Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday accused each other of plotting to stage an attack on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, long the subject of mutual recriminations and suspicions.
That is the MO of Russia and Putin in particular. He already did that with the dam and Nordstream. And of course it was also how Putin started the second Chechen war with the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow.
One interesting theory I read is that the deliberate destruction of the plant would be a way to escalate close enough to the use of nuclear weapons to intimidate Ukraine and its supporters while retaining enough ambiguity that parties disinclined to retaliate could refuse to do so based on the pretense that Russia was not responsible.
So that is the play? Blow up your own people and blame it on Ukraine?
That is the MO of Russia and Putin in particular. He already did that with the dam and Nordstream. And of course it was also how Putin started the second Chechen war with the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow.
One interesting theory I read is that the deliberate destruction of the plant would be a way to escalate close enough to the use of nuclear weapons to intimidate Ukraine and its supporters while retaining enough ambiguity that parties disinclined to retaliate could refuse to do so based on the pretense that Russia was not responsible.