Fire Damages Russian-Occupied Nuclear Plant in Ukraine (theguardian.com) 249
The Guardian reports
Sunday, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, highlighted that Russian forces appeared to have started a fire in one of the cooling towers of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that it has occupied since the early days of the war. "Radiation levels are within norm," Zelenskiy said before accusing Russia of using its control of the site, whose six reactors are in shutdown mode, "to blackmail Ukraine, all of Europe, and the world". A Ukrainian official in Nikopol, the nearest town across the river Dnipro from the nuclear plant, added that according to "unofficial information", the fire was caused by setting fire to "a large number of automobile tyres" in a cooling tower. Video and pictures showed smoke dramatically billowing from one of the towers, although experts said they are not in use while the reactor is in shutdown mode, prompting some to question whether it was a way of trying raise the stakes over Ukraine's incursion into Russia.
From the CBC: The Russian management of the facility said emergency workers had contained the fire and that there was no threat of it spreading further. "The fire did not affect the operation of the station," it said. The six reactors at the plant located close to the front line of the war in Ukraine are not in operation but the facility relies on external power to keep its nuclear material cool and prevent a catastrophic accident. Moscow and Kyiv have routinely accused each other of endangering safety around it.
From the CBC: The Russian management of the facility said emergency workers had contained the fire and that there was no threat of it spreading further. "The fire did not affect the operation of the station," it said. The six reactors at the plant located close to the front line of the war in Ukraine are not in operation but the facility relies on external power to keep its nuclear material cool and prevent a catastrophic accident. Moscow and Kyiv have routinely accused each other of endangering safety around it.
It's a clear sign (Score:4, Insightful)
That Russian occupation of Ukraine is a global risk
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While America is far from perfect, we manage to attack the majority of countries on the planet.
FTFY.
"America Invades: The Controversial Story of How We've Invaded or Been Militarily Involved with Almost Every Country on Earth"
https://www.amazon.com/America... [amazon.com]
"Americans have invaded nearly half the world's countries and been militarily involved with all the rest, except Andorra, Bhutan and Liechtenstein".
"Believe it or Not: Since Its Birth The USA Has Only Had 17 Years of Peace"
https://www.warhistoryonline.c... [warhistoryonline.com]
"The U.S. Has Been At War 222 Out of 239 Years"
https://freakonometrics.hypoth... [hypotheses.org]
https://en.w [wikipedia.org]
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It's simple, vatnik. If people are desperate to break OUT of your country, you're the bad guys.
What if you fucked up their country with coups and colonialism? Is that simple, too?
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that is why we see many USA people moving to other countries, all cheaper, safer, sane.
All countries have their own problems, and while most USA do have money (those that don't can't also leave), it is all messed up and people fail to live with all the rat race
Re: It's a clear sign (Score:2)
Re: It's a clear sign (Score:3)
More people aren't leaving the USA because unless you are rich or have skills which are in demand, other countries won't take you, and also the USA considers you its property as evinced by their taxation even after you have left so they can't afford to even if they didn't have to pay to go somewhere else.
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i only see money flying, not men, so no, USA (not America, that is a continent) is not protecting Ukraine... in the last few months, Russia gain lot of land exactly because USA failed to even supply the weapons they promised. This is all politics, not good or bad
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Uberbah's twin (Score:3, Informative)
I am not even thinking pro Russian just observing.
You're not "Pro Russia"
But you want the world to surrender its sovereignty to Russia.
Or Russia might nuke us?
You're a coward and an appeaser. As well as an idiot. (that makes you pro russia by default)
Russia was ready to negotiate long ago and even came up with a deal which was signed.
Oh, you're not Pro Russia. You're a lying fool parroting Russian propaganda because you're too stupid to know any better...
Ukraine will get a worse deal if it even gets one at all.
There are no deals with Russia. wtf are you talking about? What kind of moron thinks any deal with Russia is worth the paper it's written on?
FFS are all Russians as stupid as you?
