I agree with your sentiment. But I’m usually more suspicious of the invading force trying to annex huge regions of a sovereign country. The US, Russia, China are all imperialist in their own way. Russia is the invading force. And none of this would be happening if Russia was not there.
How can Russia pay for this? Even if there will be conference after Russia lost the war, the only thing the country produces in big amounts is fossil fuels. However at least the west will try to use as few of them as possible.
So how could Russia pay for it? The estimate for the damage in ukraine are now in the 12 digits.
How? You said it yourself: with exports of all sorts.
However at least the west will try to use as few of them as possible.
No, I don't think so, the west is not ready to abandon their cars, they are not willing to drop their trucks and their boats and their chemistry. Russia will have to repay a colossal amount of money.
Sadly I fear that Russian exports are not high enough to repair all the damage they have done in Ukraine in a reasonable time. As most of their exports are fossil fuels there is only roughly 20 years left.
It really comes down to which narrative you believe about the current state of the war (not which side you think is justified).
If you believe the Russian propaganda, you think Russia’s control of Donbas is relatively solidified, Ukrainian forces are taking heavy losses and do not have the support of the population in the east. It makes sense for Ukraine to destroy the dam as an act of desperation in hopes that the disruption it causes will create an opening for them to exploit.
If you believe the Ukrainian propaganda, the Russians have been taking heavy losses and the rumored counteroffensive which is right around the corner will drive them out once and for all. If this is true, it gives Russia motive to destroy the dam, as they fear it will soon fall into Ukrainian hands, and its destruction will impede Ukrainian troop movements.
Personally, I tend to believe both narratives are heavily exaggerated, both sides are taking heavy losses, and that nobody is “winning” this stupid war anytime soon. But with how deeply both government/military narratives have penetrated basically all media, I’m not seeing any analysis of who benefits from this if no side is clearly winning.
Oh, we will, be reassured that we will find out eventually.
Could the US or China have done this covertly? Yes.
So this is what we find on Lemmy? A russian apologist as top post?
First post and this is what I read. mmmkay "The USA or China could have destroyed this dam covertly", right... The good old russian strategy of making you doubt everything you read. The goal of the russian propaganda is not to lie, the goal is to make you trust nothing, and specially not journalists.
A quick look at your history and you constantly bash the Ukrainian resistance.
"Think critically" you say? So where are your facts? Because thinking critically is all about the facts. You have brushed away all the facts and declared "We will never know". So where are your facts?
For example the russians had control of the dam, not the ukrainians. It's just an example. What do you make of it? Come on, show us your "critical thinking".
The article was behind a paywall so apologies if this is covered:
The dam sluices were Russian controlled but the dam is on the front line. It easily could have been attacked by either side. Both sides will see flooding but moreso the Russian side because it's flatter. Breaching the dam will empty the canal providing much-needed water to Crimea. The lower water level upstream could threaten the safety of an offline nuclear plant upriver. I can't tell which side controls the plant, so I'm not sure who that would affect more.
Russia could have easily done this to distract Ukraine ahead of it's counteroffensive and to make the river harder to cross. Also, Ukraine is likely more concerned about helping Ukrainians than Russia. But Ukraine could have done it for the reasons stated. We're definitely still in the fog of war and it's ignorant to assume we know all the details.
The dam sluices were Russian controlled but the dam is on the front line. It easily could have been attacked by either side.
Wrong, you don't destroy a dam just like that. It takes preparation and a lot of explosives at the right points. This is not a Micahel Bay movies we're talking about.
Both sides will see flooding but moreso the Russian side because it’s flatter. Breaching the dam will empty the canal providing much-needed water to Crimea. The lower water level upstream could threaten the safety of an offline nuclear plant upriver. I can’t tell which side controls the plant, so I’m not sure who that would affect more.
And Putin doesn't care about all of that. He has proven it again and again.
I can’t tell which side controls the plant
Russia, They took control of the plant, which is illegal, all nations around the globe know perfectly that no army should take control of a civilian power plant. Every other army is trained to carefully avoid the nuclear power plants. For some reason Russia keeps ignoring the international laws.
But Ukraine could have done it for the reasons stated.
