For those waking up after spending the evening watching a live feed of Russian forces firing missiles at a nuclear plant, and then invading that plant with military forces, the whole event may now seem surreal. For those who weren’t watching along — it was real. Russia didn’t just attack a nuclear plant, it went out miles of its way to attack a nuclear plant that isn’t near any major city, along a road that forms a major access route, or close to any critical bridge. The nuclear plant wasn’t an accidental recipient of stray bombs. It was the focus of the attack.
However, there is one group of people who won’t be worrying about that this morning. They won’t be wondering if there has been a radiation leak (not so far, says the IAEA) or fretting about what would happen if one or more of the six reactor cores was breached (not Chernobyl, but also not good) and they won’t be pondering why Russian leadership would instruct the military to engage in an act both ISIS and al Qaeda thought too heinous to carry out.
That group is: Russians.
While some early interviews following the invasion may have singled out English-speaking Russians who were horrified about what was happening, a whole sweep of interviews by CNN shows many Russians are absolutely supportive of actions in Ukraine, fully accepting of Vladimir Putin’s claims for why Russian troops are in the neighboring nation, and dismissive of any idea that Russia is doing anything, anything at all, wrong.
As the BBC reports, even Russians who are in Ukraine, are finding it impossible to convince family back home of what’s actually happening. That includes one young woman whose old mother continued to insist that Russians would not actually attack civilians, and that “Ukrainians are killing their own people.”
"It really scared me when my mum exactly quoted Russian TV,” said the young woman. “They are just brainwashing people. And people trust them.”
If this is hard to imagine, after Russia has already brutally smashed Chechnya, and Georgia, and Syria, killing thousands of civilians in each, just think of a nation where almost everyone watches Fox News and only Fox News. Then think of trying to convince them of the truth.
Friday, Mar 4, 2022 · 1:54:31 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
There are still plenty of new examples of Ukrainians capturing Russian equipment, destroying Russian equipment, or coming across Russian equipment left behind when it ran out of gas or broke down. However, since the Russian tactic has changed to one of standing back and blasting civilian areas, these captures represent a smaller degradation of Russia’s ability to cause harm.
Friday, Mar 4, 2022 · 1:57:58 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
None of us did. As it happened, I had a live few of the plant open on my desktop in time to see some shots in the background and then a few parachute flare lighting up the area. By the time I got out a “What the...” a GRAD system was slinging missiles across the space toward the buildings of the nuclear plant and something was already on fire.
It didn’t seem to be so much a battle — because I’m not sure that Ukraine actually had any armor on site, and Russia definitely did — as a deliberate shelling of the plant accompanied by a small arms skirmish among scattered groups of infantry.
Friday, Mar 4, 2022 · 2:08:10 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Several reports have suggested that Russia has been extremely nervous about using its planes in this conflict. And there seems to be good reason; according to the Ukrainian military, at least 33 Russian jets have been shot down during the conflict.
Images show the pilot of this Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber bailed out after the plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. A search is underway to locate that pilot, who had just made a bombing run over civilian residences.
Friday, Mar 4, 2022 · 2:37:11 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
This morning, there are genuinely horrific images of soldiers from both sides lying in the streets of Ukrainian towns and cities, many of their bodies shattered or burned almost beyond recognition of once being human beings. Here’s a reminder of a why I’m very rarely showing such images.
I’m assuming the kneepads are the ones these kids were using for skateboarding two weeks ago.
Friday, Mar 4, 2022 · 3:00:30 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
If it seems strange that so many cars are zipping past this convoy without any conflict, that’s because these vehicles are still in Russia. In fact, they are north of Belarus, and near the Baltic nations of Latvia and Estonia. It’s unclear what relationship they have to operations in Ukraine, but this seems like a really odd time for Russia to be conducting any training exercises.