This development is a tactical prerequisite for besieging or attacking Kyiv. The exclusion zone covers the shortest route to the city from Belarus - the shortest route available to Russian forces.
It’s also perhaps a strategic coup for Russia in two ways - but it could also be a boon to Ukraine. The coming days will elucidate which party most profits - probably Russia.
Russia’s first strategic gain is simply one of properly executed rapid maneuver armored warfare. They now hold a redoubt that is difficult to safely attack, threatens Kyiv and the entire Dnipro plain, and preemptively protects their politically weakest supply line, Belarus.
Russia’s second potential strategic boon here is more modern - they have seized an infowar high ground.
The Financial Times this morning quotes an anonymous Russian security official claiming Chernobyl’s occupation creates a potent psychological deterrent against both strategic escalation and subtle tactical interference from the West.
The disaster of 86 looms large in the minds of European polities, especially the Nordics. Placing the radioactive zone in the battle space may chill European feet.
And in American minds, Chernobyl is unavoidably associated with the USSR and memories of a more dangerous iteration of Russia. (I expect many on this side of the Atlantic think the plant is in Russia.) Occupying it elevates the danger and the power associated with Russia nearer to Cold War levels of respect, which is a fundamental goal of Putin’s revanchism.
However, in the Slavic societies of post-Soviet eastern Europe - including Russians themselves - Chernobyl connotes the corruption and failure of the USSR. Gorbachev himself blamed the Union’s destruction entirely on the loss of scientific and nuclear prestige, and national confidence, engendered by the disaster.
So Russia risks reminding all their former satellite peoples of the last empire’s outcome. Ukraine’s morale and propaganda may turn the loss into a victory - especially if the Nordics polities, and German citizenry, favor outrage over trepidation. In this pursuit, Zelensky spoke several hours ago with Sweden’s PM about specifically the Chernobyl battle - and Ukraine’s FM called it an “attack on Europe.”
I hope desperately that Ukraine gains greater European unity, and Russia gets further opprobrium among those Europeans who yet still take an understanding view of Putin’s new imperialism.
But I suspect the affair will on the whole benefit Russia. All else aside, it’s clear they are fighting a conventional ground war. They need the hard tactical advantage of occupying this particular 1,000 square miles to win; even if they lose the information battle they have advanced their cause.
> This development is a tactical prerequisite for besieging or attacking Kyiv. The exclusion zone covers the shortest route to the city from Belarus - the shortest route available to Russian forces.
Most probably this + the area being relatively empty makes it easier to pass through.
As a slav (balkans), chernobyl to me personally just represents the corruption and totaly failure of communism, where everything has to look great, but what's underneath the facade, doesn't matter. If things fail, you can usually just lie about that... like they did with chernobyl too.
> I hope desperately that Ukraine gains greater European unity, and Russia gets further opprobrium among those Europeans who yet still take an understanding view of Putin’s new imperialism.
Again, as someone from the balkans (even though this part is a small separate country now and a member of NATO and EU), who's seen the 1999 nato bombings in yugoslavia firsthand, and who remembers a couple of saudis flying some planes, and usa attacking afghanistan, and the "weapons of mass destruction" iraq "had", and syria and lybia, etc., I really cannot comprehend all the outrage at putin, when all the outraged countries literally have soldiers occupying some other foreign countries right this moment.
Again, as a balkaner, war is bad (even if we were the lucky ones, because the last one lasted only 10 days here, and the most notable action was shooting down a helicopter carrying bread), but if your country is currently doing the same as putin is, your leaders should really shut the fuck up.
chernobyl to me personally just represents the corruption and total failure of communism
Thank you for sharing this. It gives some weight and reality to what I claimed above: 'in the Slavic societies of post-Soviet eastern Europe - including Russians themselves - Chernobyl connotes the corruption and failure of the USSR.'
I really cannot comprehend all the outrage at putin, when all the outraged countries literally have soldiers occupying some other foreign countries right this moment.
With respect, sir, you are being foolish here - in three ways:
First, in thinking that all military occupation - all war - is equally evil. In thinking that America's wars, or American's bases in Germany, can possibly justify this invasion.
Russia's crusade to defeat Hitler was justified (and saved the world). That's true even though they helped with the evil partition of Poland in '39. It's true no matter what.
Second, in thinking that this is a conflict between America and Russia. Russian propaganda is happy to say it is. But the hard facts: Russia has invaded and seeks to annex another Slavic power. America could simply go home and the war would not stop. In fact it probably wouldn't stop until the entire Tsarist-Slavic world had been reconquered, including your Balkan people.
Third, in not being outraged. In fact, I'm angry at you for not being angry!
You sit there, Balkan Slav, in your new democracy, under the EU's economic umbrella, free of the Balkan's once endemic ethnic wars, posting your opinions on the internet with the careless ease of one confidant in their right of free speech, confidant in their democracy.
You haughtily justify Russian invasion with the mention of the Americans wars, which have ended and from which we gained little or nothing - and which were not territorial conquests, as this is.
You don't even imagine that Russia, unresisted, would very soon become interested in the brother Slavs of the Balkans. In you. In your fragile new democracy. Where is your solidarity with the citizens of your fellow democracies? We're in this together.
You are aware that after WW2, there were many wars, from korea and vietnam, to more recent ones, form iraq I&II, afghanistan, syria, libya etc.? If you forget about the balkan wars in the 1990s (because those were our, "internal" wars), the only other war here was the nato bombing of serbia (when i was born, we were still one country, yugoslavia), so the last outside agression in our places was caused by nato, ie. mostly americans.
