The Daily Beast reported Sunday that some experts believe there are other intentions behind Russia's seizure of their nuclear facilities. While some feared seizing the reactors was so that Russians could use the nuclear materials to make dirty bombs, experts explain that there are far worse reasons.
According to Dr. Robert J. Bunker, research director at the security consultancy ℅ Futures LLC, the Russians are likely to go after the three other Ukrainian nuclear facilities after taking over Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhya last week.
"Airborne assault could be utilized as an early component of a ground force offensive drive,” he said, to grab the other three plants.
Russia said that they took the reactors because Ukraine was the one behind making thermonuclear bombs, which is false. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharaova then told Russian media outlets that Ukraine was trying to use the nuclear materials to bomb their own people. That's been part of the allegations Russians have made from the beginning. They've said that they are there to "liberate" the Ukrainians and before the UN, when the Russian ambassador claimed Ukraine was bombing themselves.
“That was a baseless invention by Moscow to justify its invasion and seizures of nuclear power plants,” said retired military intelligence officer Hal Kempfer to the Daily Beast.
Putin is known for manufacturing propaganda. It has led many Russians to believe the narrative and conflict with their Ukrainian family members explaining what's happening on the ground.
“I think the Russian narrative is meant to obscure Putin's strategic objectives as well as use propaganda to make the Ukrainian defenders appear as aggressors and war criminals that must be stopped,” Bunker agreed. “Also, if a radiological release or nuclear event took place the Russians might try to label it as part of a false flag Ukrainian or even NATO backed plot."
The second reason that Putin might want the plans is that about 50 percent of Ukraine's electrical grid is run by nuclear power. Putin could kill the lights for most of Ukraine. That said, 2.7 million people have already left Ukraine with more trying to flee.
“There is strategic operation value in controlling energy and communication centers and choke points,” the Beast quoted retired Marine Colonel G.I. Wilson. “That aspect has considerable merit [for the Russians].”
“Turning off the power nationwide—as [Russian force] have done on a smaller scale in Mariupol—in the middle of winter creates mass hardship and suffering for the Ukrainian population, and that is apparently a weapon Putin feels free to utilize,” Kempfer said.
Read the full report in the Daily Beast.
