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The Ukraine War: Casus Belgorod


Kalbear
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Zelensky says Russia is planning a terrorist act at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (Wapo, limited clicks)

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Thursday that Russian forces were preparing a “terrorist act” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest atomic power station, as officials in Moscow said the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Rafael Grossi, would travel to Russia to meet with nuclear authorities on Friday.

Ukrainian “intelligence has received information that Russia is considering the scenario of a terrorist act at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — a terrorist act with the release of radiation,” Zelensky said in a video address released on social media Thursday morning. “They have prepared everything for this.”

Zelensky did not provide further details but said Ukraine would share “all the evidence” with Kyiv’s international partners — “all of them.” He also warned that “radiation knows no borders” and “who it hits” will depend on the “direction of the wind.”

 

We all feared this would happen, and those fears were heightened after the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric plant earlier this month.  Clearly Russia is prepared to commit war crimes on a huge scale if it sees a political/military benefit.  I can only hope that somehow Russia can be talked down from this, or Ukraine can capture the plant quickly, or that the people ordered to do this will simply not carry it out. 

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33 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Zelensky says Russia is planning a terrorist act at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (Wapo, limited clicks)

We all feared this would happen, and those fears were heightened after the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric plant earlier this month.  Clearly Russia is prepared to commit war crimes on a huge scale if it sees a political/military benefit.  I can only hope that somehow Russia can be talked down from this, or Ukraine can capture the plant quickly, or that the people ordered to do this will simply not carry it out. 

Radioation due to Chernobyl on Scottish sheep farms only dropped to below safe levels in 2010. Can’t imagine those countries neighbouring Russia and Ukraine will be thrilled at this. Nor parts of Russian to the east of Ukraine when the wind blows east.

I think this could lead to direct action from the west ie not just western aircraft but western pilots in them.

Poland wiloikd definitely lose its shit

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2 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Prighozin giving an honest assessment or just trying to make Shoigu etc look bad?

As far as I can tell Wagner is not involved in any of the defensive fighting, so you can bet it's meant as a snipe at Shoigu.

That the official Russian assessment of Ukrainian losses involve a laughable ton of wishful thinking is pretty much a given as well however.

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I wouldn't put much stock in anything Prigozhin or Girkin or any of these war criminals say. 

We have ample evidence that Russia is suffering a high losses this month.  The Russians insist that the Ukrainians are suffering even more, which is harder to verify (Ukraine is fairly tight lipped about this).  But the fact that Russia is still releasing photos of the same destroyed Bradleys from the first couple days (but from different angles!) indicates that Ukrainian losses are fairly light.

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Problem with self-serving liars in all camps on the Russian side. 

There has to be a scenario in which all of them are lying, while they contradict each other. Logically one of them has to tell the truth, but it just seems so improbable.

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Just now, A Horse Named Stranger said:

There has to be a scenario in which all of them are lying, while they contradict each other. Logically one of them has to tell the truth, but it just seems so improbable.

Five people can have five stories and all of them be lies.  It is likely that at times some of them are speaking in partial truths, but trying to sift out what is what is not worthwhile IMO. 

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On 6/22/2023 at 12:22 PM, Maithanet said:

I'm sure that the Ukrainians are taking casualties, but one thing we do know is that most of the new brigades formed with western equipment have not been deployed yet.  Many are still training.  So the culmination point for Ukraine is probably still a long ways off.

They don't want that to be too long. Ukraine really needs to make substantial gains this year to minimise the chance this war end up a protracted several years affair.

12 hours ago, Maithanet said:

We all feared this would happen, and those fears were heightened after the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric plant earlier this month.  Clearly Russia is prepared to commit war crimes on a huge scale if it sees a political/military benefit.  I can only hope that somehow Russia can be talked down from this, or Ukraine can capture the plant quickly, or that the people ordered to do this will simply not carry it out. 

A cynical view is also that it's been a while since there has been a substantial nuclear power station incident to keep people opposed to expanding nuclear power as part of weaning off fossil fuels. So, Russia has two motivations for blowing up this plant.

Edited by The Anti-Targ
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Chaos reigns.  Nobody knows what is going on.  Reports that the Russian military is bombing up lpr and dpr positions, as well as Wagner.  

Is prigozhin attempting a coup?  He couldn't possibly have the strength (or ammo) to win a protracted battle with the Russian military.  

Edited by Maithanet
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5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Chaos reigns.  Nobody knows what is going on.  Reports that the Russian military is bombing up lpr and dpr positions, as well as Wagner.  

Is prigozhin attempting a coup?  He couldn't possibly have the strength (or ammo) to win a protracted battle with the Russian military.  

An actual Russian Civil War would absolutely be good news for Ukraine.

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I was actually going to remark earlier, before this report, that it seems Putin had a cunning plan after all, which was to have the Russian civil war in someone else's country. Seems to be working.

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Well, that's all fun.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's 79th Brigade has apparently repulsed a Russian assault on their positions near Marinka and apparently followed up by capturing the Russian positions from which the attack was launched. These positions are on the other side of the 2014-22 line of contact in Donbas, meaning that Ukraine has simply waltzed over Russian positions that have been heavily fortified since 2014, and are in the city limits of Donetsk City itself. Which is quite amusing. In that sector, the Russians are now worse off than they were on February 22nd last year. Unclear if Ukraine can hold, their forces might be better advised to return to the launching point. Mind you, if the Russian position in the region is as tenuous as Priogzhin suggests (remember: he is full of shit), who knows.

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If Wagner has circa 50k men and they rush to Moscow, could the Russian army hold them back save by stripping troops from the defensive lines?

Given Prighozin’s conplaints about lack of supplies, can he even get his men to Moscow?

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