Ukraine Conflict - continuing

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

 

Also ZNPP had a fire in a cooling tower, but oddly no panic from that, strange.

 

Because, there is absolutely nothing flammable inside the cooling tower, unless you bring it there by hands and fire it up yourself. It is just extremely big concrete cup for cooling the water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_tower#/media/File:Inside_of_a_Natural_Draft_Cooling_Tower_3.jpg

Most likely some drunken RU soldier dropped their cigarette into the pile of tires

[Malcador]

4 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Because, there is absolutely nothing flammable inside the cooling tower, unless you bring it there by hands and fire it up yourself. It is just extremely big concrete cup for cooling the water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_tower#/media/File:Inside_of_a_Natural_Draft_Cooling_Tower_3.jpg

Most likely some drunken RU soldier dropped their cigarette into the pile of tires

Well Zelensky mentioned it, but didn't really seem to catch much notice.

Ukraine released some PR that they control 1000 square kilometers, looks all of Sudzha as well based off video of them cruising through the town center.

 

Edited August 12 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

Russian soldiers doing in Kursk the best what they can do. Looting of civilian houses

 

[Zoraptor]

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Because, there is absolutely nothing flammable inside the cooling tower, unless you bring it there by hands and fire it up yourself.

The tower itself isn't, but there is plenty of stuff inside it that will cheerfully burn eg fillers.

There are UN and IAEA people on the ground, so we'll probably get something out of them beyond their initial statement.

(for anyone wondering: it's a cooling tower so the whole idea is to exchange heat rapidly. That needs a high surface area to volume ratio for the water being cooled. They do that with plastic/ synthetics* since concrete is terrible-it's a heat insulator let alone its other physical characteristics- and steel and other metals are expensive, and their reliability goes down massively as they get thinned, ie they corrode more quickly and their structural strength degrades. Normally of course it wouldn't be all that flammable anyway, since it'd be full of water, but it isn't operational. And the cooling tower is when it comes down to it a big chimney designed to draw air up itself. Start a fire and it'll still do its job, of drawing air up...

*see here at bottom of page)

[Lexx]

10 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Russian soldiers doing in Kursk the best what they can do. Looting of civilian houses

 

Imagine being a ru civ and hoping ua forces arrive fast, so that your own army won't loot your house.

[Zoraptor]

Second IAEA statement on the ZNPP fire has been released. TLDR; definitely a fire inside the cooling tower with burnt plastic mesh etc, some evidence of structural damage (eg concrete chips) but no evidence so far of cause for either.

[Malcador]

9 hours ago, Lexx said:

Imagine being a ru civ and hoping ua forces arrive fast, so that your own army won't loot your house.

Wonder how common that is in FIBUA situations, thinking about it. 

[Gfted1]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

...FIBUA...

I learned a new acronym today! Huzzah!

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

I learned a new acronym today! Huzzah!

Gotta use those military acronyms to be a REMF wanker. 

[Mamoulian War]

14 hours ago, Lexx said:

Imagine being a ru civ and hoping ua forces arrive fast, so that your own army won't loot your house.

Well, after reading this interview with russian ex-officer, especially the last few paragraphs, they will be happy if, they get only looted. It sums pretty much, how twisted is Russian thinking

As for the local civilians, the former officer believes they will be written off by the Russian authorities. 

17/ "Since this is Russia, we won’t give a **** about the civilians left there. It’s already clear that the locals have been abandoned to fend for themselves — people there are on their own. 

18/ "They’ll level everything with artillery and aviation: after all, what is Kursk Oblast compared to Russia?”

[Malcador]

The IDF says hello.  But jokes aside, if the Ukrainians do dig in in those towns, have to root them out somehow, so I suppose it's not all that twisted a reasoning.

Putin appointed a henchmen to manage or run the defense - https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/08/13/putin-appoints-ex-bodyguard-dyumin-to-oversee-defense-of-kursk-region-lawmaker-says-a86008

Although I do laugh at this - "Later, an anonymous Telegram channel claiming insider knowledge claimed that Putin directed Dyumin to “coordinate all agencies currently operating in the Kursk region.”

Edited August 13 by Malcador

[ShadySands]

5 hours ago, Malcador said:

Gotta use those military acronyms to be a REMF wanker. 

REMF, which I learned here. 

[Zoraptor]

Apparently German authorities have issued an arrest warrant in the Nordstream bombings for a certain- and I swear I'm not making this up- "Volodymyr Z".

[Malcador]

Also from WSJ.

