Your usual analysis is better, even when I often don't agree with your conclusions, and very much disagree with your practice of pretending you know the inner motives of world leaders.

Ukraine has been shelling the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power plant since not long after Russia took it from them. Ukraine claims that Russia is bombing its own troops there, in an effort to get the West to join the fight to retake the power plant. Ergo, Ukraine is committing false flag attacks for month now.

Also, if Ukraine strikes a reactor, it will be the same as exploding a dirty bomb.

Also, the dam outside Kherson provides cooling water to that same nuclear power plant. Losing the city would mean losing a key control/safety feature of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

False flags are nearly always for the domestic audience, or to draw reluctant but powerful parties into a conflict.

Average Germans and most of the world did not know until after the war that Germany faked the Polish attack used to justify Germany's attack on Poland. Even if many knew after only a short period of time, there is no way Germany was going to say, "Oh, right. Our bad. We'll just pull our troops back out of Poland now. Sorry about that! We'll send you some Apfelstrudel to make up for it and call it even, OK?"

Many in the US knew the North Vietnamese didn't fire on us on August 4, 1964. Yet we still fought there for 9 years.

Many in the US knew that Iraqi soldiers did not steal incubators and kill babies in 1991. Yet we still went to war and continued sanctions even after it was generally known to be false.

By 2004 we knew there were no WMDs in Iraq. Did we pull out and send the Iraqis Apfelstrudel and call it a day?

We knew that Afghanistan had nothing to do 9/11, but we used Osama bin Laden's presense in remote Afghan cave to justify invading and occupying the entire country for 20 years.

The US is the big military power in the world. So we don't commit false flags, we just lie to our public to get them to agree to war (last 4examples). The Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian economy cannot survive without US arms and money. And yet Ukraine has still lost 20% of their country, now 40% of their power, and are facing huge reinforcements from Russia after Ukriaines VERY impressive wins in the last month.

Ukraine has every incentive to set off a dirty bomb to draw the US into the war. For that same reason, Russia has every incentive NOT to set one off. The last thing Russia wants is a direct conflict with NATO or the US. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out.