Russia-Ukraine

Curiously, while the nuclear plant is something like the biggest in Europe, with 6 reactors, it is in SE Ukraine, which is where more people like Russia. It shows how far off the rails Vladdy has gone, putting the people who would otherwise support him at grave risk. So far it seems that the fire is in a peripheral building, but it must stlll be concerning, as though the crazy man is signaling the rest of us that he is ready to use nuclear weapons.
 
TBL said:
It's very disingenuous to conflate any criticism of the West with being "pro-Putin". It's a holdover from the Cold War when criticism of the West meant being a pro-Russian communist-sympathizer who hates freedom. It's also plainly a tactic used to shut down discussion and silence those with alternative views.
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true enough......but not what I was referring to.


Huntn said:
Who exactly are you critiquing? Some things that have happened are the fault of the West, so who does that make appear pro-Putin, the left when they say it? And to whom, the Right (in the US)?
Dealing with Russia Ukraine most of what I’ve heard from “liberal” sources in the US is a constant blame on Russia, not any of “it’s our fault“ as a primary critique, with a few historical hindsight comments how things could have been done better. And I’ve heard some right wingers until a weak ago mimicking Trump and actually praising Putin, but that seems to have dried up In the current backlash.
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First, I'd suggest that in what I posted. you not take "some lefties" to mean "all lefties".

There are "some" people across all of the whole of the political spectrum who make knee jerk reactions to situations based solely on their preconceived political viewpoint.....for them every situation MUST be viewed in terms that fits their particular political faith.
 
A former colleague of mine, active in the Left Party (a party who used to call themselves “Left Party – the Communists” until 1990) used to aggressively chime in whenever anyone criticized Russia’s actions or threats. It was always NATO and the west who were at fault, Russia’s actions were just justified reactions to those. He never really addressed Putin, it was always about Russia, and he sure loved to use the word ”Russophobia”…

Coincidentally, when the Swedish Parliament recently voted on the proposal to send 5000 AT4s to Ukraine, the Left Party were the only ones voting against it.

280 Yes
14 No (13 from the Left Party, 1 from an independent who got elected for the Left Party and then … left)
5 Abstain (All 5 from the Left Party)
50 Not present (9 from the Left Party, among them the leader of said party)

Officially they were against sending weapons to an active war zone but would have been fine with sending the money instead, earmarked for Ukraine to get the same weapons from someone else…
 
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yaxomoxay said:
That’s why it was a huge mistake for the west to say “no troops” or other stuff of that kind. Putin will not stop for anything now.

This must be the most destabilizing situation I’ve ever witnessed in my 40 years of life. I truly don’t know what to say. I just want to cry.
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I am going to agree with you, and tack on another 18 years to your 40, nothing comes close to this…

But, I've given up on wanting to cry. I kind of feel sorry for people with children — they always seem to believe they are owed a bright future — but frankly, right now husband and me have made our peace with nuclear war as a probable outcome.

This morning I was awake earlier than usual, and it was a lovely, crispy cold blue sky with white contrails streaming across, and I looked out of the window at the waking city in the valley, little chimneys lazily smoking, cows slowly ambling across the greenest meadows and I thought to myself:

"Enjoy these moments. We're in a handcart to hell driven by a madman."

As an aside, usually people use the mad/crazy word to denigrate. Frankly, I do believe Putin fits that description.
 
Arkitect said:
But, I've given up on wanting to cry. I kind of feel sorry for people with children — they always seem to believe they are owed a bright future — but frankly, right now husband and me have made our peace with nuclear war as a probable outcome.

As an aside, usually people use the mad/crazy word to denigrate. Frankly, I do believe Putin fits that description.
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I have a 15-month-old, and I too believe that nuclear war is a very real possible outcome, which is why I just created the other thread to create a poll. I'm curious to see what people think.
 
yaxomoxay said:
Breaking News: Putin begins fiddle lessons.
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He's a martial artist. His performance will be a kata.

AmazingDentalBufflehead-size_restricted.gif
 
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Scepticalscribe said:
Reading reports of how the Russians have been shelling the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (the largest in Europe).

