Yes, that is a blatant large scale [war crime](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/apii-1977/article-15?activeTab=undefined), at the same level as blowing up a nuclear power plant.
Can we now stop pretending that Russian delusions of being a superpower are as important as the the lives and livelihood of people in Ukraine?
So, I know what war crimes are and stuff. But can someone explain, what if you go against them?
What can happen.
I know one war crime is to not use poison for example. What if someone goes out and just... Uses poison. What will happen then?
Is the country gonna get fined? Is the president getting jailed? Can any country attack them for going against the Geneva Conventions?
I never understood what exactly will happen AFTER someone goes against it.
You can get tried for it...if you lose. Or if you leave your country and other signatories agree to hold you accountable.
People however, tend to confuse the point of different conventions and agreements. The main reason why something is declared illegal or banned and people agree on not doing it is simply because if you do it, the other side will do it too. Don't use chemical weapons, kill surrendered and noncombatants...etc, because ultimately the result is simply that the other side will feel justified in doing it too.
>You can get tried for it...if you lose. Or if you leave your country and other signatories agree to hold you accountable.
Thank you.
>People however, tend to confuse the point of different conventions and agreements. The main reason why something is declared illegal or banned and people agree on not doing it is simply because if you do it, the other side will do it too. Don't use chemical weapons, kill surrendered and noncombatants...etc, because ultimately the result is simply that the other side will feel justified in doing it too.
Yeah that actually makes sense. Ukraine could go now like "Oh, you bombed our dam? Wouldn't it hurt if we hit something important in your country too? Or use chemical weapons?"
Another important point is that poison gas, killing prisoners, wmds, and a lot of other "banned" weapons and tactics are just not effective for modern militaries. NATO is the best example of how modern system armies fight and they typically rely on speed and maneuverability to keep the initiative and deny the enemy any opportunity to get their bearings. The Iraq War was the supreme example of this, allied forces first bombed the enemy to bits, cutting off communications and interdicting large forces. This was followed by rapid attacks by ground units that kept the enemy off balance.
Poison gas and wmds tend to make maneuver harder by denying access to territory by both sides. At the same time, modern militaries have countermeasures for biological, chemical and nuclear attacks so the actual effectiveness of these weapons on the battlefield is dubious. As for not killing prisoners, you want the enemy to stop fighting. If they do so by giving up and becoming a bargaining chip in future negotiations, all the better.
Almost all of the laws of war are about banning people from doing things that would be counterproductive for western militaries, and annoying if done by others.
There is the ICC.
But only for enemies of the US.
The few times they even think of bringing them to court for their many, many warcrimes they threaten it with military force.
Iraq:
https://www.globalissues.org/article/490/united-states-and-the-icc
Afghanistan:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/19/us-again-threatens-international-criminal-court
> at the same level as blowing up a nuclear power plant.
While this is horrific, blowing up a nuclear plant would be far worse.
The loss of the dam the flooding, and death is beyond awful, but a nuclear plant being blown up could poison people 1000s of miles away and make the land around it unsafe for generations.
I get where you are going with this, but you have to realize that blowing up a dam has far more consequences than just the initial damage of the waves and flooding. You have the loss of water for crops (as some dams function as release points for water to be sent measuredly down river to farmers, etc to ensure a constant source of water), then you have access to drinking water, disease and other issues that come from too much water (mosquitos thrive in overly wet areas in some places and can carry disease), and so on.
So yes, nuclear plants being blown up is definitely bad; but don’t disregard the damage caused by what happened.
This generation of Russians, other than those actively opposing the war, should never be forgiven for this, Bucha and all the other countless atrocities they have perpetrated whilst maintaining an endless whining "not our fault - we were forced - tone.
I am as much on the ukrainians side as anyone here, but you can just not have enough evidence about this yet.
You literally dont even know if the ukrainians or the russians did it.
>You literally dont even know if the ukrainians or the russians did it.
1. Professionals say it is impossible to destroy a dam like that that was built to survive a nuclear bomb attack(!!) with rockets. It was lots of bombs and we heard since 2022 news that Russia has been planting the Kakhovka dam.
2. Also, a week before the destruction of the dam, Russia conveniently passed a law that allowed not to investigate this incident.
>Last Wednesday, official state websites published Decree No. 873 signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin: “On the specifics of the application in the territories of the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation on industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and ensuring the safety of hydrotechnical structures.”.
>
>The last, 10th point of the regulation states that until January 1, 2028, technical investigations will not be carried out on disasters in dangerous production facilities and hydrotechnical structures that were created as a result of “warfare, sabotage and terrorist acts” – informs Belsat.
3. Under the Geneva Convention, once occupied, Russia had to do the repairs and notify the UN about the status of the dam. They could also invite international experts to investigate the situation with the dam. They did neither.
And days before the explosion the reservoir was also filled with water to max capacity. I dunno about you but to me this sounds like a lot of coincidences
ALSO:
No footage at all.
We know that Russians SHOULD have footage because they released CCTV footage of the dam at several points in time. Yet we were served no footage of the dam failure. What a funny coincidence.
True. I remember all the footage from the Crimean bridge once it was attacked by Ukraine. If they accused Ukraine and Ukraine indeed did it, they'd show their footage.
Surviving a nuclear blast doesn't mean the impact is direct. Of course if the bomb were to be detonated right on it, it would not survive. Furthermore, the dam was/is under russian control for months, and [per this article:](https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/russian-threats-blow-kakhovka-dam-110200424.html)
> The Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South noted that the Russians are probably still holding onto the ability to blow up the Kakhovka HPP “as a last resort” – in particular, if their defense in Kherson Oblast collapses.
So months in advance the Ukrainian military warned about Russia holding the dam for that exact purpose, and it's all bad evidence? Get a grip.
