Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[2hats]

Russian strike reported on/around Pivdennoukrainsk Nuclear Power Plant overnight. No reactor damage reported. Units still operating.

Ukraine says Russia strikes Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, reactors undamaged

Russian troops struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region early on Monday but its reactors have not been damaged and are working normally, Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom said.

www.reuters.com

Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU)

Last night russian terrorists attempted to strike the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant in the Mykolaiv region. A missile fell 300 meters from the plant. kremlin’s nuclear terrorism continues. russia is the threat to the whole world.

nitter.it

 

[teqniq]

Fucking idiots.

 

[existentialist]

Fucking idiots.

Brinksmanship. I expect they think that the "rotten West" will quail in the face of their resolve.

 

[teqniq]

Brinksmanship. I expect they think that the "rotten West" will quail in the face of their resolve.

Does anyone know if the prevailing winds blow towards the west? Because if they are I wouldn't put it past them to figure that into their calculations.

 

[existentialist]

Does anyone know if the prevailing winds are westerly? Because if they are I wouldn't put it past them to figure that into their calculations.

I definitely don't think they actually want to smash open a reactor. But I suspect they're more than happy to risk a smaller breakdown in order to destroy the surrounding infrastructure - something they've already started doing by attacking (non-nuclear) parts of the electricity network.

 

[tim]

Wellington Arch is a bit of greenery in this busy part of London. Can't Hugh see that it is surrounded by parks and the Buckingham Palace gardens.

 

[elbows]

I note that the simps, feebs and three-time losers who tried to muddy the water over the Bucha graves are conspicuously silent over Izyum.

I did happen to catch the BBC news a few days ago when they had Jeremy Bowen comment on this. It wasnt really what I expected, he sounded a bit skeptical.

4 minute 45 mark onwards of this video:

 

[two sheds]

Does anyone know if the prevailing winds blow towards the west? Because if they are I wouldn't put it past them to figure that into their calculations.

I was wondering that the other day - normally yes from the west but sometimes East wind on weather maps, you'd imagine they might choose one of those times though.

I think Chernobyl was with South East wind so Wales had a lot of fallout.

 

[2hats]

It's more complex (and to degrees random) than that though.

Prevailing winds at particular altitudes is one complex, multi-variable factor (note: at the moment they are from the W/SW at pretty much all levels so would convey particulates towards Moscow, and modelled to perhaps remain that way for the best part of the coming week).

Another major factor is the nature of the strike. Splash the core everywhere and the contamination would likely be far more local. Manage to set the core on fire and then you can loft radionuclides to where they can be distributed further.

A further factor is prior on-site mitigations to reduce risks of certain scenarios.

 

[elbows]

I was wondering that the other day - normally yes from the west but sometimes East wind on weather maps, you'd imagine they might choose one of those times though.

I think Chernobyl was with South East wind so Wales had a lot of fallout.

Rain and snow location and timing in relation to radioactive plumes also makes a big difference in terms of where contamination of the ground occurs.

edit - for example:

Deposition of radionuclides from the Chernobyl accident depended critically on patterns of precipitation intercepting the material. This paper describes the use of the RAINPATCH model to calculate wet deposition of 137Cs over England and Wales. This puff-based model makes direct use of precipitation data measured by weather radar to determine the scavenging of airborne material. The detailed spatial and temporal resolution of when and where material was scavenged provides good agreement with measurements. Since all the data used could potentially have been available at the time, such methods could usefully be applied in real time in the event of any future accident releasing such radionuclides.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0004698188900789

 

[Raheem]

I did happen to catch the BBC news a few days ago when they had Jeremy Bowen comment on this. It wasnt really what I expected, he sounded a bit skeptical.

4 minute 45 mark onwards of this video:

He makes a fair point, in that the graves are unlikely to contain the victims of a single overnight massacre.

But, at the same time, if people are being tortured in municipal basements and so on, the authorities wouldn't necessarily store the bodies until they had enough for a pit.

 

[teqniq]

I was wondering that the other day - normally yes from the west but sometimes East wind on weather maps, you'd imagine they might choose one of those times though.

I think Chernobyl was with South East wind so Wales had a lot of fallout.

Yeah we had a lot of heavy rain showers after Chernobyl and small birds did weird things for weeks afterwards. I noticed when driving if you came upon small birds sitting in the road when they initially tied to fly away they briefly tumbled around in a flurry before actually taking off.

 

[2hats]

Rain and snow location and timing in relation to radioactive plumes also makes a big difference in terms of where contamination of the ground occurs.

