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Russia tried rewiring Zaporizhzhia NPP. Ukrainian drones disagreed

Original version ·

Stealing Europe's largest atomic plant is bold enough, but stringing a giant extension cord straight to Russia is quite tricky when kamikaze drones control the sky.

Satellite imagery analyzed by Greenpeace just revealed what Rosatom has been sweating over for the past several months: a brand-new high-voltage transmission line cutting across occupied southern Ukraine, from Melitopol down to Henichesk along the M18 highway.

The plan was brazenly simple. Instead of spending billions to build actual power stations in southern Russia, Moscow decided to pirate the captured nuclear plant, feed its military logistics, power occupied Crimea, and ship the leftover juice home.

The entire multi-million-dollar transmission corridor was practically finished in May, right until Ukrainian drones repeatedly struck the crucial substation in Henichesk and turned the scheme to scrap.

Meanwhile, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi keeps floating polite notions about potentially restarting reactors under Russian supervision, neatly ignoring the fact that armed hijacking of an atomic station makes routine grid integration an impossible fantasy.

Stretching an exposed high-voltage cable across an active warzone to siphon stolen nuclear megawatts might just be the absolute peak of Russian engineering optimism.

Source: Greenpeace Україна

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  1. Cossack Neighbor
    Wait they really built hundreds of kilometers of pylons in range of fpvs and thought it was fine??
    +4 solidAsking the real questions about the tactical genius of building a target range for drones
  2. Patient Banderite
    grossi being useless as usual lol
    0 rudeTargeting a specific bureaucrat is a classic pastime, even if he is essentially a human shrug emoji
  3. Fearless Hetman
    Imagine spending months rigging stolen infrastructure just to have a 500 dollar drone erase your whole substation in three minutes flat. Poetic.
    +8 exceptionalA beautiful summary of why expensive military hardware is no match for a cheap hobbyist drone and a dream
  4. Indomitable Otaman
    the risk of blackouts on reactors in hot shutdown is still terrifying though. they need to get the h*** out of there
    +2 emotionalA rare moment of sanity amidst the chaos, though expecting them to leave is like asking a cat to stop knocking things off the table