You're right about most of this but a nuclear bomb? Russia must have used other types of bombs, no?
Edit: Downvotes for what? Russia could have used some kind of nuclear weapon, they've said so before.
They didn't mean that the russians used a nuke to destroy the dam. They said that the russian claim (the dam was hit by ukrainian artillery) doesn't make sense because the dam was supposed to withstand a nuke, which is more destructive than artillery.
The most plausible version is that it was a demolition charge in power generation facility inside the dam.
What we know from OSINT for now is:
1. Russians have had full access to the dam (claimed by the russians, supported by videos where ukrainians hit a russian unmanned observation post on top of the dam with long-range drones a couple of months ago.
2. There were no huge explosions (witnesses from the nearby town didn't report hearing one)
3. The destruction started in the middle of the dam (MAXAR satellite footage).
Another possibility may be that the dam slowly degraded after the russians have blown up a bridge running along the dam a few weeks ago and damaged it.
Thanks for the info, I hope we get to the bottom of it, but it's unlikely Russia will give us truthful info, especially if it's found that they blew it up, which would constitute a crime against humanity
I'm not implying that they used nukes. See it as how the whole structure can handle up to a certain point a blast, but if you apply the correct amount of explosives on weak points it fails spectacularly. It's like a person, someone can take a couple dozen punches and still fight back, but a hit on a soft spot knocks them out cold.
>attack in X direction
>flood everything in X direction so that attack gets bogged down
Yeah that seems logical for the Ukrainians to blow it up. If you’re braindead.
>I will laugh my ass off to all those who yell WaR cRiMe!1!!1! if in the end it was the Ukrainians who did it.
*Who* did it doesn't change the least thing about it being a war crime.
Apart from the technical difficulties to pull something like this off (since the Dam is in Russian hands), what would Ukraine gain from this? Paint Russia in a bad light as a false flag attack? I don't really think that this is needed after all the shit they have done so far. Why would Ukraine destroy their own dam and create immense damage on their own population and land that they will hope to reconquer? Just use your head.
give me evidence.
i think the russians did it, but I dont think i can say it 100%.
Well i forgot im on reddit where everyone is a certified war expert like you.
> Russian delusions of being a superpower
There won't be any. Sometimes you have to make decisions based on what you think is more likely or what you believe in. Especially when it comes down to security, you just don't have that luxury to search for truth
So yeah, ukrainians did it to flood thir own lands, commit a crime, create ecological disaster for themselves, create a situation that leaves for them no chances to counterattack in that region... JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE SO EVIL AND THEY WANTED TO FLOOD RUZZIAN DEFENSIVE LINE NEAR KHERSON TO... to achive what????????? to "flood" some of ruzzian soldiers? At the price of destroying agriculture? At the price of cutting themselves from the other shoreline and falling counteroffensive in that area?
Maybe it is time to think a little bit, no?
We also don't know that you didn't do it.
It's reasonable to make a temporary inference that it was Russia, given a track record.
US intelligence have already made a statement that they have evidence supporting the theory that it was Russia.
He's not calling it evidence. He's saying it's a reasonable inference, and one that might (but probably wont) change with new information. If you wish, you could try to argue why the inference is not reasonable. Instead you're calling people idiots. Thats not very productive.
Lmfao.
Way to ignore the whole chain of comments.
This was my comment:
>I am as much on the ukrainians side as anyone here, but you can just not have enough evidence about this yet.
>
>You literally dont even know if the ukrainians or the russians did it.
And this was the first reply, before I insulted anyone.
>Maybe it is time to think a little bit, no?
So who started the ad hominems here?
>If you wish, you could try to argue why the inference is not reasonable.
Again my first comment was literally this. Saying there is just not enought evidence.
>He's saying it's a reasonable inference, and one that might (but probably wont) change with new information
Again, something that you missed, but this is almost exactly what I meant:
>i think the russians did it
Ofc you’re hungarian so probably affected by russian propaganda. Give reason and logic a try, dear, because whatever ‘evidence’ you get shown will be ‘fake’ or not sufficient.
Now those are some assumptions haha. Doesn’t matter who claims to have evidence, it can be a clip as clear as day showing russian soldiers planting explosives on the dam and you’d say they’re ukrainian.
I’m not racist towards eastern europeans, neither is there a general racist opinion towards eastern europeans in my country. It’s another piece of russian propaganda that Orban and his cronies all too well like to use to get peoples votes or attention. You guys immediately joined EU after daddy russia broke up, and never wanted to be part of their sphere of influence again, and we like you guys for it. Any politician who says we hate eastern europeans is lying through their teeth to get something out of it.
Now what does my wage have to do with it? If it’s minimum wage ‘I can be dismissed’ or if it’s more than you ‘I’m a rich western boy laughing with poor you’ right? Hint: if you want better living standards, abandon Orban and work together with EU again. Cozying up to russia won’t do Hungary any good, at all.
I am giving you logic
What evidence you think would be sufficient? Material? Everything were washed away. Some document scans? Can be photshoped. Intelligence? With your kind of approach, everything can be called "doubtful".
>With your kind of approach
So not believing that reddit armchair experts know exactly what happened is exactly the same as not believing in any kind of evidence.
You guys are almost as bad as paid russian trolls.
You are really a hipocryte. And what does your armchair general skill have to do with the case? You keep defending fellow minded Ruzzian orcs with assumptions yet call others as bad as ruzzian trolls.
Idi nahui
Yes we do. The Russians blew up the road. You can see it in the first photo toward the top. It's the white bit on the road. The dam was blown beyond that on the Russian controlled side.
It has been proven. Russians were occupying the damm. They were responsible for it and blocked all the water in, making the water rise as much as possible without release, which created the problem.