Ugh.
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I wonder if this is just to instigate fear of nuclear energy into the western nations so they can't stop using russian gas. Trying to seize a nuclear facility by shelling it is a stupid move no matter how many safety mechanisms are in place. We'll see how the media treats this news. The containment units of modern nuclear power plants are incredibly resistant. The possibility of the power plant being shelled from the outside is even taken into consideration. But I fear the media will start talking about Chernobyl again as if something comparable could happen there.

The VVER reactor buildings of the Zaporizhzhya power plant have two walls made of reinforced concrete, ~1m and ~2m thick, plus all the plumbing of the emergency and cooling systems that surround the core, plus the core vessel itself that is made of (a lot of) steel. It's not the kind of thing that can be taken down by accident.

I believe the biggest concern right now is damage to critical subsystems (water supply, electrical generators...), but even if that were to happen, VVER reactors are intrinsically much safer (due to the negative void coefficient) and there are several systems in place to immediately stop the reaction in the event of the most critical failures (ECCSs + automatic insertion of control rods).

Another concern is damage to the stored spent nuclear fuel, but that also stored in strong enough containers that damaging them by accident is next to impossible.
 
And yes, many of us on the left thought the invasion wouldn't happen because the war-hawk commentary before the invasion was just like every other instance of it (the most recent being the possible war with Iran during Trump's term) and Russia has a pattern of annexing parts of a country or propping up phony "breakaway" republics without a full-scale invasion. So yes, I had reasons to think it was being blown out of proportion by the usual suspects. It wasn't. I was wrong. Putin really is as stupid as many were saying. I still don't think we (US/Europe/NATO, whatever) should send troops to Ukraine and risk starting WWIII and if that makes me a Putin-loving appeaser, then so be it. Ukraine isn't worth destroying the world. (Though I'd say it's worth raising gas prices and weaning the U.S. and Europe off the Russian energy teat, which so far Biden and Germany at least are refusing to do).
 
Andropov said:
I wonder if this is just to instigate fear of nuclear energy into the western nations so they can't stop using russian gas. Trying to seize a nuclear facility by shelling it is a stupid move no matter how many safety mechanisms are in place. We'll see how the media treats this news. The containment units of modern nuclear power plants are incredibly resistant. The possibility of the power plant being shelled from the outside is even taken into consideration. But I fear the media will start talking about Chernobyl again as if something comparable could happen there.
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A reason for Russia going after those plants as discussed by a commentator is two fold.

To obviously take control of power in larger cities to instill fear.

The other is because those plants have their own railways that the forces want for their own logistics.
 
yaxomoxay said:
This is a totally unfair take. Europe welcomed millions of refugees from Africa and the ME. Millions. And it did so for decades.

Right now there’s a war that started just a week ago, right at the gates of the welcoming countries (countries that share a lot with the refugees), a war in which the EU has direct involvement, hence the hurry to welcome about 150K refugees.

In 2021 alone, there were over 114,000 sea arrivals in Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Malta. By the end of 2016, nearly 5.2 million refugees and migrants reached European shores, undertaking treacherous journeys from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries torn apart by war and persecution.
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Are you claiming Syrian refugees were treated the same way that Ukrainian refugees are being treated now? That is so obviously false that I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad. The stories of backlash against Syrian refugees are plentiful. In fact, Europe literally paid Turkey 6 billion Euros to keep the Syrian refugees there and away from the rest of Europe:

www.theguardian.com

EU strikes deal with Turkey to send back refugees

Refugees arriving in Greece from Sunday to be sent back across Aegean in deal that ‘re-energises’ talks on Turkish EU membership
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Do you think the EU will make a deal with Turkey to ship Ukrainian refugees over there?

Now, that being said, many in Europe DID welcome refugees regardless of their national origin. But overall, the response was negative.

As for America, the Trump administration cut the number of refugees allowed drastically over his 4 years. And even for Afghan refugees, I’ve seen GOP members of Congress say they need “extreme vetting” for these people such as translators that literally risked their lives for Americans in Afghanistan, because “they might be terrorists!" I have not seen a SINGLE Republican ask for Ukrainians to go through “extreme vetting” if they want to come to America.

TL;DR - Europe did not WELCOME African or Middle Eastern refugees in the same way. Not by a long shot.
 

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