Re: It's a clear sign (Score:4, Informative)
This NATO line is just Putin retroactively trying to fit a palatable backstory to his imperialistic goals and legacy building. If he wanted less NATO, he failed spectacularly by scaring Sweden and Finland in to joining, two countries that remained neutral throughout the whole Cold War. If he wanted less NATO, he failed spectacularly because just a few years ago it looked like NATO was doomed with President Trump actively undermining it, but now theyâ(TM)re all standing shoulder to shoulder, increasing military spending and even Germany is exporting lethal equipment to Ukraine in a reversal of its long held policies. Letâ(TM)s be honest: this NATO line is BS. Probably the threat of Ukraine joining the EU was more scary, itâ(TM)s difficult to make the Russian people fear a non-military organisation. If NATO was to be, he could have used force to install a puppet government like in Belarus, but no, he annexed territory he doesnâ(TM)t even control⦠thatâ(TM)s blatantly the truth here: itâ(TM)s a empire building exercise above and beyond anything else. Meanwhile, Russia is turning in to a Chinese vassal state, dependent on supplies for Iran and North Korea. Putin has done irreparable damage to Russian, all in the name of his vanity projects.
Re: It's a clear sign (Score:2)
Why should Biden do anything other than what he's doing? Namely, fighting disloyal elements in our own government to see that Ukraine gets the support they need.
I mean, what else could he do without risking a wider conflict? As someone else said the best time to nuke Moscow was 1946. It's too late now to do anything but watch them fall apart on their own, and help out from a safe distance when possible. So that is what Biden has been doing.
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Disloyal elements? You mean anyone who disagrees with the President's foreign policy is a traitor?
There are valid arguments both for and against giving aid to Ukraine.
I assume the disloyalty is in believing Russian propaganda from the Internet instead of our own country's extensive intelligence gathering.
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> Does that apply to the people who disagreed about
> attacking Iraq? Were they also disloyal elements?
Well... That was exactly the narrative you people spun back when people were opposing the invasion of Iraq and you lot tried to destroy the careers of the likes of The Dixie Chicks and Bill Maher (Whom you LITERALLY cancelled, and now have the gall to whine about "cancel culture."), you FUCKING hypocrite.
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His real motivation is to try and reconsolidate the USSR-era empire / territories, and restore the "glory" and power that was the USSR
They kind of already had through the back door. On paper, these are independent countries. But in reality, a lot of them are puppet states controlled through local oligarchs.
It was 2013 that the protests started after President Yanukovych ignored the will of the people and did what was best for Russia. After they voted him out of office, Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. This is not a coincidence.
Re:It's a clear sign (Score:5, Informative)
Russia and Ukraine negotiated an agreement and signed it -- in December 1994. Russia guaranteed territorial integrity and to neither use nor threaten military force in exchange for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons. That agreement didn't even last 20 years before Russia decided to annex Crimes through military force.
Re:It's a clear sign (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, here's some basic thinking on the subject. Russia invades Crimea and takes it over, then starts making noise about Ukraine. Now, don't you think that THAT would be an incentive for Ukraine to look for official allies and protection? If it weren't for Trump being in the pocket of Putin(cutting off support unless Ukraine provides dirt on Biden), then Russia might not have invaded in the first place.
Putin has been trying to rebuild the old Soviet era all over again, and this means that those in Europe are sure looking to get help and protection. The only deal that should be acceptable is for Russia to get back out of Ukraine AND Crimea, then put Putin up for public execution for his crimes.
Re:It's a clear sign (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahem. [kremlin.ru]
This NATO thing is a retcon designed for western dupes. Ukraine WAS neutral when Russia invaded it in 2014. 2/3rds of the population as opposed to joining NATO. It took over half a year of Russian invasion before Ukraine officially dropped its neutrality.
When Putin launched his "Special Military Operation" in 2022, he headed it off with a long and winding ahistorical op-ed. Was it titled "On The Danger Of Having Ukraine In NATO?" No, it was titled "On The Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians [wikipedia.org]. THIS was the argument for his invasion he presented to the Russian people. TL/DR: he believes that Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians are really one people, that there is no such thing as "Ukraine" or "Ukrainians", but that the people of Ukraine were corrupted (mainly by the Poles) to forget they're Russians and think they're a separate people, and that they're occupying historically Russian lands, and Russia must intervene to re-russify them before they drift even further into an anti-Russian culture.
