Let’s see where this goes.. I agree it will further harden and quicken support for Ukraine.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
And, speaking of culprits, WaPo just pub'd an article (based on the Texeira Discord trove they're milking for exclusives, with, imho, blatant disregard for diplomatic impact or national security, whatever, can't even trust most journalists to punctuate sentences correctly, much less fact-check or follow the law ...) saying an unnamed European country had intel that the Ukrainian military was planning an attack on NordStream 1 & 2.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ord-stream-pipeline-explosion-ukraine-russia/
tl;dr:
- WH admits no evidence it was Russia
- Appears to be a military op that Zelensky was unaware of
- Most of the intel seems to be about plans for an attack in June, some differences with what seems to have happened in Sept
- Traces of explosives found in the boat Andromeda (rented by Ukrainians) match traces found on the pipeline
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ord-stream-pipeline-explosion-ukraine-russia/
tl;dr:
- WH admits no evidence it was Russia
- Appears to be a military op that Zelensky was unaware of
- Most of the intel seems to be about plans for an attack in June, some differences with what seems to have happened in Sept
- Traces of explosives found in the boat Andromeda (rented by Ukrainians) match traces found on the pipeline
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
But wasn't it reported recently there a country that reported there was a Russian ship that had a sub capable of underwater activities in that area some days before the explosion?
Found the report:
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/B5A4RTBDRNOHXIJSSTN7CUPNKU.jpg)
Russian navy vessels seen near Nord Stream before blasts - Nordic broadcasters report
Three Russian navy ships were observed in the Baltic Sea in the area of the Nord Stream pipeline blasts prior to the sabotage that halted Russian gas flows to Europe in September last year, an investigation by four Nordic broadcasters has found.
www.reuters.com
They even had photographs of the ship during that time, so it's not just based on some plans that may or may not have been carried out.
The earlier WaPo report about Andromeda noted the traces were found months after the incident (so there is a possibly it was planted later and that boat was a distraction) and the investigators found it even if that boat was involved somehow it was unlikely the only vehicle (basically a submersible would also be needed).
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BitJam
Active Member
You may well be right. The evidence that Ukraine has been stockpiling in that area is scant but I found it intriguing and posted about it back in April:
Ukraine was using artillery and anti-drone resources to prevent Russia from seeing what was going there while they were short on these resources in the hotly contested battle over Bakhmut. I figured Ukraine might have something they wanted to hide on the banks of the Dnieper.
Maybe it was a bluff or a one-off or or any of a dozen other things. It seemed possible Ukraine was slowly stockpiling a lot of equipment and supplies there. You can't carry much across the river surreptitiously at night but over a month or two it will mount up. If Russia knew stockpiling was going on or at least knew they were blinded in that area then flooding the river would be an effective way to neutralize the threat.
Yes, the possibility of Russia blowing the dam would loom over Ukraine's efforts to establish a bridgehead across the Dnieper. Yet people are now scratching their heads wondering why Russia did it. Some have suggested the dam was blown up by accident. I'm intrigued when one hypothesis, Ukraine was secretly stockpiling across the Dnieper, explains two things: Ukraine using scarce resources to blind Russia in that area a month or two before the counter-offensive, and Russia blowing up the dam even though it cuts the water supply to Putin's precious Crimea.
I know these Russian words and Cyrillic spellings can be super confusing, but I think we can get this one word right if we try.
Dam - A large structure that holds back water or other fluids. "The Hoover Dam generates a lot of electricity!"
Damn - Be condemned by god to eternal damnation. More commonly a swear word for emphasis. "That damn cat!".
In this case, it's ok to combine them. "Those damned Russians blew up the Dam!"
Hopefully this will clear up some confusion.
Dam - A large structure that holds back water or other fluids. "The Hoover Dam generates a lot of electricity!"
Damn - Be condemned by god to eternal damnation. More commonly a swear word for emphasis. "That damn cat!".
In this case, it's ok to combine them. "Those damned Russians blew up the Dam!"
