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> no real danger of incidents around nuclear power plants Top soil level disrupted in the Chernobyl zone. This is a big deal. Not chernobyl-accident-big, not f

> no real danger of incidents around nuclear power plants Top soil level disrupted in the Chernobyl zone. This is a big deal. Not chernobyl-accident-big, not fire-on-the-unit big, but still not a nuisance. I can kind of agree with you and I agree that our propaganda over exaggerates. So if Putin/military make decisions based on rational thought process then yes we don't have to worry. I'm just not sure they really do. I have seen things in this war which I do not understand from the strategic and tactical standpoint. It's not that they aren't reasons, it's just that I have not been able to figure them out so far.

kranke155 5y ago
Putin is 100% acting according to his rational interests, it's just that his interests appear incomprehensible to us, who believe that progress is peace. Putin and his circle believe that progress is power, and they also believe that the reconstruction of Russian power is both needed and essential. It turns out that a lot of stuff that Putin was saying was TRUE, not just Trump-style bluster. He does believe that Russia should own a sphere of influence, and that a sort of USSR 2.0 project is both viable and desirable. This is shocking to us (I myself was shocked when he decided to go for a full invasion instead of just expanding the Donetsk and Luhansk republics), but not so much to Ukrainians. Basically we projected our values onto Putin and believed that he wanted to make his nation rich like the West. Turns out money for him is less important, relatively speaking, than direct power for Russia. See this video from a Ukrainian analyst where he accurately predicts and explains the war in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8
- egorfine 5y ago
  Yes, we are all listening to Arestovich daily and sometimes even more often. He's the comforting voice for ukrainians and officially an advisor for the president Zelensky. Meanwhile as we speak we have reports of russian soldiers with radiation poisoning arriving in hospitals in Belarus. While the reports are not yet confirmed, we fully expect that to happen: some of the russian troops are stationed right in the middle of the the Red Forest. Radiation levels in these woods were quite high by themselves even after all these years, but digging that specific soil with tanks and boots - that's a whole lot different story.

kranke155 5y ago

Putin is 100% acting according to his rational interests, it's just that his interests appear incomprehensible to us, who believe that progress is peace. Putin and his circle believe that progress is power, and they also believe that the reconstruction of Russian power is both needed and essential. It turns out that a lot of stuff that Putin was saying was TRUE, not just Trump-style bluster. He does believe that Russia should own a sphere of influence, and that a sort of USSR 2.0 project is both viable and desirable. This is shocking to us (I myself was shocked when he decided to go for a full invasion instead of just expanding the Donetsk and Luhansk republics), but not so much to Ukrainians. Basically we projected our values onto Putin and believed that he wanted to make his nation rich like the West. Turns out money for him is less important, relatively speaking, than direct power for Russia. See this video from a Ukrainian analyst where he accurately predicts and explains the war in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNHmHpERH8

egorfine 5y ago
Yes, we are all listening to Arestovich daily and sometimes even more often. He's the comforting voice for ukrainians and officially an advisor for the president Zelensky. Meanwhile as we speak we have reports of russian soldiers with radiation poisoning arriving in hospitals in Belarus. While the reports are not yet confirmed, we fully expect that to happen: some of the russian troops are stationed right in the middle of the the Red Forest. Radiation levels in these woods were quite high by themselves even after all these years, but digging that specific soil with tanks and boots - that's a whole lot different story.