It means they can never get any more loans in the foreseeable future. The rouble will drop dramatically even further, and the economy will nosedive at a faster rate.
However, there will be strong effects in the West too, as institutions that made loans to Russia will be hard hit, and Western economies may be damaged as well.
The situation for the staff “was worsening”, the IAEA said, citing the Ukrainian nuclear regulator.
The defunct plant sits inside an exclusion zone that houses decommissioned reactors as well as radioactive waste facilities.
More than 2,000 staff still work at the plant as it requires constant management to prevent another nuclear disaster.
On Tuesday, the IAEA director, Gen Rafael Grossi, called on “the forces in effective control of the site to urgently facilitate the safe rotation of personnel there”.
I’ve seen elsewhere that only one shift (of three) was present when the Russians took over, and they have not been allowed to rotate staff.
That shift has spilt themselves into two groups, alternating 24/7, so each shift now is greatly understaffed. They are working with little sleep and only one meal a day.
I don’t know what implications the power cut will have, but it’s not looking good.
As I see it a BIG problem is all the politicians talking about it. If you publicize this deal and where the jets are they become a target. Good job, guys, loose lips sink ships. Or get airplanes destroyed. Do they advertise the provenance, route, and destination of every truck supplying stuff to Ukraine? No? Wouldn’t be a good idea to advertise the supply routes and logistics. Likewise, shut up about the damn planes already so they can be snuck in to Ukraine with minimal fanfare and minimal risk of the Russians blowing them up before they are used.
I would expect under the circumstances they could cannibalize some planes to provide parts for other planes to keep them flying. What else are you going to do if you can’t get parts?
The IAEA says the power cut at Chernobyl ‘violates a key safety pillar’ but they see ‘no critical impact’ on safety.
I’m disappointed the MiG deal may be off the table. There is a point where Western leaders have to take a stand and stop appeasing Putin. He will continue to escalate until finally confronted
Imho the massive Human Rights violations in Russia are justification for giving Ukraine defensive weapons. That certainly should include 30 to 35 year old, obsolete planes. Russia already has modern jets that can fly circles around 1980’s technology.
It was foolish for Poland to publicly discuss details of the plan. I suspect they wanted to make this deal untenable.
[adding a pithy bit of the painfully obvious…]
I have a long-standing habit/practice: if somebody else is driving, and they ask me if I think it’s “okay to park here,” I habitually say no. I’m pretty averse to ‘gambling with other people’s money’ (ie, advocating for things where the negative consequences would inure to them, not me.)
I’m profoundly aware of how utterly impossible it must be to truly be a decision-maker in this brinksmanship ‘game’ with Putin, knowing that the stakes could literally be wide scale annihilation of untold millions (/billions) of humans.
In my lifetime, this may be the most stark example of “I’m glad it’s not my problem to solve” that has ever been.
That’s definitely true. I wouldn’t want to make these decisions.
I’ve read Kennedy used a rocking chair while handling the Cuban Missile Crisis . Its calming and probably helped with stress.
I really don’t understand why NATO/US thinks that sending Javelin, Stinger, Strela, Piorun, NLAW and other missiles to Ukraine wouldn’t cross Russia’s “red line,” but somehow gifting Polish MiGs to Ukraine would.
We don’t know whether this is off the table yet, just that at least publically we’re going to pretend it is. Loose lips sink ships as has been noted already, my WAG is they’re concocting a plan b under the radar. I do agree that it’s time for media to activate war mode, which includes shutting up about good ideas until they’ve been executed.
This is what I’m hoping. Putin / Russia knows the deal was being discussed, and now it seems to be dead in the water.
Maybe that was done intentionally to be able to move the jets into Ukraine as surreptitiously as possible and avoid any “paper trail” to show where they came from.
Any chance whatsoever that all this “We’re sending planes! No we’re not! Untenable!” is really a smokescreen? That the planes have already gotten into Ukraine somehow? Or is it a tacit impossibility in the age of satellites that military objects that large can be moved without attracting attention?
So when the plane deal looked really close and the Poles went public; what, I wonder, was the Russian military response? Did they have to immediately task interceptors to Western Ukraine just in case they might arrive directly from Poland? Maybe this whole MiG thing is just a giant misdirection to lure the Russian air forces into an area being flooded with SAMs right now?
Least anyone forget what Russia represents.
I hope people were sheltered in the basement.
Update…
This needs to be documented on video. Give to journalists.
Another update.
Speaking of surreptitious, how would this be physically accomplished? Won’t Russia be watching for flights between Poland (or anywhere else in Europe) and Ukrainian bases where fighter jets are serviced? Would these transfer flights need to be high-speed earth-hugging flights to avoid radar detection?
Had a thought:
Russian radar/satellites could certainly detect the flights if flown at altitude. However … if the transponders were disabled, is it trivial to determine that they’re fighters vs. civilian craft? I guess the Russian military would just assume anything flying incognito is doing so for a nefarious reason, though. Hmm.
I’m pretty sure the Russians have eyes on every NATO airbase in Europe. Those planes can’t leave a Polish airbase via air or ground without someone making a call to the Kremlin.
I’m not sure if being able to hide transporting the jets is all that meaningful. Even we could just teleport the jets into Ukraine, the Russians are going to notice when the Ukrainians are suddenly able to send up a bunch more jets than they could the day before, and they’ll figure the jets came from someone in NATO. Plausible deniability doesn’t matter, here. If Putin thinks NATO crossed a line, it’s not like he has to prove it to anyone before he can respond.
I mean…nobody’s fooling anyone here. If Polish MiGs arrive in Ukraine, the Russians will know. There’s no way they wouldn’t.
At a certain point, it becomes a “Yeah, well what are you going to do about it?” situation. Putin will know that Polish MiGs are in Ukraine. It just becomes a matter of what he’ll do. He’d be foolish to escalate.