Nonsense, but keep trying
We’re definitely still in the fog of war and it’s ignorant to assume we know all the details.
Textbook Russian propaganda here -> "Nobody knows for sure".... Well, keep telling you that, nobody believes you west of Russia.
The dam was under Russian control and they sabotaged it to slow down the Ukrainian counter offensive. It's fine, Ukraine knew it was a possibility and they have plans accounting for it.
The lower water level upstream could threaten the safety of an offline nuclear plant upriver.
The plant is in the cold shutdown right now, so while it still need some water as cooling, the amount is way lower than in case of normal work, so even in the worst case of complete dam destruction it will not be affected as it is now.
I can’t tell which side controls the plant, so I’m not sure who that would affect more.
Currently Russia.
Russia could have easily done this to distract Ukraine ahead of it’s counteroffensive and to make the river harder to cross.
Problem is, nobody proven that offensive is even real, not to mention that it was prepared there. Currently the most intensive fights are being waged somewhere else. Also Russia recently hit at least two or three huge UA ammo depots which probably really did hampered any preparations. And the battle of Bakhmut was colossal meat grinder where regardless if we agree on exact numbers, Ukraine lost some of their best soldiers remaining (exactly those who would spearhead the offensive) and Russia lost mercenaries.
Both sides will see flooding but moreso the Russian side because it’s flatter.
Also basically all Russian defensive positions along the river were destroyed, countering the guy above on similar level i could say UA surely hit it because it will make their attack much easier when the flood lessens.
Finally, UA already had plans for exactly that action last year, as they admitted to WaPo:
Neither side has provided proof that the other side did it. The dam was damaged late last year in an explosion, and in recent weeks it was under stress from record-high waters. Satellite photos showed water flowing over the top of the dam in the past week.
Cool, the russian army is unable to defend their dam against an Ukrainian attack. What a bunch of newbies those russian soldiers are. A dam... not a building, a dam, a huge block of concrete and they were unable to even defend it.
Considering what Seymour Hersh's uncovered regarding the Nord Stream Pipeline, I won't put this one past the US, being involved in it. Yes, reputation matters.
It was also frontline for months so i guess a lot people left before. Land and buildings much worse, you can't really prepare for that short of making another dam.
Love to see the immediate certainty that Russia did it based on... UA saying so. Impressive media criticism. I'm sure Iraq's WMDs will turn up any day now, too.
The Bush administration, not US intelligence, claimed there were WMDs in Iraq. US intelligence agencies disputed the Bush administration claims repeatedly under oath. Not defending US intelligence in general, just clarifying the specifics of your example.
There was kabuki theater around this, so far as intelligence was involved. Mostly the official faces quietly did nothing. None actively contradicted the narrative. And of course, Tenet (the CIA director at the time) called it a "slam dunk". Most of them were never under oath about any of this - it's not like the US actually investigates or punishes its own war crimes or violations of the UN Charter. In reality, invading Iraq was a Washington consensus position to destabilize that country further after over a decade of civilian-targeted sanctions. Our liberal hero, Joe Biden, happily laid the propaganda on thick through his position as chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, bringing in hack after hack to testify and make the case via the media apparatus. Very few people in power even publicly questioned the case for a war of aggression, let alone did anything to oppose it, and media narratives were more or less lockstep with them despite record-setting protests. Actually, scratch that: there was a pervasive culture of anti-brown, islamophobic rhetoric that questioned the patriotism (read: right to belong) of anyone who pushed back. Ask anyone that looked vaguely South Asian or Arab at the time.
Of course, I don't want to gice the impression that possessing WMDs has ever been a consistent, valid, or legal justification for being a target of a war of aggression. The only country to use nukes on civilians was the US and I don't see them invading themselves with a "coalition of the willing" since then, though they have certainly been very aggressive.
But I digress. Of course US intel is going to be doing shady things, that's not really debated. The thing I think is most relevant here is the parallel of a lack of media criticism and how easy it is to get folks, and particularly Americans, to absorb headlines and claims without looking any deeper into sourcing, into the history at hand, or even just for now, admitting that there is very little information or ways to get a good handle on the sequence of events, and it's okay to not have a hot take. Opposing a jingoistic fervor is essential to opposing fascism.
