I can’t find it now but there was also a tweet from a couple NATO countries saying that radiation from this would likely enter their countries and this would be considered an attack. They would then invoke article 5.
Hopefully this is just NATO warning of a red line not to cross but it feels like watching a slow motion march to WWIII.
You’re assuming Russia would want them enough to do the swap, as opposed to leaving them there as an excuse for the next operation to defend their oppressed kin.
Enough speculation about the Kerch bridge & Russians in Crimea.
I thought this would pass quickly but it is turning into a hijack. Once again, excellent subject for a new thread if you like. I will even move posts from this one to the new one if requested.
I think a attack on the Zaporizhzhia power plant could be the most likely scenario that would pull NATO into the war. Sending radiation into Europe can’t be ignored.
I hoped Russia wasn’t this foolish. But they did blow up a dam that flooded a large area.
I wonder if they ARE issued purification chem tabs or something like the lifestraw, but due to corruption and/or incompetence they weren’t manufactured correctly.
…except the Ukrainians have IR night vision systems, which the Russians probably lack. Boiling your water just lights you up for a midnight rocket attack.
First, RFK Jr says that Russia has been acting “in good faith” and that the US bears heavy responsibility for the war.
Second, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of Wagner, says that Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine: "The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc. The Russian Defense Ministry is deceiving the public and the president.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin is ramping up his criticism of Putin. He posted a 30-minute video to his Telegram channel about how Putin has been lying to the Russian public.
There was nothing extraordinary happening on the eve of February 24. The ministry of defence is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole Nato block.
…
The mentally ill scumbags decided: ‘It’s OK, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as cannon fodder. They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want.
I have to wonder what Prigozhin’s motivation and endgame is here.
This isn’t quite correct. Prigozhin is ramping up his criticism of the Ministry of Defence. Shoigu and Gerasimov are lying to the Russian public and to Putin. See your quoted article: “The ministry of defence is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole Nato block.” [emphasis added] The MOD to blame for everything. He’s playing the “good Tsar, bad Boyars” game.
Do note that all parties in this internecine conflict are well-established liars and any and all information regarding this topic may be deceptive propaganda.
That said, Wagner has refused to sign contracts subordinating it to the MOD as required by a law recently passed by the Duma, and this could be fallout from that.
It would be really hilarious is this all turned out to be nothing but Ukrainian intelligence hacking Prigozhin’s Telegram channel and posting a bunch of BS.
The coup is stated at aiming only at the Ministry of Defense, not Putin or whatever his executive is called.
The US analogue would be attacking the Pentagon while explicitly avoiding threatening the White House. While assuming that the White House would be ok with this.
My suspicion is that either this is a nothingburger, with Prigozhin woofing a lot of empty noise to look important in the media, or else an uptick in Russian-on-Russian fighting in the field.
Either regular Russian forces are attacking Wagner, or Wagner is lying to claim that regular Russian forces are attacking Wagner. I have no idea whether the claims are true or not. But either way, I think it’s safe to say that it falls under the general heading of “chaos to our enemies”.