Yeah, sure, propaganda, "protecting the freedom"... but whose freedom was USA protecting when they attacked afghanistan? Why did they even attack it? Look at iraq for example... and the "weapons of mass destruction", that were never to be found. Russians say that they're protecting their own minority in ukraine, but atleast they have a minority there, compared to nato, who couldn't even plant WMDs in iraq. In the end, we all know that it's for resources and war-strategic causes.
Both historically and statistically, we have more to be afraid of americans here, than from russians.
You may choose to believe that America's empire, its history, and its reasons for existing, are identical with Putin and Russia's reasons, means, and goal in this war.
If you believe this - if you believe all morality is so relative - I recommend you move to Russia and take your despotism pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy that seems to frustrate you so much.
I don't understand your infowar reasoning at all. Pripyat and its immediate vicinity is just an unpopulated area with a decomissioned nuclear power station in it.
Is the subtext that Putin plans to blow it up, or what? I'm pretty sure that attacking central Europe with a dirty bomb would make it very difficult for NATO to avoid invoking Article 5.
Is the subtext that Putin plans to blow it up, or what?
Information war does not need a rational subtext - I suspect it is more effective when it hasn't any. Even better if multiple rationalities are all slightly plausible yet all slightly absurd.
The fundamental tactic is to obscure truth with a flood of bullshit. One thus removes the surety of known & agreed facts from both the politics of enemy's polity and the planning of the enemy's military.
With its rapidity, and its dynamic reaction the the enemy's information disposition, Russia's approach is to conventional propaganda what blitzkrieg was to trench warfare - largely the same tools, but radically different tactics. To stretch the analogy, the internet takes the tank's place as the key disruptive technology which both inspires and requires new tactics.
I'm pretty sure that attacking central Europe with a dirty bomb would make it very difficult for NATO to avoid invoking Article 5.
This threat is, I'm pretty sure, not intended. Russia already has enough nukes and Putin has already rather clearly threatened nuclear escalation if any nation "interferes." There is perhaps an implicit threat intended - "nice continent you got here - and, oh, look, Russia is now in charge of protecting its on-going habitability!"
Think of it like this:
Russia wants to be a respected great power. Putin's revisionist fantasy casts Russia as the primary arbiter of Europe's political order.
Chernobyl is an on-going danger to the entire peninsula's safety. It must have a robust institutional custodian - perhaps for centuries to come. It may not be as dangerous, but that cannot be assumed, it must be proven conclusively (and even then concern will linger: democracies are quite skilled at turning society's vague, broadly-held fears into irrational policy).
Therefore Europe cannot ostracize any polity controlling the exclusion zone indefinitely. The EU paid for the current sarcophagus: managing this risk is a vital interest of the entire Union.
More broadly: fear need not be (and usually is not) rational in order to be acted upon - especially in democracies.
Pripyat and its immediate vicinity is just an unpopulated area with a decomissioned nuclear power station in it.
You are rational and informed, and perhaps correct (I don't know). As far as facts actually matter here, however, your analysis is incomplete.
The exclusion zone is an unpopulated area with a decommissioned nuclear power plant *which happens to be directly between the Russian army and their objective*. Any conventional attack on Kyiv from Belarus must include this area - even if it was truly unexceptional.
But the facts don't matter. "Chernobyl" is a totem in American and European minds. The very fact of this HN post's popularity attests such.
Russian strategists hope, I think, that they can gain an edge by capturing the totem. They think to turn its symbolic meanings to their own ends.
Ukrainians also hope to use Chernobyl's various meanings in the minds of their allies to their advantage, as a warning and an impetus for solidarity.
It’s also perhaps a strategic coup for Russia in two ways - but it could also be a boon to Ukraine. The coming days will elucidate which party most profits - probably Russia.
Russia’s first strategic gain is simply one of properly executed rapid maneuver armored warfare. They now hold a redoubt that is difficult to safely attack, threatens Kyiv and the entire Dnipro plain, and preemptively protects their politically weakest supply line, Belarus.
Russia’s second potential strategic boon here is more modern - they have seized an infowar high ground.
The Financial Times this morning quotes an anonymous Russian security official claiming Chernobyl’s occupation creates a potent psychological deterrent against both strategic escalation and subtle tactical interference from the West.
The disaster of 86 looms large in the minds of European polities, especially the Nordics. Placing the radioactive zone in the battle space may chill European feet.
And in American minds, Chernobyl is unavoidably associated with the USSR and memories of a more dangerous iteration of Russia. (I expect many on this side of the Atlantic think the plant is in Russia.) Occupying it elevates the danger and the power associated with Russia nearer to Cold War levels of respect, which is a fundamental goal of Putin’s revanchism.
However, in the Slavic societies of post-Soviet eastern Europe - including Russians themselves - Chernobyl connotes the corruption and failure of the USSR. Gorbachev himself blamed the Union’s destruction entirely on the loss of scientific and nuclear prestige, and national confidence, engendered by the disaster.
So Russia risks reminding all their former satellite peoples of the last empire’s outcome. Ukraine’s morale and propaganda may turn the loss into a victory - especially if the Nordics polities, and German citizenry, favor outrage over trepidation. In this pursuit, Zelensky spoke several hours ago with Sweden’s PM about specifically the Chernobyl battle - and Ukraine’s FM called it an “attack on Europe.”
I hope desperately that Ukraine gains greater European unity, and Russia gets further opprobrium among those Europeans who yet still take an understanding view of Putin’s new imperialism.
But I suspect the affair will on the whole benefit Russia. All else aside, it’s clear they are fighting a conventional ground war. They need the hard tactical advantage of occupying this particular 1,000 square miles to win; even if they lose the information battle they have advanced their cause.