Lot of rain expected in the coming days for many areas to the west of the Volga.

​

 

[elbows]

Meanwhile at Zaporizhzhia they've even managed to reconnect one of the main grid transmission lines, so the other secondary local lines that were previously restored are now an additional backup rather than the main source of power. Update 103 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine | IAEA

In terms of the strike very close to a different nuclear plant, when attempting to dissect the propaganda aspects of this, we have to consider whether a different facility in the area was actually the primary target. Thats often the case, and then the nuclear aspect becomes one of recklessness and propaganda opportunity, rather than a deliberate plan to cause radioactive contamination.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Yeah we had a lot of heavy rain showers after Chernobyl and small birds did weird things for weeks afterwards. I noticed when driving if you came upon small birds sitting in the road when they initially tied to fly away they briefly tumbled around in a flurry before actually taking off.

We were walking on the Stipperstones in Shropshire that week and got caught in what may have been a radioactive hailstorm. Slightly worrying at the time. I'd forgotten all about that. Thanks for reminding me.

 

[elbows]

He makes a fair point, in that the graves are unlikely to contain the victims of a single overnight massacre.

But, at the same time, if people are being tortured in municipal basements and so on, the authorities wouldn't necessarily store the bodies until they had enough for a pit.

Yes. I didnt mind his report, he seemed like he was trying to strike the right balance, and is aware of the risk of getting caught up in crude propaganda that does not do justice to the more nuanced but no less hideous realities.

 

[teqniq]

We were walking on the Stipperstones in Shropshire that week and got caught in what may have been a radioactive hailstorm. Slightly worrying at the time. I'd forgotten all about that. Thanks for reminding me.

My then 1 year old daughter, my parents and myself got caught out in a heavy shower on the coast. It has caused me concern ever since, particularly for my daughter.

 

[Idris2002]

I did happen to catch the BBC news a few days ago when they had Jeremy Bowen comment on this. It wasnt really what I expected, he sounded a bit skeptical.

4 minute 45 mark onwards of this video:

The Deutsche Welle eyewitness that RTE had on over the lunchtime news says that the corpses she saw had obvious signs of long-term decay - meaning they were put there well before Ukraine liberated the area.

She sounded credible to me . . .

 

[two sheds]

My then 1 year old daughter, my parents and myself got caught out in a heavy shower on the coast. It has caused me concern ever since, particularly for my daughter.

liked the post but at the concern

 

[Storm Fox]

It's more complex (and to degrees random) than that though.

Prevailing winds at particular altitudes is one complex, multi-variable factor (note: at the moment they are from the W/SW at pretty much all levels so would convey particulates towards Moscow, and modelled to perhaps remain that way for the best part of the coming week).

Another major factor is the nature of the strike. Splash the core everywhere and the contamination would likely be far more local. Manage to set the core on fire and then you can loft radionuclides to where they can be distributed further.

A further factor is prior on-site mitigations to reduce risks of certain scenarios.

This site if I understand it correctly can forecast where a packet of air from a point is likely to end up.
Changing the parameters it will give you where the air you currently have come from.

Air Resources Laboratory - HYSPLIT - Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model

www.ready.noaa.gov

I don't understand all the parameters but just defaulted them

 

[strung out]

Quite incredible that NATO have threatened Russia so much that Russia has decided to remove air defences from St Petersburg.

 

[existentialist]

Meanwhile at Zaporizhzhia they've even managed to reconnect one of the main grid transmission lines, so the other secondary local lines that were previously restored are now an additional backup rather than the main source of power. Update 103 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine | IAEA

In terms of the strike very close to a different nuclear plant, when attempting to dissect the propaganda aspects of this, we have to consider whether a different facility in the area was actually the primary target. Thats often the case, and then the nuclear aspect becomes one of recklessness and propaganda opportunity, rather than a deliberate plan to cause radioactive contamination.

Perun's piece on Russia's use of missiles is interesting on this subject:

In particular, he suggests that the Russians are perfectly capable of high-accuracy strikes, but are using older (1960s vintage) missiles which are far less accurate, perhaps in order to conserve stocks of the very accurate Iskander and Kalibr models.

Particularly since it appears that failure rates of the missiles (not specifically Kalibr/Iskander) could be as high as 40% - less of a targeting issue directly, but quite significant in terms of how many they must use to achieve a hit.

 

[agricola]

I did happen to catch the BBC news a few days ago when they had Jeremy Bowen comment on this. It wasnt really what I expected, he sounded a bit skeptical.