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-real-story-da24839c

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan, according to one officer who participated and three people familiar with it. But later, when the CIA learned of it and asked the Ukrainian president to pull the plug, he ordered a halt, those people said.

Zelensky’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, who was leading the effort, nonetheless forged ahead. "

 

[Lexx]

Why is there suddenly such detail information. Also... really curious that this happens now, while Ukraine is directly attacking Russia? Maybe it's just conspiracy brain, but the timing of the release of that information is kinda awkward.

Edited August 15 by Lexx

[xzar_monty]

On 8/13/2024 at 9:06 AM, Lexx said:

Imagine being a ru civ and hoping ua forces arrive fast, so that your own army won't loot your house.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing is not a Russian specialty.

 

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Also from WSJ.

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-real-story-da24839c

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan, according to one officer who participated and three people familiar with it. But later, when the CIA learned of it and asked the Ukrainian president to pull the plug, he ordered a halt, those people said.

Zelensky’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, who was leading the effort, nonetheless forged ahead. "

 

I thought the US was responsible because they wanted to control the EU through replacing the gas lost  with there own gas resources and supply chain contracts ?

Are we now saying it wasnt the US...that works for me.  I never thought the US was behind it anyway 

Edited August 15 by BruceVC

[Zoraptor]

I'd be very skeptical of all the information coming out on nordstream. Pointing solely to Zaluzhny doing a rogue op when he's conveniently fired is, well, convenient. As for people who are facing criminal charges giving interviews to the WSJ... lol.

Mostly though, and as always it's the stuff you're meant to forget as soon as it becomes inconvenient. To whit, current story is:

Quote

Operating in pitch-dark, icy waters [at 80m depth], they handled a powerful explosive known as HMX that was wired to timer-controlled detonators. A small amount of the light explosive would be sufficient to rip open the high-pressure pipes.

Denmark: Multiple 100s of kgs of explosives used. Sweden: 50m of pipeline destroyed with a 250m debris field. Hmm.

Also kind of funny if the CIA told them not to do it given the responses. Especially since the article says specifically that Germany was informed.

[pmp10]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

Why is there suddenly such detail information. Also... really curious that this happens now, while Ukraine is directly attacking Russia? Maybe it's just conspiracy brain, but the timing of the release of that information is kinda awkward.

This was likely an open secret for a while now.
Chances are that news release was timed to distract from Kursk.

Just another shot in the propaganda wars. 

[Malcador]

Won't distract from the Ukrainian offensive at all.

[Zoraptor]

I'm not really sure why they'd want to distract from the offensive at this point. Whether or not it's actually going great on the ground it's certainly going great on twitter/ facebook/ reddit and in (most) news media.

Personally, I wonder if they got wind that Russia was going to take another run at getting a UN investigation going. The reason the western countries gave for rejecting that in March 2023 was basically the old canard of complementarity; ie that western investigators were already investigating, and their investigations are intrinsically Enough. It's the sort of thing where a veto looks awful but a wait and see looks far less so, but eventually you do have to actually put something on the table.

Indeed, there's a certain amount of amusement to be had reading back over the comments made at the time when- at least supposedly*- many of the countries making them knew who was behind it and had since before it happened. Including Germany, who needed an extra 16 months investigation from then and just shy of 24 in total to confirm what they, supposedly, already knew.

*I'm extremely skeptical about the details of the WSJ article for multiple reasons and don't take it particularly seriously, but that is what its implications actually are.

 

[kanisatha]

This in Foreign Affairs today:

Ukraine on the Offensive: How Kyiv’s Attack on Russia—and Successful Defense of Its Northern Flank—Has Changed the War

[Malcador]

She touches on headlines in that, but probably shouldn't. Overreaction in all the reporting, Kharkiv offensive spelled doom for the world, now the Kursk one has completely turned the tide, etc.  "It allows Kyiv to address its partners from a position of strength" made me chuckle a bit, as well.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/russia-has-diverted-several-thousand-troops-from-occupied-ukraine-to-counter-kursk-offensive-us-officials-say/index.html

If true, then at least less reserves in the south is an accomplishment.  So far good progress, they dropped one of three bridges over the Seym river, Russians will have pull back behind it.

 

 

Edited August 16 by Malcador

[BruceVC]

Absolutely perfect opportunity to migrate to Russia. This applies to those who cant live anymore in the liberal  realities   of Western countries and believe in traditional values. You dont even need to pass the Russian language test. Migration to Russia and getting citizenship has never been easier 

 

[Lexx]

This can't possibly go wrong at all.