Look. The editors of Lenta.ru were kicked out after blatant pro-Ukraine Nazi propaganda. Those editors ended up creating Meduza. Which got DNS banned in Russia as it is considered a foreign agent publication due to it having foreign funding. Other media have been banned for publishing false information when the Special Military Operation started. So, no, there are consequences really. As there would be in any other law abiding country where news media try to pull this sort of stunt.
There is a rather enormous difference between publishing pro enemy propaganda during a war funded openly by enemy states and being independent media.
Independent media is just fine in Russia, it is the CIA driven and funded criminal organisations that are banned.
But we are not talking about those... or are we?
Kommersant is a navalny like foreign paid trolling organisation... it is the atlantic council, the jamestown institute, it puts the wests views and tries at every opportunity to pain Russia and Putin as evil even if they have to make it up.
Kommersant has a liberal slant. And that is about it really.
It is gutter press that lives on shock and controversy... which they can never find so they have to make it up.
The 5th and 6th RMBK units in the Kursk NPP were supposed to be built. Construction of further RMBK nuclear reactors, including Kursk 5/6, was frozen after the Chernobyl incident but there were plans to restart construction of the units at Kursk NPP in the 2000s. The 5th unit was supposed to be the first prototype of the new MKER reactor type which was meant to be a modernized RMBK. Construction was cancelled in 2012.
So this pretend problem has existed since Soviet times and nothing has been done since then to fix it.
Sounds like a non existent problem.
In the early 2000s Minatom still did not have the money to fund further construction of nuclear reactors. So Minatom went to Gazprom. They proposed a deal where Gazprom would provide them with a loan to finish construction of the stalled reactors at Rostov, the electricity generated by the nuclear reactors would then mean less natural gas would need to be burned to generate electricity in the region. And the newly available unused gas could then be exported for a higher price.
So you answer the situation right there... there is burning natural gas as a solution to any electricity shortfall and because of EU ignorance and US sabotage they have plenty of gas that is not needed anywhere that is prepared to buy it from unclean Russians.
So burning that fuel in Russia to generate the power they need while they take their time to get new nuclear reactors on line makes perfect sense.
And of course I understand why a gutter rag would try to blow this up as a huge power shortfall or perhaps they will blame corruption... almost certainly Putins fault.
These were meant to be online in 2020 and 2023 respectively. Which would have meant they would be operational before the Kursk 1/2 RMBK went past their lifetime. But as you can see we are in 2024 and the first reactor isn't operational yet
Except that wasn't really a problem because of low gas prices probably made gas plants more cost effective even if they did emit CO, and now Russia likely has excess gas available that the EU are refusing to buy so availability of excess gas probably means nuclear power generation is not critical right now either.
There is IIRC like 20 GW of natural gas electric generation capacity using foreign gas turbines (mostly German and American). While I am fairly sure that alternative ways of maintaining this equipment are being devised this isn't 100% guaranteed.
Considering the new pipelines they want to build through Mongolia to China they are going to need to sort their shit out regarding pumping turbines anyway.
You are trying to argue with folks who have an ideology-driven inability to see any Russkie weakness.
And a natural charm to put every single one to the 5th column barking
The Russians don't know what they are doing and need the intellectual giants at Kommersant to warn them of something they could never have seen coming in a million years... but my ideology is the problem.
Which ideology is that by the way?
They still - after 20 years of investments - haven't succeeded in connecting a whole country into a single infrastructure.
Why do you think such a structure would be needed?
And if it is critical then the real bastard will be joining on Kaliningrad...
What sort of state is the US electrical grid in?
How about the unified single EU power grid... I am sure that is working just fine.
If you are going to be throwing stones make sure you do it outside your green house in your garden of plenty.
There are things in the jungle that wont just throw those stones back.
They can send electricity generates in Moscow region to Sakhalin, but the transfer losses will be nulling any reason to do so.
In a single sentence you show why a single electricity grid makes no sense at all, yet you continue...
Mobile water based power generation systems can deliver power anywhere they need it when that is fully ready.
The Russians are also restarting some coal power stations in the Donbass. But as always these power stations might get attacked.
The Ukrainians have even attempted drone attacks at the Kursk NPP. It is right over the border.
So they are creating solutions... anything can be attacked... that is no reason to worry much about. Put measures in place to make any attack as costly as possible and as unlikely to succeed as possible and continue to kill the threat.
There is a Lugansk power plant that operates on gas, with 820MW output.
Works on gas now, but will be switched back to coal to increase the local economy.
It was constructed in the 60s ...
Look forward to the article in the Kommersant telling us how it is destroying the planet... lovely big high res images touched up... perhaps with an overlay of the smoke from the Kuznetsov to really rub things in...