How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[ZiprHead]

Word has it that a nuclear power plant was the scene of shelling and it's on fire. Not sure if that's a serious problem or not.

Russia attacks Ukraine nuclear plant as invasion advances

Russian forces have shelled Europe’s largest nuclear plant, sparking a fire. The blaze was reported early Friday as the Russians pressed their attack on a crucial energy-producing Ukrainian city and gained ground in bid to cut off the country from the sea

apnews.com

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces pressed their attack on a crucial energy-producing city by shelling Europe’s largest nuclear plant early Friday, sparking a fire and raising fears that radiation could leak from the damaged power station.

Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that shells were falling directly on the Zaporizhzhia plant in the city of Enerhodar and had set fire to one of the facility’s six reactors. That reactor is under renovation and not operating, but there is nuclear fuel inside, he said.

A government official told The Associated Press that elevated levels of radiation were detected near the plant, which provides about 25% of Ukraine’s power generation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly released.

Tuz said firefighters cannot get near the flames because they are being shot at. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted a plea to the Russians to stop the assault and allow fire teams inside.

 

[Toni]

I am in the road and am just not going to watch the videos. Could someone explain to me like I’m 10 years old exactly what Russia’s legitimate security concerns are ( with respect to Ukraine)?

To make a long story short Putin painted through Russian state controlled media Ukraone as a immediate threat to Russia.

He invoked Nazis in Ukraine and Ukraine pursuing nukes.

Despite Russia being a signatory to a treaty that guarantees Ukrainian sovereignty Putin claims Ukraine does not exist as a state. It s a territory historically Russian.

He is a dictator who seeks a return to an imagined glory of the Soviet Union.

Thanks and also @Elixir. I thought I was missing something. But it seems I had it right: Putin wants to restore his version of a great Russian empire and Ukraine’s successes make Russia look bad/make Russians envious…

 

[barbos]

No, I did not. Look, bad people sometimes do good things. Some times bad people do good things for bad reasons. What counts is the result.

Are you insane?
What is good about murdering 300,000 poles plus countless jews?
Just going to villages and murdering them.
And now they are naming streets after these people.
And get this, during WW2 there was a commander of Ukrainian Front named Vatutiun. He was murdered by ukrainian nazis in 1944 in an ambush.
After the war, street was named after him in Kiev. Then modern time, do you know what they did? they renamed his street after the guy who ordered his murder, the same guy guy slaughtered 300K poles, prior to that. Great? But that's not all, still modern time, one of these ukrainian assholes ambassador to some country I think, makes an "argument" that it was actually ukrainians (alone) who fought Hitler and freed Europe. His logic? Well, it was called "Ukrainian Front" not "Russian Front".
All that while renaming streets after nazis.
What can you do with these people?

In case you did not know, "front" naming was based on geography not on ethnic distribution in these fronts.

Problem with russians is that we keep it to ourselves and not making big deal out of it, under-reacting, laughing it off. That just encourages that scam. And eventually we get what we got. If Russia had immediately sent all "ukrainian" critters packing and imposed 100% sanctions after merely first street renaming, then we would have had a different situation now.

 

[SLD]

So Putin says everything is going to the plan today. What a fucking idiot. That means all of these hits on apartment buildings were part of the plan.

Did you read what I just said and posted earlier?
Damage done by russian forces is probably 20%. The rest is fake or done by кастрюлеголовые themselves.

Yeah right. I believe the fucking puti news. Fuck Putin.

Your army sucks by the way. in any conventional fight you’d be run over by NATO In about three weeks. The one thing this war is showing is how incompetent Russia is. You should be embarrassed. They can’t target worth crap. Their logistics suck. They have no serious discipline and are poorly trained. They’re resorting to merely terror bombing. Guess what? It won’t work. It didn’t work in WWII on either side. It won’t work now. If anything it will make Ukraine fight that much harder. This isn’t Aleppo. You will fail. You will be in a quagmire for years, unless someone finally gets sick of it and puts a bullet in Putin’s brain.