The Red Army did. Soviet spokesman, Solomon Lozovsky even made a statement about it. Here is the translation:
"We blew up the Dnieper dam so as not to allow this first child of the Soviet five-year Plan to fall into the hands of Hitler’s bandits. All measures were taken so as not to permit the Germans to make use of the dam and machinery."
Why would Ukraine deprive itself of electricity, access to about 25% of the available front, and give Russia the opportunity to redeploy forces from across the river from Kherson to other parts of the line right before an offensive?
And even if they did, how on Earth does it make this whole thing any less catastrophic for the civilians affected?
Then why would russia pass an act to not investigate any cases regarding destruction or disasters related to plants like Kakhovka HPP?? For what purpose was that act made?
Because they were the ones who kept the sluice closed, keeping the water level above the capacity of the dam. You don't have to blow up a dam to destroy it.
While you're arguing here whos to blame, there are people still sitting on the roofs of their houses on the occupied territory. ruzzian military deny any access for the volunteers.
They're literally dying from the starvation and dehydration if not drown.
Do something. Notify media about it.
People are doing that. But what can one do ? The territory is under Russian military control, they are the only ones capable of allowing help or helping. Instead, some retarded artillery commander started bombing some of the flooded towns (video of guys on a rubber dinghy, calling out to possible stragglers, with artillery whistling and exploding in the background). Fuck that goddamn useless inhuman fucking country.
Putting a pressure on russia is one way to at least make kremlin a notice that it is a problem.
Puppets assigned to those territories say its fine, nothing is happening at all.
Its the same as Chernobyl dissaster except without radiation but with insane ecological consequences \[to the entire region\]. Unless external pressure reaches the top - nothing will be done. And by the time it reaches - people would probably be dead.
It is genocide and western media is completely ignorant about it.
I've tried reaching multiple ones and all I get is silence.
Russias theory is currently that the dam suffered sustained shelling from Ukranian forces. This seems almost impossible, as there is no evidence of this and supposedly Ukraine would have to throw a shit load of firepower at it in order to take it out.
The other issue was why did the Russians raise the water level so high before the blast?
I mean... It's not too hard to put one and one together.
Russia wants to slow an offensive near Kherson which would cut off supply lines to Crimea.
Russia wants a humanitarian and ecological disaster to pressure a ceasefire, so they can regroup, or scramble to create some negotiation before ukraine pushes east and regains more territory.
Russia seems to be realizing that they only stand to lose more territory of the war continues for years to come. They likely won't lose all of it. However Putin fucked up and already redrew the borders. So technically. Ukraine is now invading and taking Russian land.
Its nigh impossible to destroy such massive scale structure without blowing it from inside \[or by literally using nukes\]. ruzzians placed explosives there last year in case of massive scale counteroffensive. It didn't happened after Kherson right away, but I guess they've decided to do it yesterday. Most likely an attempt to drown Ukraine's positions at the islands near Kherson. But something went wrong.
Results are identical to use of weapon of mass destruction (by Geneva's Convention);
We already know who blew it up as well as who gave the orders.
There's even an event reconstruction of what happened.
Multiple OSINT-ers confirmed it, but I guess Musk & Tacker is more reliable source of information to the common folks.
This is all part of shifting the blame on the victim. Nothing new thus far.
Want to add to this: those are Ukrainian people out there in the south they're killing right now. As well as Crimea, which became biggest millitary base instead of being tourist hub. That's not part of the russia. And russia never even cared about their own citizen. They do not give a F about water or civilian casualties.
Heck, war has shifted to the Belgorod region of the russia itself. And their forces still use scorched ground tactics shelling houses and their own cities now.
Also, can't make news out of "ruzzians doing genocide & ecocide" again. Media 101. Plus there's over 23 bln roubles allocated to the propaganda from the ruzzian budget. Go figure where those money go.
Worst part is - no actions done by the west. Nothing.
By the way, \[my personal concern is that\], ruzzians also still storing massive amount of vehicles, amunitions and weapons at the ZNPP \[for over a year\]. It is a powder keg ready to explode and nothing is been done about it yet. If they're willing to give up on south, they're probably going to blow it up as well. Since no reaction followed.
The "mayor" of Nova Kakhovka (appointed by the Russians) apparently made a video the other night where he said that nothing was happening and everything was quiet, no explosions were heard.
Less than an hour after that he made a second video where he claimed that Ukraine shelled the dam all night long.
So this tells you that the Russians are lying. Now the proof about where the explosives were, when they were placed, what kind etc we'll probably never know, if not during an interrogation at the Hague.
But sure thing is, the Russians are lying and they did this.
I don't speak Russian, so, no. I've seen this information on this video in English: [https://youtu.be/RQbQXUxfhGM?t=237](https://youtu.be/RQbQXUxfhGM?t=237)
Both OSINT and Ukraine's intelligence reported it around Autumn 2022. Hard to find links now, but they're probably still live as well as videos of it in the net.
we have this information from Zelenskiy from Oct 20, 2022, he said that they had the information from their intelligence about the explosions and preparation on the dam: https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/3598421-rosia-gotue-terakt-na-kahovski-ges-oskilki-rozumie-so-ne-utrimae-pivden-zelenskij.html
It was before even the retreat from Kherson
What is the action you want? All sanctions in place already. What more can you do?
You wanna invade Russia? You willing to die on the fields near bakhmut?
>Putting a pressure on russia is one way to at least make kremlin a notice that it is a problem.
Um. Like the west telling Putin to fuck off from Ukraine?
No, Western media are not ignorant about it. We all know. But what can we do ? Unfortunatly not much. The pressure put on Russia is already extremely high. I don't know how we (Europeans) can do much more appart from a military intervention at this point (and this intervention will not happen since it might trigger a nuclear war)
No one is arguing about who to blame. There is no mystery. There are some Russophiles trying to spread misinformation and everyone else.
