Ukraine 4

[Elderberry]

Analysis: Destruction of Kakhovka dam takes Ukraine war into uncharted territory

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/destruction-kakhovka-dam-takes-ukraine-war-into-uncharted-territory-2023-06-06/

        Summary

•   Burst dam threatens humanitarian, environmental disaster

•   Could hobble long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive

•   Kyiv, Moscow trade blame for collapse of massive dam

•   Incident endangers farmland, ecosystems, biodiversity

•   Officials play down threat to nuclear plant cooling


The breach of a huge dam on the front-line Dnipro river has muddied the picture for a much-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian invaders and threatens an environmental disaster for civilians living in the war zone.

Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine that sent floods gushing towards surrounding towns and farmland and forced hundreds of civilians to flee on Tuesday.

With water levels still rising, officials and analysts have begun to count the human and environmental costs for one of the world's most fertile agricultural countries, saying settlements, thousands of people and some rare wildlife species are at risk.

At least 150 tonnes of oil from the dam have leaked into the Dnipro, Ukrainian Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets told a press briefing, and the environmental damage had been estimated at 50 million euros ($53.8 million).

The dam's collapse occurred just as Ukraine was poised to launch a counteroffensive and could complicate the advance of its forces in any assault, analysts said, though Kyiv has not divulged in which direction it plans to strike.

"Bearing in mind Russia is on the strategic defensive and Ukraine on the strategic offensive, in the short term it's an advantage to Russia, definitely," said Ben Barry, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"It'll help the Russians until the water subsides because it makes it more difficult for Ukraine to do assault river crossings," he said in a phone interview.

The floodtide inundating the region will prevent the use of heavy weaponry such as tanks for at least a month, said Maciej Matysiak, security expert at the Stratpoints Foundation and ex-deputy chief of Polish military counter-intelligence.

"(This) creates a very good defending position for Russians who expect Ukrainian offensive activity,” Matysiak said.

More at link

[Maj. Bill Martin]

The Russians were holding/occupying the dam, so this one is on them.  That being said, it's far enough downstream that the Ukrainians were unlikely to be a major armored attack there anyway -- they'd first have to take the ground to the east, and once they do that, there really isn't any reason for the Russians to hold this ground anyway.

That being said, it does enable Russia to shift to the east most of the forces they had guarding the downstream area.

[bigheadfred]

Scorched earth

At the beginning of World War II, the DniproHES dam was blown up by the retreating Soviet troops, and a 30-m (100-ft) wave crashed through the breach, sweeping away everything in its path.

https://arheve.org/articles/dniprohes/#:~:text=In%201939%2C%20DniproHES%20reached%20a%20capacity%20of%20560,the%20breach%2C%20sweeping%20away%20everything%20in%20its%20path.

[Elderberry]

Who blew up the Ukraine dam…

Tucker Carlson
@TuckerCarlson

https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1666203439146172419

[DB]

Who blew up the Ukraine dam…

Tucker Carlson
@TuckerCarlson

https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1666203439146172419

Have a short summary?

[Ghost Bear]

Per Artur Rehi, the Russians blew up the dam, and there's video of them doing it:


https://youtu.be/gRbKz_j1rbc

[DB]

So Tucker is wrong again...

[PeteS in CA]

Have a short summary?

Ukrainians are Nazis, Nazis, Nazis!

Putin's a hero rescuing the world from Ukrainians' world conquest plans.

Ok, that was a little hyperbolic.

Here's some really basic facts Carlson would have had to ignore or pretend were unimportant:

* The Russians have occupied and controlled the dam for about a year.

* The damage to the dam and hydro plant were too extensive to be other than due to demolition from the inside.

* The dam had a major road on it, used by the Russians to evacuate the North side of the Dnipro after they lost Kherson

* Blowing up the dam denied its use by the Ukrainians to attack the south side of the river and threaten the  land supply route to the Crimean Peninsula.

* The flooding will render downstream ground on both sides of the river unusable to vehicles, frustrating any Ukrainian attack plans and lessening the possible attack routes the Russians would have to defend.

[DB]

Ukrainians are Nazis, Nazis, Nazis!

Putin's a hero rescuing the world from Ukrainians' world conquest plans.

Ok, that was a little hyperbolic.

Here's some really basic facts Carlson would have had to ignore or pretend were unimportant:

* The Russians have occupied and controlled the dam for about a year.

* The damage to the dam and hydro plant were too extensive to be other than due to demolition from the inside.

* The dam had a major road on it, used by the Russians to evacuate the North side of the Dnipro after they lost Kherson

* Blowing up the dam denied its use by the Ukrainians to attack the south side of the river and threaten the  land supply route to the Crimean Peninsula.

* The flooding will render downstream ground on both sides of the river unusable to vehicles, frustrating any Ukrainian attack plans and lessening the possible attack routes the Russians would have to defend.

That sounds about right... Ghost Bear's post lays bare who did it and why. Russa expects to lose Crimea and they're salting the earth as they go.

[Hoodat]

Russian troops gathering near Obryvka to escape flood waters are being shelled by Ukrainian artillery.

[Hoodat]

Russians retreating from Dnieper.

from r/UkraineWarVideoReport

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/142qj1y/this_is_how_russian_soldiers_left_the_islands/

[Hoodat]

Before / After satellite photos

https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1666168643976036353

[Hoodat]

Before blowing the dam, the Russians raised the water level to a record 17.5 meters in order to maximize the damage.