Putin's belief - and the reason for his gross miscalculation - stems not just from his ahistorical viewpoints, but from his worldview, where things don't happen without a powerful "guiding hand". That the masses, especially in such as "primitive" country such as Ukraine, just follow whatever overlord is in charge. So all he had to do was purge the "western-influenced russophobes" and "banderites" from the government, and the people could be easily welcomed back into the Russian fold. E.g. that many people would be greeting them as liberators. The problem comes when this meets the reality, which is that a Ukrainian national identity isn't some sort of fiction, but the reality for tens of millions of people. Your list of people who need to be repressed and purged grows ever longer, until your enemy is the entire people of the nation you're invading.
Various Russian and Soviet leaders have had varying degrees of understanding of Ukraine. Putin is sadly on the lower end of the spectrum. Khrushchev
by contrast had a much better understanding of how Ukrainians hadn't just been constantly rebelling through Russian and Soviet history because of "foreign influence", but because they genuinely had a unique identity and viewed Russia as their colonial oppressors. He was much more careful with his messaging. In Khruschev's telling, yes, Ukrainians are their own people, and that's great, we in the Soviet Union are made up of many different peoples - but Ukraine forever and irrevocably bound its destiny to Russia's when it signed the Pereiaslav Agreement with Russia in 1654. Which is why he made such a big deal of 1954 (the year that Crimea was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR) (there were all sorts of other celebrations, even things like producing underwear with "300" written on it) - it was marking 300 years of the treaty, which to him was critical for keeping a message to suppress Ukrainian independence desires. Lenin by contrast had made the "mistake" of reversing Russian repressions against the Ukrainian language and culture, which very rapidly led to Ukrainians seeking greater independence from the USSR, and ultimately to the Executed Renaissance [wikipedia.org].
There was much more to the Crimea transfer than that, of course. Crimea was of course not originally "Russian", but rather Tatar. It had a special autonomous designation as a result. Over the years the Russians
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I'm reminded of the meme of the Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin:
--
Carlson: "What caused the war, and why was it NATO?"
Putin: "In 862 the people of Novgorod invited a Varangian prince..."
Carlson: "And what about NATO? Please just say NATO."
Putin: "Let us recall Yaroslav the Wise, who once had a dream about a Ukrainian witch..."
Re:It's a clear sign (Score:5, Insightful)
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> It was a global risk for NATO to consider Ukraine.
> Russia said it was a red line and they actually meant
> it.
Bullocks.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation, just like Russia or the US or Zimbabwe or Peru. It has every right to decide, on its own and for itself, what relations it wants to have with what other nations and what international organizations, if any, it wishes to join. Neither the EU or NATO conscripts other nations into their ranks without the consent and desire of those nations. And no,
Leave it to Russia (Score:5, Funny)
May you live in interesting times (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they're trying to gin up a panic in the West. No, it doesn't matter that it's just burning tires in a cooling tower: the anti-nooks will play Putin's tune and use this to raise whatever hell they can.
Russia is running out of armor. OSINT shows, at the prevailing loss rate, they have 12-18 months worth of mothballed armor they can feed into this mess. After that they have only the small quantity they can manufacture new, and horses. That's all the patience we need here: a year to 18 month and we'll have ground out the entire legacy of Soviet armor like a cigarette butt.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is chasing white Russians out of their homes, and Russia has no effective way to respond. The Ukrainian fighters that went over the top in Kursk are highly motivated, deeply experienced, flush with weapons and angry. The horde of despondent conscripts that Russia is sending to push them out is getting captured and slaughtered. They'll still be fighting in Kursk in 2025.
Hopefully — as Azov's commander is urging — the bandit republics currently under Putin's foot (Chechnya, Georgia, etc.) will perceive Russia's weakness and take the opportunity and rise up. If that happens then Russia's current regime will fall and this can finally end.
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Alternatively, discipline and morale in the Russian army is so bad that whatever unit stationed there got bored and decided on a tire bonfire after getting even more drunk than they normally are.
Re:May you live in interesting times (Score:5, Informative)
There are a couple steps between making ingots and delivering a modern tank.
