Russian official issues stark threats to the West
Source: AP
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
MOSCOW (AP) — Moscow may respond to Western sanctions by opting out of the last nuclear arms deal with the U.S., cutting diplomatic ties with Western nations and freezing their assets, a senior Russian official warned Saturday as Russia’s ties with the West dived to new lows over its invasion of Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, also warned that Moscow could restore the death penalty after Russia was removed from Europe’s top rights group — a chilling statement that shocked human rights activists in a country that hasn’t had capital punishment for a quarter-century.
The sanctions placed new tight restrictions on Russian financial operations, imposed a draconian ban on technology exports to Russia and froze the assets of Putin and his foreign minister, a harsh response that dwarfed earlier Western restrictions. Washington and its allies say that even tougher sanctions are possible, including kicking Russia out of SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
In sarcastic comments posted on a Russian social platform, Medvedev dismissed the sanctions as a show of Western “political impotence” that will only consolidate the Russian leadership and foment anti-Western feelings.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman and the head of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev speaks, in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022. Medvedev warned that Moscow could react to Western sanctions over Russia's attack on Ukraine by opting out of the last remaining nuclear arms pact, freezing Western assets and citting diplomatic ties with nations in the West. (Yekaterina Shtukina, Sputnik, Government Pool Photo via AP)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-business-dmitry-medvedev-global-trade-858a23b058209e5662ee59d768b615bd
= new reply since forum marked as read
(from here - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/)
Russia is over in the green section along the edge of the circle next to the word "Europe".
Luckily the org that created that image put them in an easy place to find them by having the green section's text identifier of "Europe" right next to where the Russia section is carved out.
but luckily there is a geographic category label for each colored section, and in this case, the "Europe" text on the outside of the circle by the green section, is right next to where the Russia carve-out is.
... or maybe they're telling us they're on a suicide mission?
I don't believe the Russian people have any interest in that, but Pootie might be crazier than we all know.
...we are all dead.
But then again, we are all dead anyway...so...
by surrounding Chernobyl. 
Radioactive material that lingers near Chernobyl could cause further calamity.
By Julia Jacobo
February 24, 2022, 5:22 PM
As Russian troops continue to inch their way through its invasion of Ukraine, a secondary catastrophe to the fighting between the ex-Soviet neighbors is possible: another nuclear reaction at Chernobyl.
On Thursday afternoon, Russian armed forces entered the deserted exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant, where the world's worst nuclear accident took place in 1986. By night, Russian forces had taken full control of the area, including the plant itself, according to Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
The heavy fighting inside the "exclusion zone," a vast and empty land surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant that includes the ghost city of Pripyat, is causing concern that it could spark another nuclear disaster. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano is watching the situation with "grave concern, appealing for "maximum restraint" amid the conflict to avoid putting the nuclear facility at risk.
"It is of vital importance that the safe and secure operations of the nuclear facilities in that zone should not be affected or disrupted in any way," Mariano said in a statement. On April 26, 1986, reactor No. 4 at the power plant, about 65 miles north of the capital Kyiv, exploded, spewing enormous amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere and causing more than 100,000 people in a 1,000-square-mile radius to evacuate.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/concerns-mount-fighting-chernobyl-exclusion-zone/story?id=83085943
By Victoria Gill
Science correspondent, BBC News
1 day ago
The Chernobyl site contains several nuclear waste containment facilities to prevent radioactive materials spreading
A radiation spike has been recorded near Chernobyl's nuclear power plant which has been seized by Russian forces, monitoring data shows. Invading Russian troops took control of the plant - the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986 - on Thursday, Ukraine said. Radiation levels increased about 20-fold on Thursday, monitoring stations there reported.
But experts say another major nuclear disaster there is "extremely unlikely". The rise was caused by heavy military vehicles stirring contaminated soil in the 4,000-sq-km (2,485 sq-mile) exclusion zone surrounding the abandoned plant, Ukraine's State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate reported .
The biggest spike was recorded close to the damaged reactor. Radiation levels are continuously monitored there - measured as a dose that you would receive per hour in a location.
Close to the reactor, you would normally receive a dose of about three units - called microsieverts - every hour. But on Thursday, that jumped to 65 microSv/hrs - about five times more than you would get on one transatlantic flight.
(snip)
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60528828
Early on, there was some dismissal of what had happened in Fukushima Daiichi after the earthquake and tsunami (and that was 11 years ago)... and we saw what happened after that. In the case of Chernobyl, the core is still burning within its containment.
is kicking up all that old radiation-infused soil. The area was finally starting to recover some vegetation and animal life that weren't mutated beyond recognition and now this happens.
And blow our own house down!
The nukes worry me. Putin is just crazy enough to drop them, or even shoot them over here, if it looks like he's going to lose. Like TFG, his ego can't take it. Consequences for the world be damned.