 

[barbos]

Now they‘ve attacked Europe’s largest nuke plant and a major fire has broken down. Threatens to realease 10x Chernobyl. This is piss poor operational planning. Russian military is incompetent.

They="ukrainians"

 

[barbos]

Yeah right. I believe the fucking puti news. Fuck Putin.

Ukrainian side admits that too, after people who know shit use wayback machines and point that the picture was taken years and years ago and not in Ukraine.

 

[SLD]

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

so the power plant has six reactors on the Dniepr River. This attack is just stupid. Poor planning, and absolutely evil. This could really make everything worse. Russia is utterly full of the dumbest dumb shits.

 

[Elixir]

Pootey is teaching the world why despots should never be allowed to have big toys.
It’s going to be an expensive lesson, so I hope it is learned well.

 

[Jayjay]

Are all these videos fake too?

Sorry, can't see them in Russia.

Try these.

video1
video2
video3

I don't deny that russian forces (like any other forces) do on occasion produce collateral damage.

Mostly direct intentional damage.

But that particular video I was talking about is fake.

Yet still no proof from you.

Let's be blunt. barbos could put himself in danger if he saw the truth. Russia is hiding what is occurring in Ukraine for a reason.

I can

Are all these videos fake too?

Sorry, can't see them in Russia.

Try these.

video1
video2
video3

I don't deny that russian forces (like any other forces) do on occasion produce collateral damage.

Mostly direct intentional damage.

But that particular video I was talking about is fake.

Yet still no proof from you.

After you watch and discuss the one I was discussing.
Without proper context and confirmation they are useless.
People post videos/pictures from damn Syria and say it's Ukraine.

They are not from Syria. The Kharkiv administrative building is clearly visible and recognizable.

Are you going to ever reveal what you think the "inconsistency" is in the video?

 

[Copernicus]

The initial reports of the attack on the plant were exaggerated. Only a training facility was hit and caught fire. There are no indications of elevated radioactivity, and the Ukrainians say that they are shutting down the reactors and putting them in safe mode. Updated report from Reuters:

Fierce fighting sparks fire outside Ukrainian nuclear plant - officials​

 

[blastula]

But that particular video I was talking about is fake.

Yet still no proof from you.

After you watch and discuss the one I was discussing.
Without proper context and confirmation they are useless.
People post videos/pictures from damn Syria and say it's Ukraine.
And no I don't deny there is a war going on. But amount of fakes aired by your media is astounding.

The video I replied to? You called it fake so prove it.

The videos I posted are 3 independent videos of the same location the day after. Those are not fakes. Even if the other video you said is fake is fake, something caused that rubble. This is stupid denialism.

 

[blastula]

This is a thread from a nuclear security expert, says the plant should be safe barring major damage.

 

[barbos]

They are not from Syria. The Kharkiv administrative building is clearly visible and recognizable.

I did not say they were from Syria. I have not even watched them.
I said some of the pictures/videos attrubuted to current conflict are actually from Syria. Then there are 8 years of war in Eastern Ukraine, plenty of material to borrow from.

 

[Jayjay]

*wraps her wings tightly around herself*

So far, Kyiv has held their ground, verifying my prediction. I love that city.

I have a feeling that the Russians are going to overestimate the cost of holding both Odessa and Kherson. I could picture them holding one of those cities for as much as several months, but attempting to hold both of those cities would not come cheap. I think it would just accelerate the eventual fatigue of their troops.

To me it seems there's not much resistance in Kherson. And Russia hasn't even reached Odessa yet. I doubt it would be that much harder, especially when Russia can cut off Ukrainian supply lines like in Mariupol (which is about to fall any moment now).

I stand by my prediction that Russia will occupy the entire southern coast, and either annex the land or temporily turn it into "people's republics" for purging possible remaining pro-Ukrainian citizens.

