Author Topic: Ukraine  (Read 12720 times)

90sRetroFan

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Re: Ukraine
« Reply #150 on: March 14, 2022, 12:22:26 am »
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-putin-hell-bent-capturing-004733289.html

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Why Putin Is Hell-Bent on Capturing Ukraine’s Nuclear Reactors
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“There is strategic operation value in controlling energy and communication centers and choke points,” said retired Marine Colonel G.I. Wilson, whose writings originated the popular concept of Fourth Generation Warfare. “That aspect has considerable merit [for the Russians].”

According to Kempfer, part of that merit comes from the fact that such control over the electrical grid would allow the Kremlin to turn the lights off at will over vast swaths of Ukraine.

“Turning off the power nationwide—as [Russian force] have done on a smaller scale in Mariupol—in the middle of winter creates mass hardship and suffering for the Ukrainian population, and that is apparently a weapon Putin feels free to utilize,” Kempfer said.

Such a move could also have a chilling effect on the nation’s commerce.

“The industry and economy of Ukraine can’t function if 50 percent of its power generation capabilities are either controlled by Russian forces or disabled,” said Futures’ research director Bunker, who also pointed out that the reactors could serve as immense “bargaining chips” in any future ceasefire or peace negotiations.

This is why NATO should have joined the war on Day 1 to prevent any reactors from falling under Russian control. Not only should NATO troops have entered Ukraine, they should have immediately invaded Russian territory in retaliation so that the war becomes about Russian resources as well as Ukrainian ones. It is amazing how few people seem to understand this elementary principle. Absent retaliatory invasion into Russian territory, even if Russia comes out on the other side of this war having totally failed to capture Ukraine, it will have lost nothing except troops and weapons. Who will foot the bill for all the infrastructure damaged by Russia, and for all other expenditures incurred as a result of the war? Some people out there literally believe that Russia's loss of troops and weapons can be counted as the payment. No! If I smash up my neighbour's house with a baseball bat, breaking the baseball bat in the process, I am not thereby (on account of the broken baseball bat) absolved of paying the damages to my neighbour's house! I should have to give my house to my neighbour! Similarly, the only sure way to in effect get Russia to pay is by acquiring Russian territory and resources.

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The reactors are also positioned near major railheads that transport nuclear fuel. Those same shipping hubs could be easily repurposed by the Russians for moving armored vehicles and munitions to battlefields around Ukraine, especially since their tanks have been running short on gas.

The targeting of nuclear facilities—including the wanton shelling that set part of Zaporizhzhya ablaze and the ongoing power outages at the plants—also sends a deliberate message that this is a kind of no-holds-barred warfare in which even the risk of nuclear devastation can’t be ruled out.

“It’s a psychological weapon being used to terrorize the population,” said intelligence officer Kempfer. “They’re [targeting nuclear plants] as a way to put tremendous pressure on the Ukrainian government to capitulate. That’s their endgame.”

Kempfer also said the takeovers were a way to warn the U.S. and NATO and against their potential involvement in the conflict.

“[The Kremlin] is able to raise the specter of radioactive calamity without ever introducing nuclear weapons. Putin is a calculating guy and he realizes that we get very concerned any time a nuclear plant is threatened. The world saw Chernobyl, the world saw Fukushima, and we don’t want to see that again.”

Kempfer likened the tactic of going after Ukraine’s nuclear plants to that of Rome sewing salt into Cartheginian soil at the end of the Punic Wars, so that nothing would ever grow there. “They’re saying [...] we might irradiate a big chunk of Ukraine so it’s dead earth and you can never use it again. That’s the implied threat. That they can turn all of Ukraine into one big Chernobyl.”

Taking risks that could lead to a catastrophic accident might be intended to show Russia’s disregard for the consequences of radioactive fallout, but Bunker said there could also be an even darker, more deliberate motive for going after reactors.

“If the Putin regime wants to play ‘authoritarian hardball’ it can threaten to release radiological material into the atmosphere from the Zaporizhzhia facility under its control,” Bunker said. Such a move could be used to force Kyiv to accept Russian rule or “as a deterrence measure to inhibit Ukrainian forces from retaking the facility.”

Marine Colonel Wilson called such behavior “Russian brinkmanship” designed “to give the impression of upping the ante in a very high-stakes encounter” in which “everything is targetable and nothing is safe.”

“Fear,” Wilson said, “is a very powerful weapon in warfare.”



See also:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/news/its-time-to-admit-it-mitt-romney-was-right-about-russia/msg11462/#msg11462