It’s obviously a little bit of column A and column B. And my comment exaggerated a bit.
But the deliberate mischaracterization, the cherry picking of reports, and omissions of evidence that Iraq no longer perused WMDs or biological weapons, the omissions of reports that Iraq had no relations with Al-Queda, etc, the act of calling reports with “low confidence” “certain,” etc etc we’re all done by the White House who wanted to go to war regardless of the so called intelligence. And that is what the bipartisan senate committee reports concluded in 2002, 2003, and 2008.
I know Wikipedia is not a source, but it cites these reports and the testimony of many intelligence officials. I thinks it is clear who wanted to paint the Iraq invasion as unavoidable and who did not with respect to these two groups.
It also "made sense" to most Americans that Iraq had WMDs. Colin Powell even said so, and he was greatly respected despite his participation in covering up the My Lai Massacre.
Accusations of whataboutism are a thought-terminating cliché that, ironically, usually just help the accuser avoid engaging with a critical argument.
The relevance here is that using "it sounds right to me" to decide whether a media narrative is true will lead a person to make big mistakes. And I am criticizing the general lack of media criticism in this thread.
I guess that depends on conditions. It can be just deflection and it can be pointing out of important context.
For example current situation: USA (and UA since the maidan attack false flag) have long history of trying to manufacture consent for coups, wars etc, with the newest uncovered example being the Nordstream attacks. So to point that out is pretty important with yet another case of suspicious attack (also not even the first such case in that war) which is immediately being pushed without any confirmation whatsoever on basis sometimes going as far as just "Russia evil".
But the facedeer when pointed out that it's relevant just said "whataboutism" as if that was completely separate event in another galaxy. This is the real "whataboutism" as fallacy.
Because they despise Ukraine? You have talking heads in Russian Media that openly call for genocide against people that fight for the Ukraine identity. During the war we have seen blatant incompetence that got compensated through pure cruelty and violence against civilians.
Yeah but then they couldn't deny it. Like always, Russian propaganda seeks not to be convincing but to make people doubt everything. Now they can simply claim that it was Ukraine's fault.
While I also doubt Russia blew up the dam (because I don't really see a good reason for Russia to do so), I imagine that if the russians were behind it, they would have blown it up instead of just opening it, in order to be able to plausibly deny their involvement in the flooding. There could also have been technical reasons for doing so (maybe opening it wouldn't have allowed the required flow for whatever goal they would have had?).
A dam can have floodgates to control the flow of water (and therefore the water level in the reservoir to a degree), not just a weir with a fixed elevation where water flows over the crest, so I suspect that you might confuse a dam with a weir. I read that a professor said this particular dam had 26 gates. If you expect a flood, you'd want to open the gates beforehand, as to make room in the reservoir, and to reduce the peak flow that an uncontrolled flood would give, for example.
Not across the Dnjepr, I don't think anyone expected a major amphibious assault across the river. But it's more likely the counteroffensive will go deep in Zaporizhzhia, which would let them come around to the dam from "behind". If the Russian front collapses like it did at Kharkiv and Kherson the Ukrainian advance could be substantial.
Yes I don't support Zelensky so what? He is not a leader, he has no background in politics and military. This is a clown who played guitar and piano with his dick. He doesn't risk anything, just showing off.
If someone invaded my country, I would sacrifice my life to defend it. Tankies are fine with another country invading as long as they used to be the main power in the USSR or they currently have the word "socialist" or "people's" somewhere in their name
I am not a tankie. I'm a belgian having nothing to do with ukrainians, not fan of Zelensky and Azov, I don't appreciate the red carpet offer and using my taxes to these persons. No problem to take refugees - not the one with GLA and Q8 cars, but they will have to lining up and after the refugees from countries where NATO was involved!
My speculation as to why they would do such a horrible thing is because they know they can't hold the position and want to cause as much damage as possible before they leave. Why would they bomb civilian targets like apartment buildings?
And I could easily flip the question around to OP. Why would Ukraine blow up their own dam, flooding their own territory and potentially crippling their own nuclear power plant? And making a counteroffensive across the Dnipro river that much harder?