That's why most of the armor you see is refurb from stock: 86% of all tanks Russia "produced" in 2023 was actually refurbished. This isn't WW2, where you nail together simple T-34s. A modern tank is complex and even Russia can produce only a limited number per year. If they tripled the pre-invasion T-90 production rate they would make 120 per year. Ukraine kills that many tanks in a month.
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Russia can produce far far more new T-90 tanks per year than only 120. I remember when the USA evacuated the M1 tank maintenance personnel from Iraq in 2018, Russia shipped 70 tanks to Baghdad pretty much instantly. According to various Russian sources, the UVZ factory is producing now between 500-700 new tanks per year, yes some of them with less advanced locally produced components.
Re:May you live in interesting times (Score:4, Funny)
Russia can produce far
If that were true there wouldn't be T-62s assaulting Ukrainian lines.
But there are T-62s and their vacuum tube stabilizers in active combat. That's the delta between reality and the fiction's you've inculcated. A yawning chasm. It's why, right now, you're either in denial about Ukraine on a roflstomp through Kursk or confused as to how it's still going on a week later, sans any effective response at all. Any moment now the "real" Russian military is going to parachute in and show the world. Right?
But facing up to all this cognitive dissonance is impossible. It would kick a leg out of the world view you've received and cling to despite all evidence to the contrary. Putin took his shirt off and pranced around on a horse and, in your head, centuries of Russian hubris were validated. You'll die with that damage in your mind, regardless of what happens.
You have my sympathies.
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Fallacy of asserting the consequent! Of course Russia will use up its old gear even while producing new.
There is no "of course" there. Russia is using up tankers along with its tanks. Either they are fielding incompetents knowing they will die and hoping they score a lucky hit before that, or they are using up the personnel they would want to operate the actually useful tanks, which are actually not that useful at all since they can be killed by a man with a missile launcher, because Russian tanks are defenseless against top-attack ATGMs. Even the T-14 that they can't build because it depends on foreign compo
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a modern tank is expensive and be be destroyed by modern weapons... that is why old tanks are just probably better, they are cheaper, they exist, they are simpler to maintain. The same for the Ukraine side, newer tanks didn't make much difference in the field, to attack a bunker or a trench, you will have to expose the tank to drones, anti-tank missile and arty.
Newer tanks are better for tank vs tank, but that is not happening in most part. That is why light tanks and armor vehicles are still the best optio
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Re: May you live in interesting times (Score:2)
They aren't waiting, they're speeding things along. Remember how Russia bogged down due to failed tires? Guess where they bought those tires? Putin is such an amazing dumb fuck.
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Nicely said and this illustrates the point of this conflict is for the west to wear down the old Soviet state via a proxy.
There is no point in this war other than yet another petty tyrant waging yet another war of conquest in order to increase the might and size of his second tier "empire". In this war of aggression started by Putler to the disapproval of the west not a day goes by "the west" wants nothing more than for Putler to take his Orcs back to his own shithole of a country and resume their alcoholism in peace because war is bad for business.
The cause of the war 10 years ago was Putler losing control over his puppet in
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Why did USA State Dept have Nuland in Ukraine in 2014 hand-picking the government?
The USA didn't hand pick the government. An interim acting president Turchynov was selected to replace Yanukovych by the Ukranian parliament for about three months until Poroshenko won the popular vote and was elected president.
If Ukraine had elections today the actor president would likely be replaced.
Personally I think Ukraine is correct in not holding elections during martial law. Setting aside any logistical concerns under martial law you are necessarily giving up a metric ton of power to the state and in doing so there is increased danger of power being wielded to undermine
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Does anyone see the problem here?
Evidently those who moderated you down to -1 see the problem your post poses - and other informed and reasonable posts. Even given the well-known human proclivity for doublethink - which is NOT limited to "Orwellian" dystopian novels - it's astonishing that a site like Slashdot, with its goals and intended readership, reliably produces such an avalanche of unthinking, ignorant, wilfully blind, obscurantist, xenophobic, racist nonsense whenever Russia is mentioned. Or China. Or Iran. Or Syria or Libya or Ven
Re: May you live in interesting times (Score:2)
What's the point? For every tank they build, there will be two or three Javelins waiting to cook it.
It's a payop (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah Ukraine isn't going to hold any territory but you can bet your ass that there are now quite a few Ukrainian special ops floating around Russia now. I would expect a lot of accidents at oil refineries and power stations in the coming months.
