The Kakhovka Dam
Over the last few months much has been said about the Kakhovka dam in the Kherson Oblast of Ukraine. The Kakhovka damn burst, and as a result of the flooding, has harmed thousands upon thousands of people, killed an estimated 60, and destroyed homes and farmland. For posterity’s sake and since I’ve seen a number of theories from libertarian circles indicating this was the Ukrainians I’ll lay out why this was the Russian forces and attempt to show any falsehoods here, irrelevant.
The following is, the very obvious reasoning of, how one could do to make this assessment.
1) The Russians were in control of the dam. It takes a lot of force to blow a dam, not something that can be achieved through artillery. The perpetrators would need to place tons of explosives to make it burst.
This was confirmed by US spy satellites noticing a large explosion just before the dam blew. Russian sympathizers want us to believe The RF Army missed saboteurs smuggling in tons of explosives to their position on the front line. Seismic data shows an explosion.
2) Russian propaganda can't keep the narrative straight, which would be easy if they were telling the truth.
3) The Russians would want to blow the dam to slow down the offensive. Flooding is very difficult to traverse. Ukraine has the inverse incentive. They don't want flooding to be able to cross. The flow of water from the Kakhovka dam was blocked from 2014 to 20122 and Crimea didn't implode. Some more time without water wouldn't do anything. The dam will be rebuilt.
4) The Russians' response to the dam blowing. Initially, they claimed it was a small hole. This fits with the idea that the Russians thought the consequence would be far less. A small leak would mean the dam would sustain flooding longer so the counteroffensive would be stalled along that front longer.
The Russians have denied an independent review.
Ukraine was enthusiastic about one.
The Russians shot at the dam afterward, presumably to destroy evidence.
Russia held the dam at the time of the explosion and continues to do so. If an artillery round or missile was fired by Ukraine at it, Russia would have security camera footage of a missile impacting and have all the motive it needs to distribute the film.
Russia has refused to release the security camera footage. The only reasonable conclusion is that the security camera footage does not contain the missile they claim was there. Missiles are caught on camera all the time when a camera is looking at where they are striking. Hydroelectric dams have many security cameras such that if any missile had impacted, they would have captured it. The footage is streamed offsite by design to catch failures even if the entire dam blew up. If a missile impacted the dam to cause the explosion that destroyed it, then Russia would have video evidence. They don't, thus a missile did not impact the dam.
5) Events leading up to the dam explosion. Russia stopped monitoring the dam a week before the dam blew. Russia built up the waters to record heights behind the dam to make it a better weapon. Russia built up the levels behind the dam to heights never before seen. They had complete control of this.
6) Timing. This happened within 48 hours of the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Right when Russia needed something to slow down the Ukrainians, the dam was blown up to flood an entire flank the Ukrainians could have used it in the offensive. Ukraine had a 20 km wide bridgehead to attack across the Dnieper. Blowing the dam likely got rid of that and made it impossible to attack across the Dneiper, allowing the Russians to pivot forces to other lines.
Russia is the only one with a motive to blow up the dam. Ukraine would be stupid to flood its own axes of advance.
7) Russia threatened to blow up the dam.
8) Russia said they should blow more dams.
9) Russia had mined the dam to prevent capture.
10) Russia blew up other dams immediately afterward. Russia blew up another dam even as late as the 11th of June, and Russia has blown up other dams before the Kakhovka dam.
11) Russia has been shooting at evacuations. Russia shelled Kherson while it was flooded, causing fires firefighters couldn't get to fires that Russians had caused firing at evacuations. The Russians firing upon civilians was not an isolated event but happened all along the river. This was very clearly, ordered.
All of the above is enough for any rational person to conclude that the Russians are the ones behind the catastrophe. The response must be stern and swift to stop the same kind of catastrophe from happening at ZNPP when the Ukrainians attempt to take that facility in the coming weeks.
This is a summary of a thread I created on twitter.
You can find me there @MrCMAnderson
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