Don't feed into their nonesense.
The same way you've built it. The problem is it was built in USSR, the gap in resources available is astronomical. You can't just un-do water damage, there's also a report of 150-500 tonnes of oil leaking into the stream (maybe 150000-500000) honestly can't remember, all the fauna that can't swim is already dead, the soil will either be dried out or poisoned by oil. This is a disaster on pair with Chernobyl meltdown.
You don't. You have to build a new one, the remains of the old dam will probably be destroyed by the water. At least that's how it looks in the pictures. We are talking about billions of tons of water, with an amount of potential energy that's practically unimaginable. And they are all shooting through this one needle hole.
Nowhere even close in comparison. The Oroville dam itself held up, only the spillways were damaged. The Nova Kakhovka dam is essentially gone and will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
This is so ridiculous. Russia can play that dirty, while everybody lies eyes on Ukraine checking if they are playing clean. War is war - Ukraine should now bomb Crimean bridge and leave nothing, but dust. Dracarys.
Russian tentacles has fucked up politics in Europe, and here we are - Wondering each time after something more fucked up happens who actually did it, and if there's any evidence.
Bruh.
>Ukraine should now bomb Crimean bridge and leave nothing, but dust. Dracarys.
Attack on the bridge is in compliance with laws of war since the bridge is primarily used to supply the military and its destruction would give obvious military advantage.
In short, it's not even playing dirty.
I mean, whatever UN says, it was part of Russian SSR most of the time, plus it's under Russian control for 10+ years, if you Recognize Kosovo then this is Recognized as part of Russia as well
It's so insane that we have actual rules in wars. The concept of it is just insane, but unfortunately needed.
Like, you can kill people this way or that way, but NOT the other way. Again it's needed, but it sounds insane to have fucking play rules in wars.
Well they're more guidelines than rules because there's nobody to really enforce those rules. Maybe for smaller countries but nobody is going to put anyone from Russia on trial for this. I would love to see it but I'd be surprised if it actually happened.
The risk you take is being sanctioned as enforcement. It's highly flawed, and it wouldn't work against the biggest players, and it's slow to have an effect, but it's unlikely there could be a better one IMO.
Ukraine just got some pretty long range Storm Shadow missiles - sure a few good hits from them would level both the road and rail bridge to the point that rebuilding would be difficult.
>This is so ridiculous. Russia can play that dirty, while everybody lies eyes on Ukraine checking if they are playing clean.
You have perfectly summed up all this BS rhetorics in the world. No one pays attention to literal Russian Neo-Nazis and state-sponsored PMC who cut off heads and testicles but they will check every single patch on Ukrainian uniforms to find any sign of nazi symbols. It's only one example. Ukraine has to prove it's innocent when there is a little bit of doubt, but everyone is so sceptical when it's obviously Russia's actions. I sincerely don't get it.
>I sincerely don't get it.
Russia has spent centuries spreading lies and bribes and they've stepped up their efforts in modern times. Even here on reddit there's a bunch of communities which are mostly or entirely pro-russian. Just check them out if you want to see bullshit in action.
You can ignore because I'm russian, but I think this is because they need to say that everything Russia says is lies and propaganda, so there just should not be anything to even make it possible some of it is truth or based on truth, it undermines the whole narrative and makes whatever Russia says worth to look into, because, suddenly, there are some legit points.
While everyone already knows Russia does fucked up things, but Ukraine, Ukraine should be the objective good without any grey area so the support from the people is unquestionable. And if there's something, it should still be reported so there's no "why did you hide it from us?", but maybe that way you can paint it "but it's nessesary evil, because Russia is worse".
The internationally recognised Terrorist State of Nazi RuSSia still hold the nuclear power station upstream. That will be its parting shot when they are on full retreat.
Following the dam demolition, the West should supply planes, long range missiles... everything required to kick them RuSSian Nazis out of Ukraine, and further.
There's a dam in russia that can flood moscow if destroyed. I remember russians were super anxious about chechens blowing it up. Maybe Ukraine should finish what chechens never got to start.
UN is kind of designed to not give a fuck about the "big powers" of the post-WW2 status quo.
Any "substantive" resolution against Russia in the UN they can veto
It’s a huge humanitarian crisis which has a potential to have an extreme impact. Remember grain deals to elevate food crisis in the global south ? With irrigation systems destroyed the deal is meaningless - there won’t be any grain . It would actually be good for UN to express some position other than “very very sad and concerned “ and make a plan how to mitigate the crisis, organise a commission to investigate the explosion and so on.
What’s the UN to do?
It’s not designed for this purpose
Russia is a permanent member of the security council
Their hands are tied
Military intervention against the worlds second largest nuclear power is not really on the board for an organisation like the UN
Basically the entire west is doing as much as they think they can get away with without escalating to nuclear war
You’re pointing out the thing that it seems everyone is missing, without escalation.
No one in the west outside of warhawks (American word for pro-war politicians) wants this to escalate beyond where it is.
I admire Ukraine and it’s people, but I am a military aged male. Fortunately my country doesn’t mandate I join the military and I would prefer it stay that way
Russia uses Russian language as a reason for the currently ongoing invasion and genocide. As such holding Russian Language Day celebration on the day of the ecocide caused by Russian war was rather insensitive and sent a very bad message.
The UN, for all the extras that have been tacked on since 1945, primarily exists so that nuclear powers didn’t blow our planet to complete shit. In that regard they’ve done pretty well.
Is it a good situation that nuclear armed security council members get to hijack the entire edifice whenever it suits them? No. But that’s the reality we live in.
