>Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporozhskiy Nuclear Power Plant has turned Europe’s largest nuclear station into part of an active war zone, repeatedly exposing the site to explosions, drone activity and losses of external power.
That's really hilarious.
Who's attacking the plant with drones? What's exploding? Why external power gets lost?
That's mystery, enigma, riddle.
Hmm, that must be Russia, right? Attacking the plant it controls.
Why exactly Bellona cannot say that Ukraine attacks Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant with drones, even deliberately targets and murder Russian civilian nuclear engineers? [0]
>And this year, projectiles struck the grounds of Iran’s operating Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant during the war there, though no reactor damage or radioactive release was reported.
Right, whose projectiles was that?
And what Bellona can say? "Bellona has followed—and criticized—the project since construction began in 2006".
Forget "hilarious", Bellona fills me with disgust.
I don't think so; prior to 2026, the Russian economy was flourishing, partly due to very high crude oil prices and the existence of a "shadow fleet" of oil tankers.
Since 2026, that shadow fleet has been significantly hampered by Ukrainian actions in the Black Sea and elsewhere (notably, Norway and France have boarded vessels); China has faced pressure to stop buying Russian oil, and Russia is now selling its oil at half price because nearly nobody wants it (only India still buy it).
In an economy that was only driven by oil export (their Western gas pipeline had unfortunately exploded a few years ago), this is a terrible situation,
I have read posts online from (well-off) Russians who say they are somewhat despairing about the economic situation.
Similar in the sense that they captured and extracted them, but you are right that Germans were not as central to the actual operations of the Soviet program.
Authoritarian dictatorships will always behave in seemingly irrational ways (from the perspective of sane politicians).
Dictators will always put their personal ambition and "career" first before their country's interests.
If Russia behaved rationally they would have made a deal with Ukraine (decades ago) that protected the rights of the Russian minorities in Ukraine and continued massively profiting from gas and oil exports into Europe.
> they would have made a deal with Ukraine (decades ago) that protected the rights of the Russian minorities in Ukraine and continued massively profiting from gas and oil exports into Europe.
Russia did, many times, last time in 2010.[0]
But the US and the EU didn't like it, so the coup in 2014 happened with American help[1] which overthrew democratically elected president of Ukraine who introduced the law protecting Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens.[2]
The law was repelled right after the coup and Crimeans supported the reunion with Russia.
Parliament did not vote to impeach the president, which would have involved formally charging Yanukovych with a crime, a review of the charge by the Constitutional Court, and a three-fourths majority vote in parliament—at least 338 votes in favor.[0]
In English, impeachment is often used loosely to mean parliamentary removal from office, which happened there. You're the one spreading misinformation with cope about foreign coups when Ukrainians simply kicked your clown out of their house.
I can't believe people are saying that with straight face. How on Earth can you see all the wars that the US has started or had a hand in igniting and still think that?
I think you maybe believing that War would not have happened or there was some other approach without war, ever? I'm sorry but such beliefs are as wishful thinking as buying the world a coke.
> I can't believe people are saying that with straight face.
That's the consequence of a broken education system when it comes to teaching history. Empires rarely come to terms with what they did, and never while they're in power.
>His staff literally were absorbed into the Russian sand US space programs.
Not really in case of the USSR. German group in Russia was isolated and Korolev didn't like competition. Soviet space program started by replicating German rocket, but once all production chains were created, it was off on its own course.
I highly recommend English translation of memoirs of Boris Chertok[0] to anyone interested in the history of Soviet space program.
That was just because the Russian's didn't trust "their" Germans as much as the Americans trusted "theirs". Operation Osoaviakhim was mostly about knowledge extraction, not about cooperation. The other difference was that the "Russian Germans" didn't go to Russia on their own will (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim).
Once the knowledge was "extracted" the Germans were allowed to return though (good thing Stalin was already dead at that time).
Former Junkers engineer Brunolf Baade then went on to build the first and only German jet airliner for East Germany - which then of course was cancelled as soon as it was ready to enter production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baade_152).
Americans didn't trust either. But then Sputnik happened and Americans only had oopsnik[0], so they turned to neglected Redstone made by von Braun[1][2]
>"The effort has returned around 200 vehicles to Canada, including some from Russia.
Last month, Mr. Cresswell said, six stolen cars arrived from Russia.
“It’s groundbreaking to get cars repatriated from Russia,” he said. “The idea was once that if a car reaches that soil, the car is gone.”
Why would the Russian authorities return stolen cars to Western countries? One explanation is that Russian law prohibits the registration of vehicles listed in Interpol’s database. Returning them is one way to prevent unusable stolen cars from piling up. Western officials say that Moscow is broadly cooperative when it comes to crimes like auto theft."
So why again it's a story about Russia?
>Just as a network of smugglers and dilapidated tankers expanded to evade oil embargoes, criminal groups moved to fill the void when Western automakers left the Russian market and many countries banned auto exports there.
So now anyone who doesn't obey western illegal extraterritorial sanctions is a "smuggler"?
That's really hilarious.
Who's attacking the plant with drones? What's exploding? Why external power gets lost?
That's mystery, enigma, riddle.
Hmm, that must be Russia, right? Attacking the plant it controls.
Why exactly Bellona cannot say that Ukraine attacks Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant with drones, even deliberately targets and murder Russian civilian nuclear engineers? [0]
>And this year, projectiles struck the grounds of Iran’s operating Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant during the war there, though no reactor damage or radioactive release was reported.
Right, whose projectiles was that?
And what Bellona can say? "Bellona has followed—and criticized—the project since construction began in 2006".
Forget "hilarious", Bellona fills me with disgust.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukrainian-d...
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