[Hoodat]

Kherson - 40 miles down stream from dam

from r/UkraineWarVideoReport

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/142bph5/part_of_kherson_city_is_under_water/

[DB]

Clearly the Russians expect to lose Crimea and intend to destroy as much as they can on the way out.

[Hoodat]

Who blew up the Ukraine dam…

Tucker Carlson

The same people who blew it up the last time:



Ukrainian Activists Draw Attention To Little-Known WWII Tragedy

Dmytro Moroz & Claire Bigg  |  August 23, 2013  |  09:13 GMT


The dam in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya is shown after being blown up by Stalin's secret police in 1941. From 20,000 to 100,000 people died in the ensuing flood.

In 1941, as Nazi German troops swept through Soviet-era Ukraine, Josef Stalin's secret police blew up a hydroelectric dam in the southern city of Zaporizhzhya to slow the Nazi advance.

The explosion flooded villages along the banks of the Dnieper River, killing thousands of civilians.  .  .

https://www.rferl.org/a/european-remembrance-day-ukraine-little-known-ww2-tragedy/25083847.html

[Hoodat]

That sounds about right... Ghost Bear's post lays bare who did it and why. Russa expects to lose Crimea and they're salting the earth as they go.

I don't believe Russia expects to lose Crimea.  They did this to better defend it.  Crimea is much more important to them than Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, or Kherson.

[Cyber Liberty]

I don't believe Russia expects to lose Crimea.  They did this to better defend it.  Crimea is much more important to them than Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, or Kherson.

It will be ironic if Russia loses Crimea.  Just deserts. Delivered to whichever beach house Obama lives in today.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I don't believe Russia expects to lose Crimea.  They did this to better defend it.  Crimea is much more important to them than Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, or Kherson.

I agree.  The territory lost to this flooding is not land that Russia valued much anyway, although the destruction of the canal is still significant.

[sneakypete]

Russians retreating from Dnieper.

from r/UkraineWarVideoReport

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/142qj1y/this_is_how_russian_soldiers_left_the_islands/

@Hoodat

They  are lucky  this isn't Dec or Jan.

[Kamaji]

Russia boasts it has destroyed Leopard tanks... but is mocked by analysts who say they've actually blown up TRACTORS

Russian defence chiefs were mocked for claiming to destroy a Leopard 2 tank

By RACHAEL BUNYAN  and WILL STEWART
7 June 2023

Russian defence chiefs have been mocked for claiming to destroy a German-supplied lethal Leopard 2 tank - when in fact they had blown up tractors in Ukrainian fields.

The ridiculing was led by head of Wagner private army Yevgeny Prigozhin, who sees it as yet more evidence of blundering incompetence by Putin's defence chiefs and army.

The Russian defence ministry hailed 'footage of the destruction of foreign armoured vehicles, including Leopard tanks'.

But in reality, military analysts say the footage showed Russia blasting farm vehicles with a missile fired from a Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter.

In the video, a Russian crew member onboard the helicopter can be heard asking: 'What kind of machine is that?'

One soldier can be heard saying: 'Let's hit it', to which the other responds: 'Ready to hit it.'

They then could be heard celebrating the strike and saying: 'Yeah, direct hit.'

The defence ministry's propaganda team told the Russian media that the footage shows 'the destruction of foreign armoured vehicles, including Leopard tanks'.

*  *  *

Source:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12168415/Russia-boasts-destroyed-Leopard-tanks-analysts-say-theyve-actually-blown-TRACTORS.html

[Kamaji]

I don't believe Russia expects to lose Crimea.  They did this to better defend it.  Crimea is much more important to them than Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, or Kherson.

True; however, Russia also expected to beat Ukraine in a matter of days and to waltz into Kyiv as conquering heroes.

[PeteS in CA]

This nearly 3 minute video looks at and analyzes damage to the dam, from a non-engineer perspective,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhVhz_NocNM . The person making the video is pro-Ukrainian, BUT generally makes an effort to sort through propaganda, over-claiming, and fog-of-war sourced from both sides.

[Kamaji]

Russian troops ‘swept away’ by flooding from Ukraine dam collapse

By Snejana Farberov
June 7, 2023

Russian troops were seen being swept away by raging floodwaters and running for their lives after the Nova Khakovka dam collapsed, according to a Ukrainian officer.

Capt. Andrei Pidlisnyi told CNN that at the time of the dam breach early Tuesday, “no one on the Russian side was able to get away. All the regiments the Russians had on that side were flooded.”

The officer suggested that Vladimir Putin’s soldiers may not have received an advance warning of what he claimed to be a Russian attack.

According to Pidlisnyi, the flooding killed or injured many enemy troops stationed on the east bank of the Dnipro River, which is under Russian control.

Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the destruction of the dam, with the Kremlin calling it an act of “sabotage by the Kyiv regime,” and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky leveling an accusation of “ecocide” — or ecological genocide — at Moscow.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/07/russians-swept-away-by-flooding-from-ukraine-dam-collapse/

[Maj. Bill Martin]

The Russians couldn't have tried to deny responsibility if they'd moved their troops out shortly before the dam broke.

My guess is that the actual casualties among Russian troops will be less than a couple of days fighting in the Donbass.

Militarily, this lets the Russians take almost all their troops who were west of the dam, and move them to the east where they can strengthen the lines protecting western Kherson Oblast, and ultimately Crimea.