Russia’s ‘legal’ system is nothing if not swift, ‘investigation’ started on viral faked video footage making the rounds in Russian social media on Friday, arrest warrant issued by Russian Interior Ministry on Monday.
Messed up world when I find myself agreeing with Lindsey Graham of all people about the ICC:
“Finally, here’s an offer to my Russian ‘friends’ who want to arrest and try me for calling out the Putin regime as being war criminals: I will submit to jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court if you do,” he added.
Yeah, about that and the joys of having multiple armed forces being run by warlords who are hostile towards each other and the government’s own army which is hostile towards them in turn as opposed to the governement having the monopoly on violence the way the rest of the world works. This is the latest from Prigozhin’s PR channels; much of the leadership of Wagner were in Russian special forces during the 1999-2000 conflict:
Prigozhin and Kadyrov have both been making noises about unilaterally sending forces to the Belgorod area since the regular Russian military hasn’t been doing such a hot job stopping the Freedom of Russia Legion from crossing the border and driving the Russian military and border forces out of Russian towns and villages.
I am leaning to Ukraine having done it. But only slightly.
I do not see a great tactical advantage for either side to do it really. But maybe somebody has a plan that this will move forward? I only suspect Ukraine a bit more than Russia due to geography. The left side of the river downstream was obviously going to get flooded more. Russians were more on that side of the river. So they got swamped more. But not so much as to make a great advantage there.
Lowering of the water levels along the river may ease a water crossing? Fewer actual pontoon sections required. But a lot of some sort of mud crossing structure at each end.
It causes some headaches for the nuke plant cooling pools. A disaster there would be some big media thing. But which side will it be pro/negative for? I think just an overall negative. Worse yet if one is pinned as causing it.
Maybe further events will clarify Cui Bono.
Over the last few days it seems Ukraine has launched the offensive. But I am still not sure if it is full scale. Definitely fairly large incursions. But can still maybe be seen as probing. Units in the rear have been moved forward. Some that have been prepared for the offensive. But it still seems to not be punching in a particular place in full force. Maybe Ukraine is seeing how Russian rear support is being brought to bare, and trying to spot a hole that might develop behind the lines. Russia is moving support here and there as Ukraine attacks. A weak spot may become apparent as units move.
It seems Ukraine forces are not using good tactics/materiel when moving forward. Leading armor does not have mine clearing attachments. Did they not see the Russians make similar mistake? They are taking areas. But not having enough support in depth to hold them well. Again, these may be probing attacks, so they are not fully concerned with holding ground yet.
This war is really showing how certain technologies are changing tactics. On the fly. But yet still showing how attrition and production are still major issues. Been quite while since near peer military forces have gone full out.
Yes, no tactical advantage for either side could possibly be evident in turning a difficult water crossing obstacle into an impossible water crossing obstacle for the near future, what with Russia being very firmly on the defensive both front wide in general and south of Kherson in particular, having been forced to flee the Western side of the river in November. By committing what is a by the books war crime as per Geneva 1977. No wiggle room allowed for any military advantage gained from blowing the dam.
Article 15 - Protection of works and installations containing dangerous forces
Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.
Get fucked. You truly are a disgusting piece of shit.
“They (the Ukrainians) didn’t strike it. That was our sabotage group,” said one of the men on the recording, described by the SBU as a Russian soldier. “They wanted to, like, scare (people) with that dam.”
“It didn’t go according to plan, and (they did) more than what they planned for.”
I trust Reuters, though they’re just saying what Ukraine claims.
I don’t 100% trust the intelligence operation of any country in a war discussing the negative actions of the enemy, just because it’s literally their job to spread misinformation that will hurt the enemy.
I’m inclined to believe them in this case though, especially if they claim to have evidence.
I find Reuters to be pretty good. I like that they have a corrections page as well. But as noted. Any news organization can publish faulty information that they felt was correct at the time. Everything is fallible.
Ukraine doesn’t have the capability to have done it. You don’t blow up a dam with the 90kg warhead of a GMLRS from HIMARS, or even the 500kg warhead of a Storm Shadow. The WWII dambusters raids used 3400kg bombs. And you can’t make up the mass of explosives by using a bunch of artillery shells, because it doesn’t help to have surface detonations.
The dam was blown up using demolition explosives. The Ukrainians didn’t have sufficient control over the area to plant such explosives. The Russians did.
Also, the Ukrainians gain nothing from blowing the dam, at the cost of killing thousands of civilians and devastating the agricultural potential of much of southern Ukraine for decades to come.
Finally, Ukrainians are scrambling to rescue civilians stranded by the flooding, while the Russians do nothing, even to assist those on the left bank. Instead, they’ve been shelling the Ukrainian civilian evacuation operations.
This is the gravest war crime committed in Europe since WWII. To blithely assert that the Ukrainians might have committed it in the face of all the evidence that they did not and in fact could not have done so is utterly despicable.
Well…it probably did seriously damage Russia’s bank-side minefields, while not impeding Ukrainian river-crossing ability long enough to rebuild them properly. And if this war stalemated for years, Russian-held Crimea would be feeling a serious water-pinch. Frankly like many my first thought was that it was entirely accidental - a combination of high levels/water pressure and previous damage compromising the gates. It was just not an awesome idea for either side, though on balance a bigger short-term hit to Ukraine.
But it certainly wasn’t Ukraine that blew it and it is increasingly certain Russia did. We’d know it by direct satellite evidence if Ukraine hit it externally and it’s exceptionally unlikely a Ukrainian demolition team could manage to infiltrate through Russian security unnoticed. There is mounting evidence there was an internal explosion at night and Russia held it…so…yeah, it was Russia. Of course it was. It couldn’t have really been Ukraine (they could have and may have blown the Nord Stream line, but that’s a very different bit of sabotage). It could have been an accidental failure, but it now looks like it almost certainly wasn’t - Russia sacrificed their own for transitory gain.
Which is typical of Putin. Ukraine flooding their own settlements and creating a humanitarian crisis without trying to evacuate first would not be typical of Zelenskyy or the current Ukrainian government.
The dam was certainly blown up using carefully placed explosive charges. If the Ukrainians had managed to sneak into one of the most important structures in the country which was entirely under the control of the Russians, and spend a few hours wiring it up for demolition, that would actually be pretty embarrassing for Russia.
I have to question just how true this actually is. The figure that 85% of Crimea’s fresh water supply came from the canal is often floated around the media. However, Ukraine cut all water from the canal to Crimea from its ‘annexation’ in 2014 until 2022 when Russia physically took control of the canal and got the water flowing again. One might assume this would be devastating to the demographics of Crimea, but during this time from 2014-2022 the population of Crimea increased between 10 and 20%; the only thing that suffered was Crimea’s agricultural output which is allegedly where over 70% of the water from the canal was used prior to 2014.
Yeah, granted it’s hard to suss this one out. The wiki on the North Crimean Canal, which is probably as well-sourced as anything, talks about how official Russian statistics claim agriculture massively rebounded with new investment and the building of a new reservoir. But it links to some Bloomberg and Al Jazeera reporting that talks about massive shrinkage in cultivated acreage, water rationing in Simferopol (dirty, brown water no less) and looming environmental catastrophe as they are pumping out groundwater aquifers to make up supply and soil salinization is expanding. The one AJ article talks about even local Russian officials saying desalination as the only long-term solution and I just don’t see Russia putting their scarce dollars and industrial capacity into that anytime soon with the war ongoing.
I’m inclined to suspect the cynical take is more accurate than the rosy Russian one and that Crimea has been hurting more for water than the Russians have been letting on.
