ok that was the human version
chat gpt go
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So deep cuts with those titles.
This guy is quite a character. Into MAGA, COVID conspiracies, and climate denial. In the case of Nord Stream, you gotta give him credit for actually doing his own research though. I had to read the whole article to understand clearly what he was saying but, surprisingly, I agree with quite a bit of it.
- The amount of explosives did not have to be nearly as much as has been claimed; maybe as little as 10 kg at each of 4 sites. The size of the blasts and the resulting craters can be accounted for by the sudden release of pressurized gas.
- A sailboat with a couple of divers and some support people could very well have pulled it off. It did not require the resources of a state.
- Whoever did it screwed up and accidentally bombed the same line (NS2A) twice. This explains why NS2B remains intact. Hersh is wrong that one of the bombs didn’t go off and that the US had to go retrieve it to hide evidence.
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Heh, kind of reminds me of this guy, who believed in flat earth enough to shoot himself up in a rocket.
Hughes didn’t have a technical background afaict. Andersson does, and he’s not completely crazy.
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The previous episode with Stephen Kotkin was on Prigozhin and his aborted rebellion. No news really, but does give a pretty good description of the predatory nature and dynamics of Putin’s regime.
On the one hand, we know Putin will back down if he has to, but on the other, Kotkin says Putin may decide if he can’t have Ukraine, no one can, and may do something like blow up the the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The Ukrainians have said July 5 could be the day.
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Meh…that would be the equivalent of Putin dropping a nuclear bomb in Ukraine. I didn’t think Putin would be so willing to die for his ego.
Also why in the world would they blow up the plant when they don’t appear to be in any danger of losing the parts of Ukraine they’ve seized? Seems like the Russians have stopped the spring offensive cold so far.
Well, he has threatened that too. But he may see this as short of that. And even if it makes no sense, he can claim Ukraine did it, just like the dam. Hopefully, it’s only a scare tactic to discourage or slow down aid to Ukraine. But the power to the plant was just cut again and there are some evacuations from local towns. I mean if you can believe twitter.
Oh yeah, there is no way Russians would blow up vital infrastructure in territory they hold in a way that would damage not only the territory they claim but also their military positions.
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Thanks to Reeve Musk I can’t follow anything atm, I would just say invoking article 5 doesn’t mean anything by itself. I would also think that if NATO thought that the Ukrainians were responsible for a severe nuclear event, they wouldn’t rush to war to support them. NATO does not want to fight Russia to begin with, nor does Russia particularly want to fight NATO. This cui bono shit is not a good way to analyze this stuff.
One would hope so but Ukrainian politicians already tried that tactic when that Ukrainian air defense missile landed on a Polish house and killed some Poles. Some Ukrainian politician was all “Article 5 pls?” Of course NATO told them to fuck off with that nonsense but things have escalated from where we were there. What if Poland actually wants to get involved and plays along even if they think Ukraine did it? I don’t think the Biden administration is insane enough to go along but who knows.
In any case, why in the world would Russia do this? What do they gain? They’re not losing what they are holding. The lines seem totally static and Zaluzhny just gave an interview in the Washington Post complaining about the blood sacrifice Ukraine’s patrons in the West are demanding with the suicidal offensive into the teeth of the dug in Russians’ defenses. NATO probably doesn’t want to fight the Russians, and I certainly agree that the Russians don’t want to fight NATO. So why would the Russians do the one thing that could maybe precipitate NATO involvement?
In any case, you can certainly understand that some Ukrainians might want NATO to fight Russia directly.
It would be in Ukraine’s interest for NATO to fight Russia more directly, or give yet more weapons, I just don’t buy any scenario where NATO comes to believe that some severe nuclear incident was caused by the Ukrainians and then they invoke article 5 and fight Russia anyway. Maybe some Ukrainians who can pull it off believe otherwise and are willing to risk it, but if they’re wrong, they could instantly lose most of their support and the war.
I agree that on the face of it, it would not seem to benefit Russia to fuck with the plant. Yet they didn’t really care too much about it when they had firefights around the plant when they first took it over. It was hard enough to follow events before, but Space Karen has made it basically impossible, but I just read the Reuters piece and both sides seem to be posturing and completely full of shit.
Like this
is bonkers, but if the Ukrainian plan is to retake the plant, or increase military operations around it that could cause an event, it would obviously be in their interest to preblame Russia.
If you were Ukraine and wanted to do a false flag attack against that plant how would you go about it? Like is it bonkers because everyone would see through it or bonkers because it isn’t feasible?
And if you’re Russia, sure, you could strew a bunch of nuclear waste around the plant. To what end? If a bunch of nuclear waste gets strewn around the NPP it’s either Russia doing it for god knows what reason or it’s Ukraine trying to get the West more heavily involved in a complicated false flag. Seems crazy either way but at least I understand Ukraine’s motive.
It’s like Chekhov’s nuclear power plant: the writers introduced it early on in the war and now they’re going to use it.
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It’s a very elaborate plan with an extremely dangerous, immoral, and super speculative objective; the source detailing the plan is worthless and if something happens, there are more simple and likely explanations. I don’t know the status of forces around the plant, I don’t know whether Russia has reason to think it can’t hold the plant, but surely there is at least a potential motive to blow it up in some way that’s bad for Ukraine if they’re being forced to leave it anyway?
I am interested in the type of nuclear waste they are going to just place around the plant. There aren’t yellow barrels of green ooze just lying around to be moved outside and spilled.
Ok I looked at the IAEA statement and
it seems like the worry is the plant loses power and something bad happens, and that was one of the main worries since the beginning. As I said earlier, I have no clue what manner of fighting is happening near the plant. Based on the fact that it has been quiet there for many months but now both sides are chattering, maybe the counter offensive is close enough to the plant that Ukraine wants to retake the plant or they want to conduct more risky operations around the plant and blame Russia if they fuck something up. Or the Russians may want to leave the plant at some point and can’t be arsed to mind the sensitive protocols to prevent an incident.