UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[LadyTevar]

Russia has blown up the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the lower Dnipro. The reservoir it held back was both Crimea's main water supply and the source of coolant for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, not to mention this will destroy all the towns downstream. They must be desperate.

Well this bit sounds extremely worrying. How long before the power plant feels the effects?


eta: Answered my own question, partly. No "immediate" danger according to the IAEA.

Indeed. No "immediate" danger, but that plant is right now under Russian control, so they can screw with it as they please.

I just wonder why they cut their own water sources to Crimea.
Unless... of course... we're seeing more Factional Disputes and this was something that was done by Wagner or a angry Russian Commander who didn't think it thru.

[J]

It appears everyone's back in the Cold War mindset where they'll believe anything & everything bad regarding Russia. Last year it was Russia shelling their own nuclear power plant, today it's Russia blowing a dam which threatens their own nuke plant and cuts of their own water. And y'all accept this without question, then rant some more on how Russia's evil and insane.

[Ralin]

It appears everyone's back in the Cold War mindset where they'll believe anything & everything bad regarding Russia. Last year it was Russia shelling their own nuclear power plant, today it's Russia blowing a dam which threatens their own nuke plant and cuts of their own water. And y'all accept this without question, then rant some more on how Russia's evil and insane.

1) I literally said on the last page that I still don't think Putin or his government are insane.
2) Yeah, we are pretty disposed to lean towards believing reports about Russia doing something dumb and/or evil at this point.

Are you just trying to do a drive-by post about how much smarter and more cynical you are?

[Crazedwraith]

The other possibilities other than Russia blew it up are: 1) Ukraine blew it up, 2) Some unknown third party blew it up, 3) it failed due to earlier damage/other reasons entirely by coincidence at the same time as a Ukrainian counter offensive.

Does the dam's failure have any military advantage for Ukraine?

[Highlord Laan]

It appears everyone's back in the Cold War mindset where they'll believe anything & everything bad regarding Russia. Last year it was Russia shelling their own nuclear power plant, today it's Russia blowing a dam which threatens their own nuke plant and cuts of their own water. And y'all accept this without question, then rant some more on how Russia's evil and insane.

How are you able to type with orcish cock that far down your throat?

[Ralin]

How are you able to type with orcish cock that far down your throat?

Are we doing racial epithets for Russians here now?

[madd0c0t0r2]

The other possibilities other than Russia blew it up are: 1) Ukraine blew it up, 2) Some unknown third party blew it up, 3) it failed due to earlier damage/other reasons entirely by coincidence at the same time as a Ukrainian counter offensive.

Does the dam's failure have any military advantage for Ukraine?

1. it further segregates Crimea, in the hot summer. It means some chunk of the logistics access to Crimea is hauling water, not shells. That's before the bridge is cut (and it will be)
2. it means the Russians can't blow it after the Ukrainian forces have crossed the flood zone. That means Ukrainian forces can't be trapped and cut off by it, at the cost of giving up any push into that area this summer
3. I don't know if the Russian east bank fortifications are affected. It's possible the intent is to force that line of defences to be abandonded and filled with silt.
4. If Ukraine is planning a late season offensive, the idea might be saturated and flooded ground freezing into flat playgrounds for heavy tanks.


But overall, I don't think it's a net benefit for Ukraine

[J]

Does the dam's failure have any military advantage for Ukraine?

Yes. The nuclear power plant which is now threatened is part of a key defensive area for the Russians. If the plant becomes critical the area will need to be evacuated and the defences redeployed, which gives the Ukrainians a weak spot they can attack. But more importantly, it cuts the water supply to the Crimea which creates a whole bunch of strategic & logistics headaches for the Russians along with damaging morale and public support for the war.

Every single advantage of the blown dam goes towards the Ukrainians, but we're to believe the Russians did it. Because they're Russians.

[wautd]

It's quite possible that neither side blew up the dam, but that it simply broke due to gross negligence of the Russian occupiers (what with prior damage, ignoring maintenance and the Russians filling the water basin and record levels, causing immense pressure against the dam).
It's not like the Russians have been showing a lot of safety concerns in the occupied nuclear power plants either. With things like the removal of back up power, or the nuclear power plant workers having to work under immense pressure, it appears to be another human made accident waiting to happen

[madd0c0t0r2]

Every single advantage of the blown dam goes towards the Ukrainians...

This is simply not true. Nor is it the opinion of widely respected commentators: https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/statu ... 6462199808

It's quite possible that neither side blew up the dam, but that it simply broke due to gross negligence of the Russian occupiers (what with prior damage, ignoring maintenance and the Russians filling the water basin and record levels, causing immense pressure against the dam).
It's not like the Russians have been showing a lot of safety concerns in the occupied nuclear power plants either. With things like the removal of back up power, or the nuclear power plant workers having to work under immense pressure, it appears to be another human made accident waiting to happen

I'd lean towards 'intentional situation that permits plausible deniability.' I'm not seeing a reason for the dam to have been kept at those levels, and I'm suspicious that the collapse occurs today, rather than 3 weeks ago.

[Zaune]

If this was intentional on Russia's part, it's probably an indication that we're in the "Can't hold the territory, so let's trash it so badly the Ukrainians will wish they'd just let us keep it" phase of the war. I hope the backroom boys are looking out for suspiciously large shipments of road salt.