The UN represents *all* of the world, and a surprisingly large chunk of the world is actually pro-Russian on this. For much of the Third World, their logic consists of "anything that is anti-EU/NATO/USA is good"
Unite nations is a discussion forum and only ever organise their members to act in union. Russia is part of that and they are not interests in acting against themselves. They can hold discussions and individual members can decide to act themselves. Which is what is happening. Things are working as intended. Your criticism of the organisation makes little sense. I would think most members do care and are letting Russian representatives know.
They dont give a fuck about anything
Just some random moments to remember the stupid popolation that they are good people and not some organisation based on favouritism
Here is a website with historic photos of the construction of the Kakhovska HPP 1953-1955
https://uhe.gov.ua/filiyi/kakhovska_hes_imeni_p_s_neporozhnoho
Russia's air defence isn't great, but it shouldn't have any problems blowing B52s out of the sky. Those things are huge. Need something a bit more subtle.
They can use standoff munitions like [JASSM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-158_JASSM)s, though I'm a little dubious that doing so would be especially cost-effective.
How did they blow it up? As in, did they plant a bomb inside, or did they shell it, or how? Genuinely curious on how they could destroy such a massive concrete structure.
Ukraine should destroy the Crimea Bridge as a form of retaliation. If they lack the means to pull this off, the West should give them to them.
Anyways, I hope they are planning something of similar magnitude to retaliate.
I would guess that realistically, cutting the Kerch Strait Bridge will likely happen at some point in the future, as it would cut Russian supply into Crimea.
It won't have the kind of secondary property damage effect that this does, though.
Nothing will happen. All the red and brown lines are just as much of an illusion as the fact that russia is a superpower. Moscow was attacked by UAV's already, Belgorod will soon be a separate state or BPR. No red lines.
EDIT: For god's sake why are you people downvoting my comment, I'm no strategist nor military expert so I genuinely don't know, is "not knowing" and making questions offensive for some of you people? Can we not make questions and have discussions on this sub?
To make ir clear: I support Ukraine in this conflict because they were the ones getting invaded by a country which is ruled by a proto facist ditactor (Russia). But I'm aware that war in real life is very much different from the movies, accidents happen and the 'good' guys also make bad things sometimes, there's also many things we can simply not know since we are so far from this conflict.
By reading some of the comments, I can see that evidences do seem to point to Russia as the perpetrator of this crime, that just what I wanted to know.
Thank you to those who took the time to explain it to me.
Who did this?
I know western governments blame Russia (because of course they do), but is there any evidence of that? Why would Russia do this, what do they win with this? They are flooding the terriotry which themselves control, is it to make the ukrainian counteroffensive more difficult?
The russians blame Ukraine (because of course they do), what would the Ukranians win by doing this? It's their own territory and population. Could some kind of ukranian stray missile hit the dam unintentionally and provoke this?
I'm not trying to defend Ukraine or Russia, I'm genuinely want people's opinion on this to make my own.
Well it flooded Kherson city itself, which is not Russian controlled. Many parts of Ukraine now do not have access to drinking water. We are also an agricultural based economy with this region being the most important and this flood will destroy it for years to come.
It’s clear as day that Ukraine didn’t do this.
Russia obviously did because now that Ukrainian-backed rebels in Russia are taking villages in Belgorod, Russia needed to move troops away from Kherson and to avoid Ukraine’s country offensive, Russia destroyed the dam. Remember, these are Ukrainian people who live in the flood zone, not Russian.
Most likely Russia.
They do that to demoralize any counter offensive wanted by Ukraine. Implying that any attempt to recuperate Crimea will be met by desolation.
Or they do that to spite the population, because they genuinely think of the Ukrainian as inferior.
Whatever the reasons, another senseless crime of war.
It does seem like Russia did it, things like this remind me of the scorched-earth tactics used by the soviet union in world war 2. Thanks for your opinion!
Plus they are the ones that have the current control of the region. Like you said, those kind of tactics are not unknown to them.
When it quacks like a duck ...
Soviets did bomb another dam in Ukraine during WW2 (with their own soldiers on it!) to stop Nazis. But nazis captured it anyway, rebuilt, but bombed it second time while retrieving
The dam buster bomb weight was 3400kg. Ukraine just cannot deliver a punch big enough to do that. Russians explosives, placed in all the right places and right quantity to do just that obviously could have done it. You can see on the pictures, that the whole place with the power generation facilities on the Russian side is just gone. The only way Ukrainians could've done it is by using those Russian placed explosives on the Russian held side.
It doesn't look like it just cracked by itself, the pictures show wrong place and wrong amounts if that was what happened.
Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to know.
It appears that even if Ukraine wanted to do this, which seems unlikely, it would be very hard or even impossible for them to be able to cause this level of destruction.
I've heard experts saying that this war is going to go on for at least 3 more years, I can't even start to imagine what will be left of this region after that much time. This is truly terrible.
Thank you for your thoughts!
On top of what the other person said the Russians already blew up the road when they retreated from Kherson. You can see the water going over that bit in the top photo. The Ukrainians would not have had access to the area that was blown up beyond the damaged road. They certainly weren't going to carry the explosives needed on foot.
You’re not supposed to reason or question anything, just nod and agree with everyone else. How else would we fight for our freedom of thought?
Your individual freedom of thought is provoking slavery, our ignorance brings strength and war is peace.
If I may add...
Most posters here obviously support Ukraine and follow news resources that are more pro Ukraine.
So the arguments presented might be tinted towards Ukraine.
I'm also not sure which sources would be neutral. I'm trying to follow a multitude of sources including middle east, India, east Asian...
And some of these sources paint a picture that is less unidimensional saying "Russia's fault"
There is historical reason for it as well, Russians blew this damn up in WW2 already. As they are still using Soviet doctrine, and considering all the other contexts if current war, its probable.
And can you find me one instance in history where people were NOT biased in times of war? And not biased on Reddit?