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I would expect a lot of accidents at oil refineries
Ukraine is already hitting oil refineries. One of their allies is whining at them in case it makes the price of oil go up.
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That's not possible. The price of oil is solely controlled by whomever is elected president of the US.
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Yeah Ukraine isn't going to hold any territory but you can bet your ass that there are now quite a few Ukrainian special ops floating around Russia now. I would expect a lot of accidents at oil refineries and power stations in the coming months.
I wouldn't make that assumption. Ukraine is simply doing the same thing I've been suggesting they do for months, invade and hold some Russian territory. I assumed Western allies would nix the idea, but it sounds they finally gave the green light.
It's a good idea for a bunch of reasons:
1) Russia has been acting like it's allowed to invade across any part of the shared border (even Belarus's border) but Ukraine can't do the same, that means Ukraine needs to defend the entire border but Russia doesn't. Now, Ru
Endangering safety (Score:2)
"Moscow and Kyiv have routinely accused each other of endangering safety around it."
Russia accusing Ukraine of endangering safety is pretty rich. Seems to me it might be safer to *not* invade a nuclear facility.
It is the largest nuclear plant in Europe and (Score:2)
The nuclear plant is on the line of contact of two opposing forces where there is significant usage of heavy weapons.
So far we have been lucky. But just how long can this beginner's luck hold?
Changing the subject (Score:2)
This is just a stunt to distract attention away from Ukraine bringing Putler's war to Russia.
Little scary scary tactics (Score:3)
So a bunch of cavemen have taken over a nuke plant (Score:2)
So many idiots here (Score:2)
Nuclear power plants do NOT have hires in their cooling towers, ESP. BLACK ONES. Only idiots bought off on this.
They burned a bunch of tires in the cooling towers to play to the anti-nuclear idiots that run around in the west, so that do not pay attention to things like Ukraine taking a chunk of Russia.
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No plastic fill in a hyperbolic cooling tower.
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That is a traditional cooling tower like what would be used for an office building.
A Hyperbolic Cooling Tower generally uses ceramic fill, but things like cellular clay tile are also used.
Kursk (Score:2)
Not entirely joking, but with the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk they are approaching the nuclear plant in that region, if occupied, there can be a nuclear plants exchange to free Zaporizhzhia.
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It's pretty clear that the aim of the incursion is to create a strategic dilemma for Russia and in doing so, establish negotiating leverage. Fingers crossed it can work, and that attrition of Russian armour is truly a thing now.
Smoke (Score:2)
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They are burning tires or other garbage in a cooling tower, from what I have gathered. They are pretty far from the main containment facility, especially the reactors, which I believe are in shutdown now. If so, the cooling towers aren't being used if the plant is in a standby state.
There's not much inside a cooling tower to damage or catch fire. If you've ever seen pictures inside one, or seen the movie Brazil, it's just a network of radial steam pipes that make up a "floor", with holes in them to let t
I guess... (Score:2)
...the Russian nuclear plant occupied by Ukraine will begin to burn soon.
Pointless Discussion (Score:2)
There are international atomic energy agency inspectors on site. Y'all know that, right?
What did they say? That's all that matters.
In the past they have complained loudly about Elensky shelling the plant and blaming Russia for attacking the facility they control.
What did the inspectors say this time? Competing propaganda doesn't help and parroting propaganda isn't news.
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You know instead of just pondering loudly you can just go see what they publish:
https://www.iaea.org/newscente... [iaea.org]
Putin Is a Fan of The Acolyte (Score:2)
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West Germany was "denazified" only with the US pouring a massive quantity of money into rebuilding it, and even then many researchers still claim that true denazification really happened only with the change of generations as the German baby-boomers took a sharp anti-fascist stand against their parents beliefs. Russia, on the other hand, was left to fend off for itself in the 1990s as it went through a disastrously implemented privatization shock therapy and a default.
And, I don't know how Russia was the so
Re: Russia delenda est (Score:2)
There was no attempt to annex Libya and Iraq. Putin has tried to annex parts of Ukraine he doesnâ(TM)t even control. Talk about 19th century empire building.
