Well, The Reactors Don’t Appear to Have Been Blown Up Yet…


This week, both Russia and the Ukraine were saying that the other was going to blow up the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which is the biggest nuclear plant in Europe. This would cause nuclear radiation to leak out all over the place, potentially drifting towards Western Europe.

Basically, Zelensky claimed on July 4 that Russia had mined the reactors and was planning to blow up the plant (which they have controlled for 16 months and view as Russian property) for some unspecified reason.


Zelensky said they were going to blow it on the night of July 5, and Russia, countering this, said that Zelensky must be planning to blow the plant with missiles on July 5.

Obviously, if the plant did blow, it would be the Ukrainians. The media would freak out and blame Russia and this would be used to justify a NATO invasion.

For the record, when Russia was freaking out and making a lot of noise to try to prevent the Ukraine from doing this, they called the UN and asked them to check for mines. The UN confirmed that there are no mines.

RT:

Specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have found no signs of any mines at Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), the UN agency said in a statement on Wednesday, following an inspection carried out by its staff at the site.

The experts checked some parts of the facility, including “sections of the perimeter of the large cooling pond,” over the past days and weeks, the statement said, adding that they also “conducted regular walkdowns across the site.”

So far, no “visible indications of mines or explosives” have been observed, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in the statement.

At time of writing, it’s now late night in the region, and the Ukrainians have yet to attack the plant.

There have been several other situations like this during the war, and the Ukraine has actually attacked the plant before. I think Russia is wise to make a lot of noise when Zelensky starts giving dates for the plan to blow it up, but overall, I think that this is sort of like a drill: they are drilling it into people’s heads that Russia will – at some point and for no reason – blow up their own nuclear plant.

The threats from Zelensky also caused serious panic.

I would just assume that the US has done AI simulations and come to the conclusion that the best way to gain popular support for an invasion of the Ukraine by NATO is to blow up the power plant.

Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.

We’ve also heard recently about negotiations, and I suppose that this threat to blow up the plant and use that as a pretext for a NATO invasion might be viewed as useful to the West.

Who the hell knows.

As a basic matter, it could probably go either way – maybe NATO full invasion, maybe total surrender.

It is clear that if NATO was going to invade, they would go ahead and wait until every Ukrainian male is dead.