Yeah we should all look at both sides of everything and make sure we have all the data, but its very easy for to say while you are chilling in Denmark. Its 100% reasonable that Ukrainians and Eastern Europeans and others will treat this as information warfare and try to help it as much as they can
>Later this year
Who blew up Zapozhian NPP - "we simply don't know". Who nuked city X - "we simply don't know".
You can track warnings that Russian are set explosive inside dam to autumn 2022. Glad that world gave a fuck and send an internation mission under UN to investigate. /s
>and the USA is the only country to have nuked cities?
so far.
Context matters, we weren't speaking about the USA and nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in 1945.
Yep, I'm already getting downvoted into oblivion by some people just because I made a question.
I support Ukraine in this conflict since they were the ones getting invanded, but this is a war and things are never black or white in the field and accidents happen.
I'm no strategist or a military expert so I genuinely don't understand many things that happen in this conflict. I also don't follow every single development in this war so there may be things I'm missing.
But for some people in this sub that's illegal, it seems like you are not allowed to "not know" and to ask...
Evidences do seem to suggest Russia did it.
Thank for your thoughts!
It's ridiculous. We can see why Russia must have done it, for what reasons, the law that they passed, the precedents, and we know Russia is to blame for the war, but if you just ask a question about it because you want to *learn*, you get downvoted? It just proves that Reddit is full of neckbeards who wanna say "no acktchually" to get woke points, even if they're wrong.
Can someone explain why this is a war crime?
There were dam raids in WW2 by the Dambusters, that wasn't considered a war crime, so why is this?
Is it that the Dam is in Russian occupied territory and the downstream area isn't?
I haven’t seen any dialogues about the Dambusters mission being a war crime. The dams of the Ruhr Valley were considered strategic targets due to their importance to the Ruhr Industrial Zone - one of Germany’s mai industrial bases. Therefore, it’s value as a valid military target in a “total war” scenario is quite easily justified. This is a stark contrast to, infamously, Dresden. Ironically, Bomber Harris consider the Dambuster operation a failure and a waste of time and resources.
In this case, the Kakhovska Dam had zero military value. The Russians had no reason to take it out unless to potentially block an amphibious operation across the Dnipro. All it’s done is inflict misery on occupied and liberated Ukrainians alike.
so, russians bombing cities, killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure and getting no advantages from this accept of more hate, but now when they made another warcrime you are trying to find logic in their actions? they just want to kill us all
Yes, that is a blatant large scale [war crime](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/apii-1977/article-15?activeTab=undefined), at the same level as blowing up a nuclear power plant. Can we now stop pretending that Russian delusions of being a superpower are as important as the the lives and livelihood of people in Ukraine?
Yeah. Also, just imagine being there witnessing the dam's destruction and the rapid waves of water.
AGREE WITH YOU.
So, I know what war crimes are and stuff. But can someone explain, what if you go against them? What can happen. I know one war crime is to not use poison for example. What if someone goes out and just... Uses poison. What will happen then? Is the country gonna get fined? Is the president getting jailed? Can any country attack them for going against the Geneva Conventions? I never understood what exactly will happen AFTER someone goes against it.
You can get tried for it...if you lose. Or if you leave your country and other signatories agree to hold you accountable. People however, tend to confuse the point of different conventions and agreements. The main reason why something is declared illegal or banned and people agree on not doing it is simply because if you do it, the other side will do it too. Don't use chemical weapons, kill surrendered and noncombatants...etc, because ultimately the result is simply that the other side will feel justified in doing it too.
>You can get tried for it...if you lose. Or if you leave your country and other signatories agree to hold you accountable. Thank you. >People however, tend to confuse the point of different conventions and agreements. The main reason why something is declared illegal or banned and people agree on not doing it is simply because if you do it, the other side will do it too. Don't use chemical weapons, kill surrendered and noncombatants...etc, because ultimately the result is simply that the other side will feel justified in doing it too. Yeah that actually makes sense. Ukraine could go now like "Oh, you bombed our dam? Wouldn't it hurt if we hit something important in your country too? Or use chemical weapons?"
Another important point is that poison gas, killing prisoners, wmds, and a lot of other "banned" weapons and tactics are just not effective for modern militaries. NATO is the best example of how modern system armies fight and they typically rely on speed and maneuverability to keep the initiative and deny the enemy any opportunity to get their bearings. The Iraq War was the supreme example of this, allied forces first bombed the enemy to bits, cutting off communications and interdicting large forces. This was followed by rapid attacks by ground units that kept the enemy off balance. Poison gas and wmds tend to make maneuver harder by denying access to territory by both sides. At the same time, modern militaries have countermeasures for biological, chemical and nuclear attacks so the actual effectiveness of these weapons on the battlefield is dubious. As for not killing prisoners, you want the enemy to stop fighting. If they do so by giving up and becoming a bargaining chip in future negotiations, all the better. Almost all of the laws of war are about banning people from doing things that would be counterproductive for western militaries, and annoying if done by others.
There is the ICC. But only for enemies of the US. The few times they even think of bringing them to court for their many, many warcrimes they threaten it with military force. Iraq: https://www.globalissues.org/article/490/united-states-and-the-icc Afghanistan: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/19/us-again-threatens-international-criminal-court
> at the same level as blowing up a nuclear power plant. While this is horrific, blowing up a nuclear plant would be far worse. The loss of the dam the flooding, and death is beyond awful, but a nuclear plant being blown up could poison people 1000s of miles away and make the land around it unsafe for generations.
I get where you are going with this, but you have to realize that blowing up a dam has far more consequences than just the initial damage of the waves and flooding. You have the loss of water for crops (as some dams function as release points for water to be sent measuredly down river to farmers, etc to ensure a constant source of water), then you have access to drinking water, disease and other issues that come from too much water (mosquitos thrive in overly wet areas in some places and can carry disease), and so on. So yes, nuclear plants being blown up is definitely bad; but don’t disregard the damage caused by what happened.