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how many islands in the pacific were annexed to the USA, after WW2?
go more back and look to texas, how that was transferred from Mexico to USA and how the USA army helped
Again, USA and Russia aren't any different, both did and still do bad things, while both claiming they are good!
Re: Russia delenda est (Score:4, Informative)
Ukraine was actually independent throughout the majority of the 19th century. Russia took it over in the early 20th century and held on for 70 years or so, then collapsed and Ukraine was independent again.
Russia, on the other hand, has been around since the 7th century and didn't claim Ukraine for the vast majority of that time.
The question an informed person would ask is "why do you refer to Ukraine as an integral part of Russia?"
Independent Ukraine is a 20th century construuct (Score:2)
That just plain isn't true - Ukraine didn't exist as an independent sovereign state in the 19th century. Present-day Ukraine was split between the Austrian, Hungarian and Russian empires.
During the chaos of the First World War and the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Ukrainian People's Republic declared its independence in 1918. It was briefly recognised by the Russian Republic and the Central Powers, but by 1921 it no longer existed even as a government in exile. Ukrainian independence didn't even la
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The Ukrainian FSR was not part of the Russian FSR, though, so it wasn't legally part of Russia during the existence of the USSR. In fact, a curious historical tidbit is that the Ukrainian and Belarussian FSRs were founding member states of the UN, alongside the USSR – something negotiated by Stalin to partially balance Soviet interests against the greater number of Western Allies.
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They were both member republics. This would be like Texas seceding from the US and then annexing Oklahoma.
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Even when it was happening it was obvious that Putin wasn't leaving power. He had completed his allowed number of terms in office before he had to leave it. So he installed a hand picked successor as his puppet and then took back the position when he decided it was time. The plan was clear enough from the start that we were reading about it in the news the day that the puppet was installed.
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> Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Pragmatic, not evil. The cost in Allied lives to win in the Pacific theatre was calculated to be enormous. The nukes were a net win in WWII and arguably the Cold War that followed could have been an even worse conventional WWII without them and the concept of MAD.
And we got a horrible, horrible lesson in just how bad we can be and (most of us) learned why we should avoid it.
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The US could have negotiated an end to the war with Japan.
Alt history isn't facts. This is often stated as a fact, but it's speculation that there could have been a negotiated surrender on acceptable terms, and certainly that it could have happened before the USSR arrived.
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After Japan started the war, the USA was hell bent on an unconditional surrender. Japan did not find those terms acceptable until after the nukes. It's not like Tokyo was waving the white flag and USA dropped the nukes anyway.
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After Japan started the war, the USA was hell bent on an unconditional surrender. Japan did not find those terms acceptable until after the nukes. It's not like Tokyo was waving the white flag and USA dropped the nukes anyway.
No, but its also not the case that the only alternative was to invade Japan. Japan was prepared to negotiate a surrender, the US was not. So by your logic Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bombed because the US was hell bent on unconditional surrender. Whether we were willing to lose a million soldiers in an invasion rather than accept any conditions is another question. My guess is that we would have figured out a way to negotiate instead, especially once the Soviet Union jumped in against Japan.
Re:Russia delenda est (Score:4, Insightful)
> Japan was prepared to negotiate a surrender
And nobody was prepared to leave Japan in a state where they could start again in a generation, any more than anybody was ready to tolerate Germany going to war in Europe a third time.
After two world wars, people were not going to tolerate anything less than breaking the enemy badly enough they couldn't start anything again for the foreseeable future.
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You fail to understand how Japanese mind/culture work.
Unlike in the USA, where the individual is key and "individual freedom" is of high importance, in japan, even more at that time, a individual was just a tool, everyone was ready to do what is necessary for their country and emperor (that is viewed as one God and have no effective power), dying was just one of the options. End of life is not the end and having the honor of doing brave things to save others is more important. Even now, when a employee do s
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Actually the army was not determined to fight to the end after the bombs were dropped. That is why the attempt to seize the Emperor and prevent him from declaring unconditional surrender failed. The bulk of the army leadership refused to support it.
In fact, the military government had been pursuing a negotiated end to the war. The problem was that the United States would not accept any conditions, including allowing them to keep the Emperor. McArthur made that decision after the surrender. We were not prep
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America bad, Soviets good! Israel bad, Hamas good! White males bad, tribalism good! Merit bad, checkboxes good!
