Remember when Russian forces invading Ukraine dug in around Chernobyl?

[thewayne]

Guess what! They're developing severe radiation sickness and related problems!

This obviously comes as no surprise to a lot of people. Russet and I were discussing it. Chernobyl popped its top - literally! - THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO! People under 30, meaning most of the people in the invading Russian Army and probably their direct commanders, weren't alive back then! And with Russian news suppression, it's probably not well-known among them. I can understand them not taking it seriously, whereas a 50 y/o might actually remember it happening and know that digging there is bad juju.

This is yet another major thing to be laid at the feet of Putin and his lackies. A lot of these people are going to die in pretty horrible ways, and it didn't need to happen.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/red-forest-chernobyl-radiation-sickness-b2330067.html

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/04/30/2153204/russian-forces-suffer-radiation-sickness-after-digging-trenches-and-fishing-in-chernobyl

Comments

[acelightning73]

I've had radiation burns and a light dose of radiation sickness. And those who don't learn from the past wind up repeating it. And at least the Ukrainians in the area know better than to go into the "exclusion zone".

[thewayne]

And the locals even warned the Russians that what they were doing was stupid and dangerous.  They have no one to blame but themselves.

[felisdemens]

What a miserable thing to add to the whole miserable shitshow. :/

[thewayne]

And worse that it's an own goal.

[conuly]

FFS.

[dewline]

Putin's ego needed it to happen.

That's all it's been.

[gingeriana]

Darwinism in action, huh

so not sorry. and not even slightly sorry that i am not sorry

[thewayne]

Yep, pretty much.  Darwin Award winners.

[disneydream06]

I have mixed feelings about this.
Part of me says, They get what they deserve.
Part of me says, Putin should be forced to live there for a few months. :o
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

Play foolish games, win foolish prizes. This seems like the kind of thing where the costs for those soldiers should come out of the personal fortune of the person doing the ordering, because I am pretty sure that anyone with a small piece of self-preservation or knowledge about the area and what was involved in that space would not have wanted to go there much less disturb the ground or try to eat anything living there. So it would have had to be deliberate malice involved.

[thewayne]

Now, you bring up an interesting point.  I listened to a news piece about Putin's personal wealth - and as far as anyone can determine, he doesn't have much!  What he has is the political power to say "I'd really like a new dacha near this lake", and his cronies who own construction companies build it and give him the keys.  Which is not to say that he doesn't have bundles very cleverly squirreled away, they just can't find any.

[silveradept]

He probably has his wealth more carefully concealed than the people who are going to take falls for him. I still think that in addition to whatever penalties could be addressed against the country, that he should have personal responsibility for endangerment in the Chernobyl situation, because it's been well known what would happen if you did that kind of thing for decades, and he still ordered it to happen.