The meat of this conversation hinges on ong fiercely adhering to being skeptical about every piece of information coming out of the fog of war, whereas poopy wants to believe some of it is true.

I'm kinda in awe of ong's ability to remain logically distant from this and to provide a fairly consistently independent perspective.

Though it is frustrating, to have every piece of information you try to use to understand what's actually happening called into question.
I feel that on poopy's side of things, too.


I think ultimately ong's right. We can't trust any single piece of information, and the echo chamber of news can make it seem like something is coming from multiple sources when it's just a lot of repetition w/o fact-checking.

But I also think that when a preponderance of evidence in live videos coming not only from the war zone but also from nearby countries receiving refugees does allow for a statistical accumulation of tenuous, untrusted information to congeal into something real.


Like, I don't trust any word from any captured Russian soldier about them not knowing where they were going or why. That's easy to tell troops to say. I do trust that at least some captured Russians are being treated well and given access to some communication to call their families.

It's impossible to know of all that was staged to paint a picture for me. I've seen only a few videos of that happening. It could be the reality on the ground is that never actually happens unless there's someone trying to film it to propagandize things.

I can't know.

It's a shitshow.



***
That nuclear reactor is leagues more advanced than the Chernobyl reactor. It's not even the same kind of reactor.
It would take a dedicated bombarding of the reactor itself (not nearby buildings) to cause a nuclear disaster. More accurately, it would take a bombarding of the containment chambers, which are underground and made from 1 m thick steel.

A fire on the site cannot cause a disaster. A stray or ricochet bomb/missile is not enough.
Those can kill the plant, but not release any nuclear materials.
It would take a dedicated bombarding to release the nuclear materials.

This is a modern nuclear plant, not a 60 year old one.