There is still fighting going on in Kherson, and there is only so think the Russian military can be stretched. I think that if they made an attempt on Odessa, they would have to remove forces from either Mariupol or Kherson, and by then, the locals in either Kherson or Mariupol would have had time to organize an effort to reclaim control over their cities while he was attempting to take Odessa. If that did occur, he would have to choose between either diverting some of his forces bound for Odessa to holding either Kherson or Mariupol or else let one of those cities go in favor of Odessa.

Even if he did manage to take Odessa without immediately losing ground in Mariopol or Kherson, holding all three of those cities would put a strain on his forces, and they would eventually start to fatigue. I also doubt he could hold all three of those cities and establish control over Kyiv.

Yes, I know that Putin THINKS that he's going to march into Kyiv and install a pro-Russian jumping jack, but anybody in his government that thinks he's going to get things entirely his way in Ukraine is more delusional than he is. Ukraine has too much international support, and the people of Ukraine have too much fighting spirit.

So far, Putin has gotten away with using the same trick as Napoleon, using easy targets to create a false impression that he can do what he wants with impunity, thereby undermining the morale of the next-weakest city he conquers, but he's reaching a point where his illusion of invincibility is starting to fade.

I wish I had your optimism.

Russia's troops outnumber Ukraine's 10 to 1. There has been hardly any resistance in the places he's already taken, nor attempts by Ukraine to take them back. Ukraine doesn't have the manpower, and even Russia is spread thin, that means Ukraine is also spread equally thin. I think Putin can do without Kyiv, but he will continue to keep the hardware there and the pressure up if not for any other reason than to tie Ukrainian forces into defending the capital, while he snatches the cities in South and East.

But anyway, we're both just speculating. I'll try to remember to dig your post in a week or two and then we'll see what happened.

 

[barbos]

The video I replied to? You called it fake so prove it.

I have not even watched it because I told you to watch and comment mine first.
Mine is Kharkiv video, I have proven it to be fake.

 

[steve_bank]

The report I heard is there is a fire at the rector. The reports also say the reactors were built by Belarus and are not up to international standards.

 

[steve_bank]

I am in the road and am just not going to watch the videos. Could someone explain to me like I’m 10 years old exactly what Russia’s legitimate security concerns are ( with respect to Ukraine)?

To make a long story short Putin painted through Russian state controlled media Ukraone as a immediate threat to Russia.

He invoked Nazis in Ukraine and Ukraine pursuing nukes.

Despite Russia being a signatory to a treaty that guarantees Ukrainian sovereignty Putin claims Ukraine does not exist as a state. It s a territory historically Russian.

He is a dictator who seeks a return to an imagined glory of the Soviet Union.

Thanks and also @Elixir. I thought I was missing something. But it seems I had it right: Putin wants to restore his version of a great Russian empire and Ukraine’s successes make Russia look bad/make Russians envious…

It is llooking more and more like a dictator with delusions of grandeur and glory.

 

[barbos]

The report I heard is there is a fire at the rector. The reports also say the reactors were built by Belarus and are not up to international standards.

Belarus does not build reactors, I mean they don't design it.
They may do some construction though.

 

[Jayjay]

They are not from Syria. The Kharkiv administrative building is clearly visible and recognizable.

I did not say they were from Syria. I have not even watched them.
I said some of the pictures/videos attrubuted to current conflict are actually from Syria. Then there are 8 years of war in Eastern Ukraine, plenty of material to borrow from.

That's an evasion. If someone in this thread posts a video from Syria or from past wars, by all means, let's debunk them. But we're talking about the missile strike in Kharkiv, which you claim is fake. You haven't given any evidence to think so, while others have posted additional videos from the scene afterwards that show the damage.

 

[Copernicus]

The report I heard is there is a fire at the rector. The reports also say the reactors were built by Belarus and are not up to international standards.

I had posted earlier that a reactor was reportedly on fire. Now most media are reporting that it was only a training facility that caught fire and not a reactor. The reactors have apparently been put into safe modes. At least, that is the best information I have right now. Barbos, of course, has little information from reliable sources on what is happening inside Ukraine, and he says he simply doesn't believe anything published in the press outside of Russia (unless it confirms his biases).