It's not to deprive Crimea of water ahead of the counteroffensive, Crimea's reservoirs are full right now so they've got a year's worth in the tank. That's about the only possible benefit I can think of that Ukraine might have got out of this, and even if it were so it would be a trivial benefit compared to the costs. Crimea's water supply isn't going to make a difference to the actual fight that's about to happen there.
What's the point of flooding a region by destroying your "assets" when you could mass bombing like a deaf these villages.
After all, the west sells the war like an hegemonic move with mass slaughtering traits. Why Russia is not so heavy on using aviation, then?
US were using tomahawks on Syria for less than that.
If destruction and high toll number (aka ethnic cleansing) was the goal, they won't deliver like a grocery shop.
At least in the US, most people are not tracking this in anything but generalities. If they even know this dam was breached, they won't know the significance. It's also doesn't have quite the visual impact of row after row of bombed out apartments or bound bodies from a massacre.
Ukraine doesn't need more justification. Russia is occupying their territory. It doesn't make sense for Ukraine to cause yet more internal displacement and risk a nuclear meltdown for something it already has.
Ukraine doesn’t need more justification. Russia is occupying their territory.
That doesn’t justify Ukraine’s shelling of the eastern territories in the Donbass. If that requires military intervention by Russia, that’s unfortunate for the western propaganda narrative of Russian military aggression.
I'm not speaking of morality. I'm speaking of whether it would convince anyone that Ukraine should be "allowed" to do anything in particular. Most people have already chosen a position. This dam will make little difference, but it will have an impact on Ukraine.
To divert resources from/mess up Ukraine's planned offensive.
Also they haven't exactly been below causing great suffering for civilians simply because they can throughout this war.
Also, when evaluating Russian actions in the war, always consider that their main objective is propaganda, sometimes for the domestic audience, sometimes for the world. Destroying the Kakhovka dam was very popular among state TV propagandists, until they discovered it was better to accuse Ukraine of doing it. However, the purpose of Russian propaganda is always to create confusion and uncertainty, and create doubt that there is such a thing as truth.
Not the OP but to create chaos and divert resources to aid the area would be my guess. Creating a sense of fear and uncertainty is one kind of tactic in my opinion.
Crimea depends on water via canal from Ukraine-controlled territory, which Ukraine shut off as was their right. This must be the big f u back in retaliation.
If you are a podcast listener type. The War on the Rocks podcast has been pretty extensively covering the war in Ukraine and has some really good insights. I wouldnt be shocked if they cover this incident in a future episode.
One thing would be that Russia has already set a precedent with a long campaign to attack and destroy civilian infrastructure (power and heat specifically) just before winter to cause bigger humanitarian crisis.
The fact there are collateral damage, yes, the fact that is intentional annihilation, nope.
You want to see what is it for a country loosing its infrastructure during a war? google: "how much infrastructure was destroyed in Iraqi, Syria, Afghanistan ?" And "how".
It is not with 2 mortars blowing up a kitchen and fighting on the field.
Ukrainians still have broadband internet, can shop on Amazon and our officials can travel freely in Kiev.
Even Sean Penn could deliver in hand his golden toy to a country leader who should be in a bunker instead of making photo-shoot if he or Kiev was really threatened!
Funny how fickle someone's memory can be. I'm not talking about collateral damage from strikes on military targets, I'm talking about campaign directed against Ukraine's power grid during last autumn and winter.
I even remember people here and on lemmygrad cheering on reports of how much of energy infrastructure was destroyed and admiring pictures of dark cities during blackouts. But I guess that didn't happen? Or maybe the entire thing was fine because it failed?
Again, if he was in mass slaughter mode like said on the TV and apparently reddit refugees, your grid would have been wiped out. It's not an isolated kitchen in city but a whole block that Russia would have destroyed.
But if Russia did destroy the dam, he says, it might have hoped to protect its western flank by complicating Ukraine’s offensive moves. “We know the Russians have form for this sort of thing,” he argues, pointing to Stalin’s destruction of the Dnieper dam at Zaporizhia in 1941.
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