[J]

https://web.archive.org/web/20221229064 ... n-donetsk/

Except:

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.

So one side already made a test run at blowing the dam, but of course it wasn't them. And this is accepted without question.

[Crazedwraith]

So they planned to blow up the damn to slow Russian advances and tested if they could do so without flooding nearby village and then they did when the Russians weren't advancing in such a way to flood tons of places.

At last, a smoking gun.

[J]

I don't think either side blew it. The dam was already damaged from shelling by the Ukrainians and possibly the Russians as well, combined with the reservoir being too full and there she goes. But of course the Russians did it, because that's what they do.

Senator McCarthy would be dancing with joy if he were alive to see how much we hate Russia these days, and how willing we are to accept the "Russia bad" narrative without question.

[Gandalf]

It appears everyone's back in the Cold War mindset where they'll believe anything & everything bad regarding Russia. Last year it was Russia shelling their own nuclear power plant, today it's Russia blowing a dam which threatens their own nuke plant and cuts of their own water. And y'all accept this without question, then rant some more on how Russia's evil and insane.

It's like 2002 all over again, just change some names around.

[Crazedwraith]

It's accepted without question. Except for all the people questioning.

Most of the news I've seen is faithfully reporting Ukraine saying X, Russia saying Y and whatever independent confirmation there might be, usually none.

But no it's all mean mindless prejudice towards the people who invade ukraine and have been attack it's civilian infrastructure for over a year. Unless that's all just prejudice as well I mean.

(eta: I agree. It's unclear who did what and it may very well be existing damage but it's not like Russia has done nothing to deserve it's rep here)

[Crazedwraith]

In terms of what Ukraine has apparently done, according to the Washington Post is the attack on nordstream.

[Marko Dash]

points for it being Russia are that the water behind the dam was allowed to build up well above the normal levels before it was blown, and that freshwater reserve tanks in Crimea were recently topped up.

[Solauren]

All four, scenarios are likely. Russia could have destroyed it pending a withdraw (tactically viable option). Ukraine could have hit it to fuck with Russia in preparation to invading Crimea to regain it (tactically viable option). It could have broken because the Russian Occupiers were not willing or able to give it proper repairs (logistical problems), or one Russian commander did it to fuck with another as infighting escalates.

Frankly, I think it's more logistical problems caused it. Simply put, it puts the Nuclear Reactor in some danger. If Russia is planning to keep, or re-annex Crimea,having a nuclear plant possibly go off in the area makes no sense. Difficult to contain, next to impossible to clean up, and the possibility of nuclear fall-out.


If Russia was smart, they'd offer up a high level general as a scapegoat for this, go 'okay, things are going to far, we'll withdraw back to our pre-Crimea borders', and spin it internally as 'the internal damage to Crimea made re-severing it from Russia the best option'.

[Mr Bean]

I think you all are underestimating exactly how hard it is to blow up a damn, they are massive, designed to hold up millions of galleons of water and do so under immense pressure. Your not taking it down with 81mm mortars and even 155mm guns would need concrete breaking shells and need a good number of shots to destroy the Dam. Also due to the speed of the Dam being breached (IE in under ten minuter and the Russians somehow have 0 minutes of video of massive artillery bombardments) we can fairly safely say... the Dam was blown up internally.

Nothing else fits with what we have

And given that the dam destroyers have to access to the Dam and they needed access for some time. This was not a truck driven on top of the dam and blown up, this was mined from inside which narrows the suspects down to Ukrainian Super Ninjas or..... Russia who was in control of the dam for months now and has for a year now been blowing up civilian infrastructure.

[Mr Bean]

This is a nice before an after of the dam that has been posted around

[Lord Revan]

There's still the possibility the Dam just gave up after neglect and possibly attempts to break it combined with the reservoir being filled to capacity. Sometimes such things just happen.

[Jub]

There's still the possibility the Dam just gave up after neglect and possibly attempts to break it combined with the reservoir being filled to capacity. Sometimes such things just happen.

In that case, it's still on the Russians for not doing needed maintenance while they occupied the dam.

[wautd]

then rant some more on how Russia's evil and insane.

Russia's regime, where it's state media and officials are using genocidal rhetoric and insane conspiracy theories* and where it's army made war crimes and terror bombings against civilians an official military strategy, has been labelled as a terrorist state for a reason.
Putin wants Ukraine, preferably with as few as possible Ukrainians in it, which is why he wants to create millions of refugees.

*seriously, the best anti Russian propaganda is Russian state media itself

[Broomstick]

I'm currently trying to define a guideline to specify when Russia has entered a civil war.

the 1000 war deaths / year seems a reasonable proxy. the ICRC has a more detailed set of criteria, but it seems to hinge on one side engaging with the various international institutions that may not apply here

Depends on the cause. A civil war involves two or more factions fighting for control of the country. Amusingly, that does mean that the US Civil War was not actually a civil war.

Then what would you call it?

(While in France I did hear the term "secession crisis" in place of civil war, so maybe that?)

In any case, the unpleasantness in the US 1860-65 was a war, whatever type of war you wish to classify it as.