Hopefully this will clear up some confusion.
Agree the article I linked to wasn’t very definitive - and what you posted was written by 2 of the authors from the link I posted.
Also - "Damn the torpedoes!" does NOT mean torpedo the dam!
@BitJam it is going to be very interesting to read about this in 2 years and find out what really happened.
From the initial news releases the Russians were talking about a small leak at the dam. They may have planned to drain the reservoir slowly by blaming Ukraine for an attack on the dam that created a small but unstoppable release of water, but when the flow started, the entire dam collapsed.
The Russians tend to prepare news releases ahead of time for whatever they plan to do. So the initial news releases usually give you some idea what they had planned the situation would look like.
There was someone back in the 90s who I used to listen to on the radio whose catch phrase was "haven an open, but not gaping mind". Sound advice IMO.
I don't think you are being fair to Mearsheimer. Often I don't agree with him myself either, but we should at least try to understand his viewpoint. He likes to think he is a proponent of the realist policy school, i.e. we should understand how the world is now (rather than how we would hope it is now) and then try to develop the best possible practicable course of action (rather than promoting fantasies that cannot actually be achieved). He considers fantasy policies to be more damaging than realist policies.
I personally think we have to find a pragmatic policy middle ground between nihlistic realpolitik and hopeful striving for a better future without going into la la land fantasy. If we always circle back to realism then we never achieve substantive human progress in global policy/politcs/strategy terms. And we have achieved progress.
Bluntly in the current conflict he [Mearsheimer] is saying "the West always gets bored and ultimately wanders off and gives in; this will happen again; so best we give in before it starts and get Ukraine to give in before it starts or else Ukraine will get hurt more than it has to be". Whereas in this instance the West has - since 2014 - organised not to give in and prepared both itself and Ukraine to not give in; and the Ukrainian people have found their collective mojo and for sure aren't giving in. So on this occasion Mearsheimer is wrong in my opinion (though he would describe me as a delusional liberal). That doesn't mean that his viewpoint is always wrong and should always be rejected without due consideration and understanding and forensic examination.
(Sacks is just being a parrot, but I won't analyse his position further)
I'm in agreement with you here. In most cases the middle ground is usually the healthiest place to be for approach to a problem.
Westerners can get bored with something going on in the world and move on. The people of a lot of western countries are on to other things. But the governments of these countries are not moving on and I didn't expect them to do so.
Back when NATO stepped into the conflict in the former Yugoslavia I realized that most of Europe has pretty much a zero tolerance for a war on European soil. The scars of WW II run deep and the war is still in living memory. Putin is the way he is in part because he was born and grew up in the USSR shortly after the war.
One thing that is pretty much a certainty, when talking about large groups of people, you will never get 0% or 100% of people who will agree to anything, nor will opinions go fully one way or the other. And people will never do exactly the same thing every time. Each situation is unique in some way and some nuance with a given situation may produce a completely different outcome than the last time.
Westerners might tune out a war in Syria or Libya because it's not in Europe. But a big war breaks out in Europe and people will focus on the war with much more energy. It could be called racism, but it's also closer to home. Refugees from the crisis in Syria and Libya are making their way to Europe, but the conflicts themselves have no chance of crossing the water onto European soil. There is little terrain that would stop a well equipped army from rolling from Ukraine into eastern Europe.
There are other factors that would prevent the Russian army from doing so. NATO's article 5 is one, but the Russian army does not have the capability to operate more than about 90 miles from the end of their rail lines. As the gauge changes entering Europe, Russia would have to do something like the Germans did to change the gauge of the railcars at the junction, which would slow down everything. NATO airpower would also be able to keep Russian rail lines shut down.
Logistically a Russian invasion of NATO territory is pretty much impossible and it was when this war started. However Psychologically the war is closer to home for Europeans than other conflicts around the world and that has a tendency to focus people on the war.
Additionally Russia may not be able to physically invade Europe, but they could still cause damage lobbing missiles into NATO Europe if they wanted to do the dumbest strategic move possible. Those missiles would cause damage.
