The IAEA team had not reported any shelling or explosions over the past week and that the military presence at the site appears unchanged.”
So from the IAEA point of view Ukraine’s not attacking ZNPP at all and Russia appears to have stopped booby trapping it... although Russia needs to be less “don’t go in there!” to confirm it isn’t just being selective about the areas the IAEA can inspect.
Again I suggest you consider five things: means, motive, opportunity, risk, reward.
Ukraine:
1. hasn’t got means or opportunity. Their rockets couldn’t make the plant go boom, they can’t cross the river without being shredded.
2. Only has Motive if you really believe that Kyiv would irradiate three cities it controls (including the 700,000 minimum in Zaporizhzhia city itself) in order to wipe out half a million Russians in the rural occupied area and drag NATO into putting boots on the ground. NATO might equally decide to just cut Ukraine off altogether if Kyiv went THAT rogue.
3. Can’t explain how the (nonexistent) rewards would outweigh the (incalculable) risks.
Repeat for Russia. They have means and opportunity as they control the whole complex. Motive? Implausible unless you think that Russia really has gone full tonto “all our hopes are with the famine” and would rather poison the Donbas than surrender it. Risk? They keep reminding any would be retaliators that they have nukes. Reward? None beyond it proving that Russia today is madder, badder and far more dangerous than the USSR.
So, neither story really stacks up but you’re left comparing the plausibility of Russian leaders exercising their nuclear option and proving they really would go there, to the plausibility of Kyiv committing an act of national suicide.
33 posted on 7/4/2023, 2:35:24 AM by MalPearce
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4165340/posts?page=33#33
The radiation would float over Russia.
Winds travel that way, you know, West to East.
Get real.
I doubt that Ukraine is suicidal. I don’t know about Putin or some of his drunken officers. One report was that a drunk Russian officer pressed buttons that made the planned flooding from the big dam into a far worse disaster than originally desired. Meanwhile we can hope that Putin cares enough about his future reputation to not commit a suicidal act when he finally knows he has lost.
As I contemplated our own national holiday of creation, and our future, I was motivated to write the material below to share with my friends and others who care about the future.
“Today we look forward to brilliant and loud fireworks displays, the classic July 4th celebration of our own Independence. Then I thought of the so very real brilliant and loud artillery and bombing felt by the Ukranian people as they fight to keep their fragile independence. A few months ago I began to wonder why I gave this tragic story so much attention and concern.
Then I realized, of course, my earliest thoughts about the world outside my family were caused by my WW2 experiences as a child of 5 or 6.
We then lived within 10 miles of NY City. Once a week we rushed back and forth carrying all my fathers sales samples into the house for his air raid service night when he used his empty car for carrying people to hospitals or other possible emergencies. Other nights he had his extra part time job stoking a furnace for Union Carbide. He would come into the kitchen after that work and drop his spark singed skull cap on the table. Mom would shriek, “Get that dirty thing off my table.” This happened week after week. My child thought was why did they each do the same thing every time? Sometimes Mom showed me the newspaper where ships and airplanes destroyed by our Army or by the enemies were listed using ship and airplane icons. She taught me how to count using these figures. I also remember learning how the larger icons meant bigger ships and that was good if we did it to the enemy ships.
I came home from Kindergarten one day to find Dad, and a man with horse and plow turning the earth in several lawns around the house. We kept our Victory Garden for 11 years where I helped plant, weed, pick and eat about 1/5th of our food. It was also my job to pull down air raid shades when the siren screamed, and flatten tin cans, after mom removed tops and bottoms, for the scrap metal drives. I remember Mom taking jars of bacon fat to the butcher to send for explosives production. I still remember staring in the glass window below the counter at the delicious ham and roast beef hunks for slicing which we could not afford to buy.
For several years after age 8 I helped mom select special items and we packed them in Red Cross packages to send to her mother’s relatives and her sister who had married and stayed in Europe throughout the war. She explained we had to send silly things like silk stockings and cigarettes because they could be traded for food and medicine. Thus I have a clear feeling for what Ukrainians both within and now outside the country may be feeling. I hope they can soon have a celebration like our own that will be just an honored memory, rather than an ugly daily reality.”