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They can’t win on the battlefield so they terrorise the planet – the facts behind Russia’s nuclear threat

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Liubov Abravitova is the Ambassador of Ukraine to South Africa.

No one is willing to negotiate an unacceptable genocidal deal with terrorists, so the Russians are preparing to blow up the the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – the biggest in Europe.

I want to start our conversation today by wholeheartedly congratulating us: Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs has named our weekly meetings here as one of the top two threats to Russia’s propaganda in South Africa. I’m happy beyond words: when terrorists are afraid and offended, you know you’re doing everything right. 

All of our information is factual, supported by multiple photo and video evidence, and is verified by domestic and foreign journalists and experts. Russia’s top “war expert”, on the other hand, is a has-been American actor Steven Seagal. And if you think I am joking, unfortunately I’m not. Russia brought the out-of-work American actor to a war crime scene in Olenivka – where on 29 July Russians burned our POWs alive – to assess the explosion sight and provide commentary. All of the real international experts were, of course, denied access. Do what you will with this information, but just remember the level of “expertise” when you read anything produced by Russian “media”. 

But I digress; our main topic of discussion today is the nuclear terrorist threat from Russia. Though, before I tell you how they are threatening our planet with nuclear contamination, I would like to explain why they are resorting to this.

Russia is not fully losing now per se, because it is a country of 144 million with the second-most-powerful military in the world and a bottomless defence budget. And we are a country of 40 million with a military budget that wasn’t meant to fight 144 million terrorists, murderers, looters and rapists invading our country. Nevertheless, it’s been half a year, and the “second army in the world” hasn’t achieved a single goal, which they claimed to get done “in three days tops”. They ran from under Kyiv; their demilitarisation claims were apparently aimed at themselves, since Russia is definitely way more demilitarised then when they started in February, and I cannot say the same about Ukraine.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Russian forces in Ukraine reveal their true faces of horror – as torture terrorists 

They’ve lost tons of machinery, we sank Putin’s pride and joy (the flagship of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, Moskva), over the past few months we’ve destroyed literally most of the big weaponry warehouses in the occupied territories and just a few days ago the biggest Russian airbase was completely destroyed in Saky, Crimea. They’ve lost up to 100 military personnel and definitely all of their warplanes on the base. And while Russia’s propaganda claims of “no casualties and all of the aircraft safe and intact”, anyone with the ability to see can understand that they are lying through their teeth. The base is completely destroyed and we have satellite images to prove it.

I cannot decide what is worse: admitting that your biggest airbase or flagship was attacked and destroyed, or claiming incompetence every time. And this is what they are officially claiming: improper weaponry storage that has detonated, smoking, sudden combustion. Their propaganda seems to be broken to come up with those excuses.

To sum up: we haven’t won yet, but they are definitely clearly losing. Add collapsing economy and you’ll have the explanation for why they have become nuclear terrorists – they have no other means to win this war or to get Ukraine to start negotiations now.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Ukraine’s children have become a frontline target for the invading Russian forces

Russia desperately needs a ceasefire. They need to claim the territory they’ve occupied so far so they can at least claim it as a “victory”, therefore they desperately need Ukraine to agree to negotiations. Every propaganda channel, Putin’s press secretary, minister of foreign affairs, all of the propagandists, and Putin himself are screaming “negotiations” every chance they get. And since no one is willing to negotiate an unacceptable genocidal deal with terrorists, they are preparing to blow up the biggest nuclear plant in Europe – the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia power station.

As of today, the facts are:

  • Russian forces have occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant;
  • The plant has been under Russian occupation since early March;
  • Russian forces have turned the biggest nuclear plant in Europe into a military base;
  • Russian forces are launching attacks on Ukrainian positions from the military plant;
  • Russian forces have mined the reactors;
  • On the evening of 6 August, Russian invaders fired rockets at Energodar and hit the power plant site directly next to the dry spent nuclear fuel storage facility. Russian rockets have already damaged part of a giant Russian-controlled nuclear power plant, but there has been no radiation leak. “Apparently, they aimed specifically at the casks with spent fuel, which are stored in the open near the site of shelling,” Energoatom* said in a Telegram post. Three radiation detection monitors at the site were damaged, making it “currently impossible” to sense and respond to a radiation leak in a timely manner, the post said. Ukrainian firefighters responded on Friday to a rocket attack on a residential building in Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s east. “There are still risks of hydrogen leakage and sputtering of radioactive substances, and the fire hazard is also high,” the nuclear energy company said in an earlier post; and
  • Russian forces are targeting civilian homes every day from the nuclear plant. They are using it as a base from which to launch artillery barrages at the Ukrainian-controlled town of Nikopol across the Dnipro.

These are the facts that undoubtedly make Russia a nuclear terrorist country. They can’t win on the battlefield so they terrorise the planet. As for my commentary on this matter, first and foremost I want to remind you that the Russians themselves claim that the irresponsibility of their military forces is the main reason their flagship was sunk and the biggest Russian airbase in Crimea was blown up. Yet, they are somehow trying to claim their forces are capable and competent and are protecting the plant. 

We have also seen more than one video of Russian rockets malfunctioning and coming back to the place of their launch. So, we have an incompetent army firing faulty missiles from Europe’s largest nuclear plant. That is nuclear terrorism 101. 

Third, if Russian nuclear terrorists succeed, the world famine would be devastating; there are no crops you can grow and consume after a nuclear disaster. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Russia’s destruction of Ukrainian heritage in numbers

Last, I’m sure they are preparing some sort of provocation, as terrorists aren’t really worried about the world, and fanatics also don’t care about themselves. Energoatom has put out a statement that the head of the radiation, chemical and biological protection troops of the Russian armed forces, Major-General Valerii Vasyliev, who now commands the garrison at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, told his soldiers that “there will be either Russian land or a scorched desert here”. Quote from Vasyliev: “As you know, we have mined all the important facilities of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. And we’re not hiding it from the enemy. We warned them. The enemy knows that the station will be either Russian or no one. We are prepared for the consequences of this step. And you, the liberating soldiers, must understand that we have no other choice. And if the toughest order comes, we must fulfil it with honour!”

Truly a disgrace to the human race.

* Energoatom, the National Nuclear Energy Generating Company, is the largest power producer in Ukraine.

Liubov Abravitova is Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa.

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  • Beyond Fedup says:

    Long live Ukraine💪👏🙏♥️👊. One day the Russian people will wake up and there will be terrible retribution on that evil mass-murderer that is the KGB thug Putin and his vile Kremlin. They can lie and run, but when sons, fathers, brothers, husbands etc don’t return, they will know that they have been deliberately lied to and deceived in typical and cowardly state propaganda fashion. The anger of the people will be unleashed with unlimited fury and vengeance, and rightly so. The whole of the decent and free world is on your side – I can’t say the same for my hypocritical and obnoxious SA government. Keep fighting for your freedom and sovereignty and give those Putin beasts the hiding they deserve and send them to hell where they belong. God bless and save Ukraina🙏🙏🙏

  • Penny Sawyer says:

    So.. once again we S Africans have to bear the Shame of being SAfrican. Ist it was the dreadful Nats apartheid govt .Now its the Pandori half baked ANC. Russian Roulette anyone ?

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