First, you have to be aware that it is a warzone, making independent information verification allmost impossible. And propaganda is happening on all sides.
Second, the russians had allmost nothing to gain from blowing it up. The regions east of the river were hit way harder and now the crimea water supply is threatened and the conquered nuclear power plant is rendered worthless.
Now the russians surely are not rational all the time, so it still might have been them - but the reason might have been also simply incompetence. If you look at the water levels, they were rising a lot before (and they were not regulating it, like it happened before). And the dam was already damaged from shelling. So it is possible that the increased water pressure caused something to break violently which can sound like an explosion and then the rest just followed.
The main argument against this theory is the timing, as the ukrainian counteroffensive just started before. Now blowing up the dam does not make much sense strategically, rather the opposite as lots of russian trenches and minefields were flooded and negated as well(and not on the western side), but it might have been a panic reaction, with someone messing things up along the chain of command.
It really needs to be stated that the dams destruction is a massive catastrophe for Ukraine, and as much as people say "Russia had no reason to do it", Ukraine had far far less reason to do it.
It provides water for drinking and heavy industry and agriculture for the entire central part of the country most of which is still under Ukrainian control. Lots of manufacturing capacity that was still online, had to be shut down. It still caused a ton of damage in Kherson, and the Russian positions it "destroyed" are irrelevant because Ukraine hasn't actually made any big push to the other side there, just some minor skirmishes. And Russia has now had, at this point, plenty of time to rebuild those positions. So Ukraine is going to be eating an economic cost of billions or tens of billions, and gained nothing from the destruction of the dam.
The most likely cause is that Russia had prepped it for demolition in case of a significant Ukrainian attack across the river, and then either misinterpreted a small attack or triggered it by accident.
So what do you say to the fact, that due to height differences, the east, under russian control(with no immediate threat of being conquered) was hit way harder? The nuclear plant, the water supply to crimea? As of russian position, they are russian motherland since last autumn. So no matter how fake the referendum was, from their point of view, they were hurting themself.
But sure, it is a massive catastrophe for Ukraine, like the whole war is.
I say that unless the fact that the Russian side was lower resulted in meaningful military benefits for Ukraine, it's basically irrelevant. Russia lost some equipment but not really that much. Not enough to come even close to making it worth it for Ukraine, or enough to refute the idea that Russia did it.
Since when has Russia ever been terribly concerned with "hurting itself" if they thought it would hurt the enemy too. And I just explained why this hurts Ukraine badly.
"The destruction of the dam, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a news conference a week after the event, "ruined their counteroffensive in this direction." It was a comment that didn’t fit particularly well with his claim that the Ukrainians had destroyed the dam themselves."
>> “If Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine — then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
But of course this is a totally different thing, amirite?
Nord Stream 2 did "end" the same day that Russia invaded. Its approval was revoked by the German government, as per the agreement that had been negotiated with the German government in exchange for the US dropping sanctions on the project.
> It is clear who is guilty. The Ukrainian side strived for this.
> You know, I won't say 100 percent things right now that I'm not sure about. By and large, we did not record any large explosions before the destruction occurred. In any case, that's what they reported to me. But they purposefully hit the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station repeatedly with HIMARS - that’s what it’s all about. Maybe they had some kind of backfill there, I don’t know now, maybe they once again added something insignificant, and destruction began.
> But as we understand, we are definitely not interested in this, because these will have dire consequences for those territories that we control and which are Russian. This is the first.
> And the second. Unfortunately, I’ll say a strange thing, but nevertheless, unfortunately, this thwarted their counteroffensive in this direction. Unfortunately - why? Because it would be better if they attacked there. It’s better for us, because it would be very bad for them to attack there. But since such a spill occurred, then, accordingly, the offensive did not take place.
> The Ministry of Emergency Situations and the military are working actively there, as well as local authorities. All people will be provided with assistance in accordance with Russian legislation and standards.
>> For clarity: I still do not rule out the possibility that the Russians may have dealt an additional blow to the Kakhovka dam in phase 4, but the dam was actually so severely damaged four days before the collapse that it was beyond saving
> Second, the russians had allmost nothing to gain from blowing it up.
Well, they didn't gain much from shelling power plants in the winter but they did it anyway. They wasted many missiles on it, some civilians died, but in the end the result gave them no significant advantage. Why did they do it? Well, because Putin still has the mentality of a street bully - if he can inflict suffering on someone who is weaker, he will, whether it makes sense or not.
No need to even resort to personality attacks on Putin; the actions of Russian forces in Ukraine are clearly shaping up to be more of a state level attempt to undermine future potential for Ukraine than they are an attempt to "improve" Russia by taking territory, or "helping" Russian speakers in Ukrainian territory.
Putin/Lavrov cannot afford for Ukraine to be a long term success, another East Slavic, ex-Soviet rival to their own regime and not under their domination.
Mass minefields, constant artillery bombardment, destruction of civilian targets/infrastructure, confiscation of assets, children. The goal is not to win, but to ruin Ukraine and drain its resources and future prospects. "If we can't dominate it and control it and profit from it, then nobody else will.". The speaker of the Duma stated this explicitly last week:
> Putin/Lavrov cannot afford for Ukraine to be a long term success, another East Slavic rival to their own regime not under their domination.
I think this is also some of the logic of the PRC w.r.t. Taiwan. Who in the PRC wants to concede that the Chinese diaspora is huge and that it can contain a multitude of sociopolitical systems ?
Much as American states are the "laboratories of democracy".
Yes, absolutely. I tend to think of it like this: we are not talking about a bipolar world which is "the-west" vs "not-the-west"; we are instead talking about two visions of modernism emerging out of the enlightenment and the development of modernity: one that emphasizes some democracy and chaotic diversity and another that emphasizes uniformity and control. (The market economy is perhaps parallel to this, both visions can accommodate a capitalist market system.) Multiparty, ethnic diversity, multicultural vs single-leader national chauvinism, etc.
There are ideological proponents of either vision within both "east" and "west." But the crisis in Ukraine has erupted in such a way that it is effectively counterpoising one against the other.
That is not to say that the ruling parties in Ukraine are in any way pro "ethnic diversity" and "democratic"; they are in large part old school national chauvinist and fairly corrupt. But in resisting singular Russian hegemony the Ukrainian people are in large part appealing to something far more anti-oppressive.
Second, the russians had allmost nothing to gain from blowing it up. The regions east of the river were hit way harder and now the crimea water supply is threatened and the conquered nuclear power plant is rendered worthless.
Now the russians surely are not rational all the time, so it still might have been them - but the reason might have been also simply incompetence. If you look at the water levels, they were rising a lot before (and they were not regulating it, like it happened before). And the dam was already damaged from shelling. So it is possible that the increased water pressure caused something to break violently which can sound like an explosion and then the rest just followed.
The main argument against this theory is the timing, as the ukrainian counteroffensive just started before. Now blowing up the dam does not make much sense strategically, rather the opposite as lots of russian trenches and minefields were flooded and negated as well(and not on the western side), but it might have been a panic reaction, with someone messing things up along the chain of command.
In either case it is a stupid tragedy.