The flow of the jet stream is from west to east. Radiation plumes from a ZNPP disaster would predominantly flow that direction, though some would go in other directions, especially low altitude fallout which is driven by low altitude winds which can blow any direction.
The plume would cross over all of southern Asia dropping radioactive particles in India and China. I think that both India and China have told Russia that anything that drops radioactivity on their territory is a bright line Russia can't cross with impunity. I know Xi Jingping has had a word with Putin about any kind of nuclear option on the part of Russia.
It seems the Russians blunted more of an agricultural harvesting operation than a Ukrainian military counteroffensive.
www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org
'Leopard 2' Tank Seen Destroyed In Russian Media Video Was Actually A Farm Harvester
This wasn't the first time that Russia had claimed to have destroyed a Leopard 2, but it is arguably among the least convincing.
www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org
Here's a map of the fallout from the Chernobyl meltdown:
Chernobyl disaster mapped - Vivid Maps
The Chernobyl catastrophe took place on 26 April 1986 at the Nuclear Power Plant, near the town of Pripyat in the USSR. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history. The accident response and decontamination cost about 18 billion rubles or approximately US$68 billion in 2019 (corrected...
vividmaps.com
All day today we have had very serious smoke pollution, serious enough to the point they have advised people to stay indoors. I'm in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The wild fires creating the smoke are in Canada, about 900km North of us. We may get some relief tomorrow when the weather pattern changes and the smoke actually goes south of us.Here's a map of the fallout from the Chernobyl meltdown:
Chernobyl disaster mapped - Vivid Maps
The Chernobyl catastrophe took place on 26 April 1986 at the Nuclear Power Plant, near the town of Pripyat in the USSR. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history. The accident response and decontamination cost about 18 billion rubles or approximately US$68 billion in 2019 (corrected...
So this has gone full circle. First it was Russia, then it was US, now it's Ukraine. Who's next? The team behind this psy-op is clearly very good.
Sometimes I wonder if it's an AI rather than Russia/China/CIA. Like Tegmark in his Omega chapter but less benign:
EDIT:
Adding this one, not because I agree with it but because Elon commented on it:
(Tucker comments on who blew up Nordstream and the media)
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I'd expect a weapon explosion would get higher up in the atmosphere.
Fukoshima went pretty high. The jet stream carried radioactive particles to the west coast of the US. There was a measurable increase in background radiation throughout the Northwest. It wasn't immediately dangerous, but cancer rates in this region will probably be a tick higher in the coming years.
I’m sure Russia would far prefer plausible deniability here.
Much like they are denying they destroyed the dam, they will want something other than just blowing up the plant which they can blame on Ukraine.
Russians seem to have a serious cultural conflict, they don't understand how others view Russia or deeds of Russia. So much so that they keep helping Ukraine via gross horrors (Terrorizing civilians by hitting hospitals, kindergartens, mass murdres, etc). So I can absolutely see russia blundering into a catastrophe with ZNPP. They f everything else up so why not that too.
Re nordstream..the only one that benefited was russia. Follow the money. Can't believe anyone even debates this.
Re nordstream..the only one that benefited was russia. Follow the money. Can't believe anyone even debates this.
navguy12
Active Member
Been too smoky here to do my normal morning PT…and the actual smell of smoke is heavy.
Just to bring those back to reality who are saying Russia has been wreckless with the ZNPP:
All of the media headlines insisting Russia was striking the facility took place...while Russia had control of the facility. Russia staged troops and arms there because how stupid do you have to be to attack targets at a nuclear power plant? Well, apparently you just have to be a Ukrainian.
Stop pushing bull SUGAR narratives.
All of the media headlines insisting Russia was striking the facility took place...while Russia had control of the facility. Russia staged troops and arms there because how stupid do you have to be to attack targets at a nuclear power plant? Well, apparently you just have to be a Ukrainian.
Stop pushing bull SUGAR narratives.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
The HEPA equipped Teslas have a real advantage here