4 minute 45 mark onwards of this video:

TBF I do wonder about the focus on tortures / murders here (and in Bucha / other places) - nearly all of the people in these mass graves died as the result of the decision to start the "special military operation", whether that was down to bombs, shells, misdirected small arms fire, collapsed buildings, disease or maltreatment by one side or another. How did we end up with journalists effectively saying "but this guys' hands were bound!"?

 

[elbows]

TBF I do wonder about the focus on tortures / murders here (and in Bucha / other places) - nearly all of the people in these mass graves died as the result of the decision to start the "special military operation", whether that was down to bombs, shells, misdirected small arms fire, collapsed buildings, disease or maltreatment by one side or another. How did we end up with journalists effectively saying "but this guys' hands were bound!"?

I suppose because war propaganda has certain angles that have been emphasised from world war 2 onwards, and we have weird standards about what somehow counts as acceptable conduct in war, what stuff is supposed to transcend the boundaries of horrible war deaths and suffering that have somehow been normalised.

I suppose in saying that I might need to clarify again that I use the term propaganda a lot and this use of language is not supposed to imply whether something is actually true or false, only to describe its purpose. And that the Ukranian government have been really good at propaganda in this war but do like to push it as far as they can, and it is tempting to consider that some of Bowens words might have been sponsored by him being a bit wary of taking everything they say to the media at face value by default.

 

[existentialist]

TBF I do wonder about the focus on tortures / murders here (and in Bucha / other places) - nearly all of the people in these mass graves died as the result of the decision to start the "special military operation", whether that was down to bombs, shells, misdirected small arms fire, collapsed buildings, disease or maltreatment by one side or another. How did we end up with journalists effectively saying "but this guys' hands were bound!"?

I think most of us can recognise a moral gradient between killing a bunch of people by shelling an apartment building, and tying someone's hands behind their back, torturing, and executing them. It's all - certainly in this context - horrible and unthinkable, but it says far more about the depravity of someone - and the system they operate in - that they can look into someone's eyes and inflict unspeakable pain on them, up close and personal.

 

[spitfire]

They're all going on the list.

UA cyber ops continue to fuck the Russians over.

Spoiler: tweet with graphic pictures

 

[cupid_stunt]

After pausing their advance for a few days, Al Jazeera is reporting the Ukrainians are on the move again, crossing the Oskil River, to the north east of Donbas/Luhansk, and have also recaptured their first village in Luhansk.

This from the Telegraph -

Ukraine has recaptured its first village in Luhansk, a region that Russian forces took five months to bomb into submission and conquer.
Belogorovka is the latest prize for Ukraine’s continuing counter-offensive pushing Russia away from the second city of Kharkiv.
The village lies only a dozen or so miles from the towns of Lysychansk and Severdonestsk, key regional economic centres in the wider Donbas region that the Kremlin has promised to defend at all costs.
The village also lies 45 miles east of the Oskil River where Russian forces fled after a Ukrainian offensive around Kharkiv recaptured an area the size of Devon in a few days.

archive.ph

 

[Duncan2]

Good news Liz Truss has determined to send another billion pounds worth of armaments to Ukraine over the next twelve months.Even better those in the UK reliant on disability benefits are to get one hundred and fifty quid each!

 

[cupid_stunt]

The Oskil River was of course the new front line, and there were reports of the Russians digging in there to stop the advance, however according to one Ukrainian solider interviewed on France24, the Russians just packed-up and moved on, which the Ukrainians hadn't expected, so they took advantage of the situation and started to advance again.

That could fit in with this report -

Urgent calls by Russian-backed authorities in the occupied regions of Luhansk and Donetsk for referendums on becoming part of Russia show that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is causing panic among proxy forces and some Kremlin decision-makers, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest report.

The thinktank also said the counteroffensive was reducing morale in Russian units previously considered elite, with intercepted documents showing Russian soldiers making repeated pleas to be dismissed due to “persistent physical and moral fatigue”.

Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow loses full control of Luhansk region; Ukraine to dominate agenda at UN summit – live updates

Ukrainian forces focusing on speed in liberated areas, Zelenskiy says; 146 bodies exhumed from forest graves near Izium

www.theguardian.com

 

[Pickman's model]

Good news Liz Truss has determined to send another billion pounds worth of armaments to Ukraine over the next twelve months.Even better those in the UK reliant on disability benefits are to get one hundred and fifty quid each!

Hurrah!