Not seeing this talked about here much. Russia are saying Ukraine exploded their own dam, and Ukraine are of course blaming Russia.
Very strange. I hold the opinion that the nordstream explosion wasn't Russia. I'm not sure where I sit with this one. It seems weird for Russia to straight up deny something that can be very easily proven. At the same time though, Putin could just be being brazen because it doesn't seem like the world is realistically too concerned with stopping him.
this article is from last December
https://archive.md/20230606105318/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/29/ukraine-offensive-kharkiv-kherson-donetsk/
Russia had to arm and feed its forces via three crossings: the Antonovsky Bridge, the Antonovsky railway bridge and the Nova Kakhovka dam, part of a hydroelectric facility with a road running on top of it.
The two bridges were targeted with U.S.-supplied M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — or HIMARS launchers, which have a range of 50 miles — and were quickly rendered impassable.
“There were moments when we turned off their supply lines completely, and they still managed to build crossings,” Kovalchuk said. “They managed to replenish ammunition. … It was very difficult.” Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages.
The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.
if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages.
neoliberal means testing but for floods
It's being talked about plenty in the news mega. I personally think that the dam was damaged by previous Ukrainian artillery shelling (featuring previous wunderwaffen HIMARS). This damaged the structure of the dam as well as some the floodgates, limiting the maximum outflow of the dam. Russia couldn't (or didn't) maintain or repair the dam because of the shelling and because Ukraine threatens death to collaborators and their families. Ukraine then opened up the floodgates on the dams upriver of the Kherson dam, this caused the water level to rise on the dam reservoir, which Russia couldn't drain because Ukraine had earlier used artillery and HIMARS to take out some of the flood gates. This combination of high water levels, damaged floodgates, and lack of maintenance caused the dam to fail.
The previous artillery bombardments by Ukraine is confirmed by western sources. Somebody else posted the Washington Post article but there were other incidents as well. I haven't seen any convincing evidence of an explosion right before the dam failure so I'm assuming it didn't happen. The draining of dams upriver is currently internet rumors, I haven't seen solid evidence of that happening yet but I believe it. There is evidence of the water levels rising massively before the dam failure. It could theoretically just be heavy spring rains that caused it. So this my working theory but I'm waiting for more evidence to come out to say for certain.
Edit: I probably should mention that Russia at one point did detonate an explosive on the dam in order to demolish the road. This shouldn't have affected the actual dam, if the demolition was done properly.
If you buy this "Russia false flagged themselves" shit for even a second at this point you owe yourself a smack in the face
Russia is somehow warring with Ukraine while striking themselves over and over and over for nothing more than pity from people who would cheer if Moscow were nuked. The world is a stage for Westerners' entertainment just like North Korea
Report to your local Ukraine Armed Forces unit for IMMEDIATE reassignment.
I don't know nearly enough about the dam to make any judgement. The pipeline is pretty straight forward
Don’t think Putin that brazen tbh. Many actually think he held back since a lot of critical infrastructure still intact. If he brazen, he would already destroyed the bridge that connect the Dnieper, where the western supply flow through or actually de energize whole Ukraine, not just attacking substation that could be fix in a days or two. Also, I don’t think the Russian would shoot themselves on their foot with this since the dam is important to supply water to crimea and cooling off ZNPP, Russian side also got flooded the most
IDK. There is too much disinfo and I don't care enough to sift through it all. If anyone IRL asks me, I will simply say, "maybe the dam just did that."
Based on what I read it shouldnt impact Russian defensive positions that much and will slow down the fabled Ukranian offensive. So I dont know who did it but it seems to me Russia is profiting somewhat more from it. Just my 2cents but im not an expert and just an armchair general.
That water also feed Crimean, cooling off ZNPP and the offensive wouldn’t slow down because the offensive so far has been a failure for Ukraine. It also flooded the Russian side more also wipe out their first line of defense. Like, the offensive on Southern bank might stall but long term, the most benefit will be Ukrainian when the water drain, and they could also free up troops for counter offensive
Dam probably hasn't received good maintenance in +30 years, can't discount it collapsing on its own.