Do you really have to oversimplify things that much to be able to understand it? Teaching nuance is actually useful. For example, Israel and Hamas are both bad (toward each other at least). The citizens of Israel overall and Gaza/Palestine are mostly good and mostly actually got along just fine before war broke out.
Primary school makes the mistake of simplifying too much and using black/white thinking. So then it looks "bad" when you get a more complete picture in a University setting. No one party is
Re:Russia delenda est (Score:5, Insightful)
What about them? Nothing outrageous by the standards of that war — bombing enemy cities was totally "a thing" — and far more Japanese died from ordinary bombing raids, than from the two everybody knows about.
Nothing happened to the indigenous Americans, that hasn't happened to Crimean Tatars [wikipedia.org], Chechens and Ingush [wikipedia.org], or Ukrainians [ukraine.ua] — on a much larger scale [wikipedia.org] and at a much more cynical level.
Yes, I can — and I do. If you can bring up Hiroshima, I can bring up Stalin's atrocities against millions of people, both foreigners and his own citizens.
Moreover, I can count the Tsarist Russia before Soviet Union, since you brought up indigenous Americans.
Re: Russia delenda est (Score:2)
Never heard of the German word Koventrieren, eh? It comes from German attempts to reduce Coventry to rubble. That was what started Britain attacking civilian areas.
Re: Russia delenda est (Score:2)
Germany bombed Guernica two years before the Second World War even started.
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Stalin, a Georgian, [...]. What does that have to do with Russia?
This argument is ridiculous. I can reply "WW2 was started by an Austrian painter. What does this have to do with Germany?"
It does not matter where people were born or what their ethnic origin is, what matters is they act in the name of a country. Stalin was an accepted leader of Russia (as part of the Soviet Union). Still today he has statues in public places of Russia and respected there as a leader of Russia.
Modern examples include:
* Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California 2003-2011, and an Austria
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And before the war, Germany had annexed Austria. So at the time, what we would call Germany (Germany isn't Germany's own name) included where he was from.
And Russia has been used as a shorthand name for Soviet Union. Georgia was also a member republic.
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Add Laos to the list, remember that Laos was not at war with the USA and still is the most bombed country in the world
"The United States eventually dropped the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years" - https://www.history.com/news/l... [history.com]
that is not being good, it quite the opposite!
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The Tartars were expelled from Crimea by Stalin, a Georgian, during World War II because he considered them politically unreliable. What does that have to do with Russia?
Present day oppression of Tartars is well known.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/lat... [amnesty.org]
Which cities did the Soviets bomb the civilian neighborhoods where there were no soldiers? Which cities were fire bombed by Germany killing a hundred thousand civilians? Which cities in China did Japan fire bomb and kill a hundred thousand civilians? It was totally "a thing" for us, but no one else did it or even had the capacity to do it.
There is a whole Wikipedia article that conveniently addresses these questions.
"During the German invasion of Poland, the Luftwaffe engaged in massive air raids against Polish cities, bombing civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and targeting fleeing refugees."
"Notably, the Luftwaffe bombed the Polish capital of Warsaw, and the small towns WieluÅ and Frampol. The bombing of WieluÅ, one of the first military acts
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That's right, you're being an actual apologist for the fucking Nazis. Which shows who you are to the world.
It seems that you believe this is a clinching argument. Whereas he cited specific facts which you do not even try to controvert. Instead you try to muddy the water by emoting about "the fucking Nazis".
Do you have the slightest idea how many people in the world today feel that way about "the fucking Americans"? I'll give you a clue: it's in the hundreds of millions at least. And for good cause.
I ask you again, "Which cities were fire bombed by Germany killing a hundred thousand civilians?"