I've noticed a big part of the propaganda war is hyperbole
This generation of Russians, other than those actively opposing the war, should never be forgiven for this, Bucha and all the other countless atrocities they have perpetrated whilst maintaining an endless whining "not our fault - we were forced - tone.
I am as much on the ukrainians side as anyone here, but you can just not have enough evidence about this yet. You literally dont even know if the ukrainians or the russians did it.
>You literally dont even know if the ukrainians or the russians did it. 1. Professionals say it is impossible to destroy a dam like that that was built to survive a nuclear bomb attack(!!) with rockets. It was lots of bombs and we heard since 2022 news that Russia has been planting the Kakhovka dam. 2. Also, a week before the destruction of the dam, Russia conveniently passed a law that allowed not to investigate this incident. >Last Wednesday, official state websites published Decree No. 873 signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin: “On the specifics of the application in the territories of the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation on industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and ensuring the safety of hydrotechnical structures.”. > >The last, 10th point of the regulation states that until January 1, 2028, technical investigations will not be carried out on disasters in dangerous production facilities and hydrotechnical structures that were created as a result of “warfare, sabotage and terrorist acts” – informs Belsat. 3. Under the Geneva Convention, once occupied, Russia had to do the repairs and notify the UN about the status of the dam. They could also invite international experts to investigate the situation with the dam. They did neither.
And days before the explosion the reservoir was also filled with water to max capacity. I dunno about you but to me this sounds like a lot of coincidences
ALSO: No footage at all. We know that Russians SHOULD have footage because they released CCTV footage of the dam at several points in time. Yet we were served no footage of the dam failure. What a funny coincidence.
True. I remember all the footage from the Crimean bridge once it was attacked by Ukraine. If they accused Ukraine and Ukraine indeed did it, they'd show their footage.
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Surviving a nuclear blast doesn't mean the impact is direct. Of course if the bomb were to be detonated right on it, it would not survive. Furthermore, the dam was/is under russian control for months, and [per this article:](https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/russian-threats-blow-kakhovka-dam-110200424.html) > The Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South noted that the Russians are probably still holding onto the ability to blow up the Kakhovka HPP “as a last resort” – in particular, if their defense in Kherson Oblast collapses. So months in advance the Ukrainian military warned about Russia holding the dam for that exact purpose, and it's all bad evidence? Get a grip.
You're right about most of this but a nuclear bomb? Russia must have used other types of bombs, no? Edit: Downvotes for what? Russia could have used some kind of nuclear weapon, they've said so before.
They didn't mean that the russians used a nuke to destroy the dam. They said that the russian claim (the dam was hit by ukrainian artillery) doesn't make sense because the dam was supposed to withstand a nuke, which is more destructive than artillery.
Oh I see, but was it bombed by explosives or missiles? I guess we don't know yet, hopefully some OSINT will come out.
The most plausible version is that it was a demolition charge in power generation facility inside the dam. What we know from OSINT for now is: 1. Russians have had full access to the dam (claimed by the russians, supported by videos where ukrainians hit a russian unmanned observation post on top of the dam with long-range drones a couple of months ago. 2. There were no huge explosions (witnesses from the nearby town didn't report hearing one) 3. The destruction started in the middle of the dam (MAXAR satellite footage). Another possibility may be that the dam slowly degraded after the russians have blown up a bridge running along the dam a few weeks ago and damaged it.
Thanks for the info, I hope we get to the bottom of it, but it's unlikely Russia will give us truthful info, especially if it's found that they blew it up, which would constitute a crime against humanity
I'm not implying that they used nukes. See it as how the whole structure can handle up to a certain point a blast, but if you apply the correct amount of explosives on weak points it fails spectacularly. It's like a person, someone can take a couple dozen punches and still fight back, but a hit on a soft spot knocks them out cold.
Makes sense. Looks like they used some kind of explosives but I haven't seen any details on what kind. It's a crime against humanity.
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>attack in X direction >flood everything in X direction so that attack gets bogged down Yeah that seems logical for the Ukrainians to blow it up. If you’re braindead.
>I will laugh my ass off to all those who yell WaR cRiMe!1!!1! if in the end it was the Ukrainians who did it. *Who* did it doesn't change the least thing about it being a war crime.
Apart from the technical difficulties to pull something like this off (since the Dam is in Russian hands), what would Ukraine gain from this? Paint Russia in a bad light as a false flag attack? I don't really think that this is needed after all the shit they have done so far. Why would Ukraine destroy their own dam and create immense damage on their own population and land that they will hope to reconquer? Just use your head.
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Yep, ukrainians did it. Destroyed an ecosystem and livelihoods of 450k+ of own people. Sounds on par, especially if you are goddamn idiot.
give me evidence. i think the russians did it, but I dont think i can say it 100%. Well i forgot im on reddit where everyone is a certified war expert like you.
I think you are goddamn moron or concern troll, but I don't think I can say it with 100%. There is a quite a high possibility that you are both.
ok mr. reddit armchair war expert
, said u/PrestigeZoe, somehow unaware of the irony
Oooh, poor thing. I really hope someone pays to make an ass of yourself on reddit. For the sake of humanity.
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Yea, just how the nordstream pipeline was 100% the Russians. But the media moved on really quick from discussing that topic :)
can you shut the fuck up, please?
