Back Story Newsletter
Good morning,
War In Ukraine
I have been inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where in 1986 a meltdown occurred at one of four power plants and it was a stark and frightening moment to contemplate the dangers uncontrolled nuclear energy. That plant is now under Russia army control.
What I never understood until I stood in the control room of the reactor, is how massive and frightening the structures are plunging more than 14 storeys below ground where the reactors burn and are only controlled, but never tamed.
Chernobyl melted down during a shutdown test, and a flawed design and controller mistakes contributed to an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction releasing enormous amounts of energy.
What you need to know is the reactors rely on cooling, from water pumps fed by electricity. Any disruption around the plant can create a global unprecedented catastrophe.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky accused Russia of “nuclear terror” by firing on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which created a fire overnight. The fire was reportedly extinguished but the Russian troops continue to surround the largest nuclear plant in Europe.
Why would anyone fire on a nuclear power plant? It’s some kind of madness, likely by design, and I fear they may do it again.
Zaporizhzhia has 6 reactors. It is one of four nuclear facilities in Ukraine not including the Chernobyl facility which is “shut down” but nuclear contamination lurks 14 storeys below ground. That’s why its covered in a concrete sarcophagous.
Make no mistake that President Putin appears ready to use any method to take Ukraine under his control and cause chaos in Europe. He is flooding neighbouring countries with over a million refugees and thats growing by the hour.
His siege of cities is threatening to destroy even the capitol of Kyiv while he lies to Russians and tells them this is only a limited military operation to rid Ukraine of nazis and stop Ukraine from getting a nuclear weapon.
Putin’s state media don’t report that President Zelensky is jewish, and that Ukraine willingly gave up its nuclear weapons in the mid 90’s and has stated it has no desire to pursue a weapons program.
The disinformation is easily taken from Putin’s KGB handbook. Confuse, lie, strip people of the truth and then you have total control. It’s worked for Putin since 2000.
Outside of Russia, Putin tells the West he won’t stop this war and the worst is yet to come. He has threatened us with nuclear weapons and an escalating confrontation that has all kinds of deadly and deepening scenarios.
Macrons aids claim the French President told Putin "your country will pay dearly because it will end up as an isolated country, weakened and under sanctions for a very long time," Macron said in the phone call, according to his office. He also "called on Vladimir Putin to not lie to himself."
I don’t think Putin lies to himself, but he is driven by an ego that doesn’t let him find an off ramp to this conflict, and he has delusional dreams about restoring the Soviet Empire to fight an imagined attack by NATO on Russia.
At a certain point, we stopped trying to understand the former leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin and just tried to contain him.
So the sanctions, and the move to reinforce Europe’s eastern flank are at the minimum a sober strategy to weaken Putin internally and cut off his the money that fuels his army.
Why are sanctions not including oil exports from Russia? The White House does not support a ban on Russian oil imports, according to press secretary Jen Psaki, despite even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joining in on the calls for the U.S. to cease buying Moscow's fuel.
'We don't have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy, and that would raise prices at the gas pump for the American people,' Psaki told reporters Thursday.
Therein lies a weakness Putin will keep leveraging as he blackmails the west with energy, while his troops storm across Ukraine and then potentially Moldova, and Central Asia, and possibly the Baltics and into nations like Bulgaria and Romania on the Black Sea.
The Russian President seems detached from the suffering he’s causing, and we’ve seen his use of bombs in civilian areas in Chechnya, and Syria for example.
His speech to Russians yesterday, offering money for families of soldiers and more talk of nazis and threats to Russia from Ukraine, shows he is not prepared to step back from taking control of all of Ukraine including the Western part, and that he is committed to a brutal storming of the capitol of Kyiv.
The Russian leader has shown us he is capable of committing any atrocity including attacking a nuclear power plant. I fear this gruesome conflict in Ukraine has more shocking chapters, now being written by its chief author Vladimir Putin back in Moscow.
Please excuse spelling errors as I rush to put this letter out this morning.
Have a good day everyone. Share the newsletter and subscribe to it.
Dana