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Is that question a joke? I don't know if the Germans/Nazi's used firebombing as a specific tactic, and I'm too lazy to look it up. But I can tell you that they razed most of Europe, which displaced and killed millions of people. Then even worse, they systematically rounded up Millions of other people that they didn't like for one reason or another and deliberately worked them to death, experimented on them, and or executed them wholesale. Ultimately murdering more than 11 Million, if memory serves. There is
Re:Russia delenda est (Score:4, Insightful)
The situation is a bit more complicated. The US government has done a lot of nasty stuff, but overall, we haven't seen the USA going around annexing territory and fully claiming it for a long time now. No invasions of Mexico to claim large parts of the country in the name of "taking it over because of the cartels" or other false claims to justify just taking over another country over the past 60 years.
That's the difference here, no matter what crap the US government may have been involved in, the old days of just invading to gain territory are long gone. Russia and China are still actively trying to expand their borders, not just influence.
Notice that I'm not going around trying to justify horrible actions by anyone by pointing to horrible actions by others. That is the flaw that you see happening with so many people about Israel as well. Yep, Netanyahu needs to go, and those illegal settlements in the West Bank should have been removed a long time ago, so attacks against those settlements could be seen as justified(especially when many of those settlers are just horrible and they attack without justification), but the attack on Oct 7th also crosses a big line that called for retaliation. So, it's a mess, but people need to get beyond the, "one side is bad, the other good", right up until you see clear abuses of power. And right now, the Russian government is fully in the wrong with what it has been doing with Crimea and Ukraine. There's ZERO justification for their crap.
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people need to get beyond the, "one side is bad, the other good", right up until you see clear abuses of power. And right now, the Russian government is fully in the wrong with what it has been doing with Crimea and Ukraine. There's ZERO justification for their crap.
Actually I agree with your first sentiment which you immediately contradict in your second. There is plenty of justification for Russia's crap if you just look for it.
You can start with the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine in 2014 by Ukrainian nationalists who opposed Russian influence in the country where ethnic Russians made up the largest minority. That governments overt attacks on that ethnic minority including banning the use of the Russian language in schools even in place
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Russia isn't the USSR, but has an old-school Soviet running things(Putin). So, not exactly the same.
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That's a disingenuous argument. The USA wasn't created until 1776, by which time most of the indigenous peoples had been wiped out by disease. In fact the first successful Colony that would become part of the USA eventually wasn't even founded until well after most of that death had happened. That death was primarily from European diseases, to which the local populations had no resistance or immunity, and frankly the Europeans didn't know how to stop that from happening and there has never been any evidence
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Yes, indeed. How many times did Ukraine bomb anything on the territory of the former RSFSR before 2014? Or even before 2022/02/24?
Re:Putin bad, Ukraine good! (Score:5, Interesting)
There is nothing flammable in a cooling tower. Unless you put it there.
Car tyres would be a good match for the dark billowing smoke.
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Sure, the Ukrainians want to nuke Ukraine! (Score:2)
I don't think you should propagate AC sock puppets' vacuous Subjects, which are generally intended to stifle discussion. Even when you are trying to make a valid point.
Not that I'm planning to spend much time with the comments on this story. Obvious troll magnet. Putin hires 'em by the bushel.
The obvious point is that the Ukrainians do not want nuclear contamination of their country, while Putin sees it as just another day, another threat. Putin is also extra annoyed this week, even though he still expects
Re:Putin bad, Ukraine good! (Score:5, Informative)
What makes you think that there are "plastic water filters" in a cooling tower, let alone such a profuse volume of them as to be able to make a huge column of billowing black smoke?
I have a friend who is a nuclear safety engineer. He's even visited nuclear plants in Ukraine (not sure if he's been to that specific one). He's verified: there is nothing flammable in the cooling tower.
A cooling tower is pretty much the opposite of flammable.
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I hate English ;)
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Okay, so they dumped plastic waste there (aka trash) and burned that. What exactly do you think is the difference?
I'll repeat: there is no huge mass of flammable material in a cooling tower unless you put it there.
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Oh hey, I just bothered to look up the IAEA report. You - ahem - left something out:
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Exactly what do you think you're contradicting by posting the statement that "the team was not permitted to access these two locations"?
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Funny how video evidence [slashdot.org] completely contradicts your lies.
Most probably it was the result of shelling the plant by Ukraine which they do on a regular basis.?
Yeah, bullshit, Vadim. Why would Ukraine want to damage their own nuclear plant? Unless of course you Russians have military equipment stationed there [cnn.com] since you're occupying the place.