Supposedly, Graham served as a lawyer in the military. His MO, however, is to pick a mark, inject himself into their life, and start subverting them for his purposes. That’s dead-on how CIA agents are reputed to work.
If he didn’t work as an intelligence officer as some point, he sure read the manual.
I believe sanctions will eventually work against the Russian oligarchs. They must be concerned about events in Ukraine. They expected a quick incursion into Ukraine and change of government. They got a prolonged war that is becoming increasingly dangerous and unpredictable.
It wouldn’t surprise me to hear an announcement that Putin is taking an extended rest at a ciuntryside dacha. Maybe within the next few weeks?
Every country has a power base of industrialists, business men, and the wealthy that are very influential. Anarchy is bad for business.The destabilization of the Ruble and other economic pressure will force action.
Some people may be privately asking Putin to change direction. I wouldn’t tip my hand in that situation. It would be smarter to act decisively against Putin before he can strike back.
I think there will be a new leader in Russia. It may be someone even more authoritarian. But declaring victory and withdrawing from Ukraine aill be tbe outcome.
If I was them, I’d sure be avoiding any get-togethers that Putin was inviting them to.
I remember when North Korea went dark for a couple of months and, when they came back, Un’s uncle was no more and there’d been a whole lot of killing in Pyongyang.
Moving against Putin would certainly be risky. It would require a powerful group with enough influence to get the backing of the security services and military. The government structure wouldn’t change. Some other thug would be put in power.
There’s always a chance plans are discovered and a coup against Putin fails.
I remember the coup attempt in Turkey failed because only one military leader attempted it. The rest of the military stayed loyal.
I can’t see any other solution if Putin continues to escalate the war.
You don’t sit for days in the same spot either. Maneuver warfare is sort of a big thing in today’s doctrine.
Probably depends. A more illustrative way of reframing the question might be, is there ever a circumstance in which shelling a nuclear power plant might be permissible under the law of armed conflict? To that, as a purely hypothetical matter keeping in mind that honest to god nuclear weapons and fire bombings have been inflicted on civilian populations in living memory and yet there appears to have been an uneasy (though by no means universal) consensus that such tactics were permissible under the circumstances, I would have to say the answer must surely be yes. But I very much doubt such a circumstance has arisen here. The principle argument here must surely be—and for my part is—that the invasion itself is a war crime, never mind the nature of the targets.
Anyway, even if there have been no direct hits on the buildings containing the actual reactors, there’s still the risk of causing some kind of damage to adjacent power grids or, worse, to emergency power systems. It doesn’t take a direct hit on a containment structure, let alone an actual reactor, to cause a meltdown. See Fukushima.
Consider the sections of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions concerning dams, nuclear plants, etc. Russia is a signatory.
Graham saying that out loud makes a bad outcome more likely. Incredibly irresponsible.
Fascinating. It is indeed covered under article 56. My more cynical side wonders just how seriously any of the major signatories would take it in the event of a large scale conflict on the level of WWII.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Reactors will need some really big iron bombs to breach their containment, Arty shells aren’t going to cut it.
SHHHHHH!!!
Maybe they don’t know that!
“They” made it, so very likely “they” do know.
I’d use this whole nuclear plant debacle to my advantage:
send 20 guys in hazmat suits (with white flag) and a rigged geiger-counter to the local russian command and put up a convincing act of “we have a huge radiation leak here” - everybody must retreat 20 (better yet 50) miles now, as when staying here for more than 8 hours you have a 50% chance of dying of radiation in the next 3 weeks
… just to f.ck with the russians
extra browny points if one of those hazmat actors is Zelensky
We are in unprecedented times for sure. This is the frustrating thing to me, the world is treading new ground all around and it’s nigh impossible to predict an outcome. I see no future for the invasion or Putin or Russia, but don’t see any path to the other side of this.
Not that I think there is actually anything to worry about at this point, but Russia doesn’t need to crack the core containment to turn the reactor into a catastrophe. They just need to interrupt cooling or the power that provides cooling. Some of the reactors are “shut down”, but these still need cooling to remain stable. Even spent fuel needs to be cooled.
But it does seem like initial reports seem to be overblown about Russia recklessly endangering the reactor. Some tense moments for sure, but it seems evident that nobody wants to turn this crisis into a glowing crisis. For now.
The noose tightens a bit more:
There was a different person/people with different motives and sanity levels in charge back then, and a different organizational structure. A number of folks have expressed concern about Putin’s sanity and vanity, as well as his recent reluctance to accept the counsel of others. It’s quite reasonable to worry that he might choose to go scorched-earth, no matter how counterproductive it might be for him and/or Russia in the long run.
Not as much as you might think.
They are backups to continue cooling the reactor even if the power fails.