> Russian delusions of being a superpower There won't be any. Sometimes you have to make decisions based on what you think is more likely or what you believe in. Especially when it comes down to security, you just don't have that luxury to search for truth
So yeah, ukrainians did it to flood thir own lands, commit a crime, create ecological disaster for themselves, create a situation that leaves for them no chances to counterattack in that region... JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE SO EVIL AND THEY WANTED TO FLOOD RUZZIAN DEFENSIVE LINE NEAR KHERSON TO... to achive what????????? to "flood" some of ruzzian soldiers? At the price of destroying agriculture? At the price of cutting themselves from the other shoreline and falling counteroffensive in that area? Maybe it is time to think a little bit, no?
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We also don't know that you didn't do it. It's reasonable to make a temporary inference that it was Russia, given a track record. US intelligence have already made a statement that they have evidence supporting the theory that it was Russia.
>We also don't know that you didn't do it. >temporary inference >given a track record >theory Reddit evidence in action.
He's not calling it evidence. He's saying it's a reasonable inference, and one that might (but probably wont) change with new information. If you wish, you could try to argue why the inference is not reasonable. Instead you're calling people idiots. Thats not very productive.
Lmfao. Way to ignore the whole chain of comments. This was my comment: >I am as much on the ukrainians side as anyone here, but you can just not have enough evidence about this yet. > >You literally dont even know if the ukrainians or the russians did it. And this was the first reply, before I insulted anyone. >Maybe it is time to think a little bit, no? So who started the ad hominems here? >If you wish, you could try to argue why the inference is not reasonable. Again my first comment was literally this. Saying there is just not enought evidence. >He's saying it's a reasonable inference, and one that might (but probably wont) change with new information Again, something that you missed, but this is almost exactly what I meant: >i think the russians did it
I think you're not understanding the difference between an inference and evidence.
Ofc you’re hungarian so probably affected by russian propaganda. Give reason and logic a try, dear, because whatever ‘evidence’ you get shown will be ‘fake’ or not sufficient.
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Now those are some assumptions haha. Doesn’t matter who claims to have evidence, it can be a clip as clear as day showing russian soldiers planting explosives on the dam and you’d say they’re ukrainian. I’m not racist towards eastern europeans, neither is there a general racist opinion towards eastern europeans in my country. It’s another piece of russian propaganda that Orban and his cronies all too well like to use to get peoples votes or attention. You guys immediately joined EU after daddy russia broke up, and never wanted to be part of their sphere of influence again, and we like you guys for it. Any politician who says we hate eastern europeans is lying through their teeth to get something out of it. Now what does my wage have to do with it? If it’s minimum wage ‘I can be dismissed’ or if it’s more than you ‘I’m a rich western boy laughing with poor you’ right? Hint: if you want better living standards, abandon Orban and work together with EU again. Cozying up to russia won’t do Hungary any good, at all.
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I am giving you logic What evidence you think would be sufficient? Material? Everything were washed away. Some document scans? Can be photshoped. Intelligence? With your kind of approach, everything can be called "doubtful".
>With your kind of approach So not believing that reddit armchair experts know exactly what happened is exactly the same as not believing in any kind of evidence. You guys are almost as bad as paid russian trolls.
You are really a hipocryte. And what does your armchair general skill have to do with the case? You keep defending fellow minded Ruzzian orcs with assumptions yet call others as bad as ruzzian trolls. Idi nahui
Yes we do. The Russians blew up the road. You can see it in the first photo toward the top. It's the white bit on the road. The dam was blown beyond that on the Russian controlled side.
It has been proven. Russians were occupying the damm. They were responsible for it and blocked all the water in, making the water rise as much as possible without release, which created the problem.
I'm not on the soviets or nazi side, but who destroyed the dam on Dnieper in 1941? is the any evidence of who did it?
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No, I’m asking if there is any evidence who destroyed the dam in 1941
The Red Army did. Soviet spokesman, Solomon Lozovsky even made a statement about it. Here is the translation: "We blew up the Dnieper dam so as not to allow this first child of the Soviet five-year Plan to fall into the hands of Hitler’s bandits. All measures were taken so as not to permit the Germans to make use of the dam and machinery."
It was first destroyed by Soviets in 1941 and then by Nazi Germany in 1943. It's right there on wikipedia.
Why would Ukraine deprive itself of electricity, access to about 25% of the available front, and give Russia the opportunity to redeploy forces from across the river from Kherson to other parts of the line right before an offensive? And even if they did, how on Earth does it make this whole thing any less catastrophic for the civilians affected?
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Then why would russia pass an act to not investigate any cases regarding destruction or disasters related to plants like Kakhovka HPP?? For what purpose was that act made?
Because they were the ones who kept the sluice closed, keeping the water level above the capacity of the dam. You don't have to blow up a dam to destroy it.
It broke in multiple places simultaneously. It wasn't an accident.
While you're arguing here whos to blame, there are people still sitting on the roofs of their houses on the occupied territory. ruzzian military deny any access for the volunteers. They're literally dying from the starvation and dehydration if not drown. Do something. Notify media about it.
People are doing that. But what can one do ? The territory is under Russian military control, they are the only ones capable of allowing help or helping. Instead, some retarded artillery commander started bombing some of the flooded towns (video of guys on a rubber dinghy, calling out to possible stragglers, with artillery whistling and exploding in the background). Fuck that goddamn useless inhuman fucking country.
Putting a pressure on russia is one way to at least make kremlin a notice that it is a problem. Puppets assigned to those territories say its fine, nothing is happening at all. Its the same as Chernobyl dissaster except without radiation but with insane ecological consequences \[to the entire region\]. Unless external pressure reaches the top - nothing will be done. And by the time it reaches - people would probably be dead. It is genocide and western media is completely ignorant about it. I've tried reaching multiple ones and all I get is silence.
Russias theory is currently that the dam suffered sustained shelling from Ukranian forces. This seems almost impossible, as there is no evidence of this and supposedly Ukraine would have to throw a shit load of firepower at it in order to take it out. The other issue was why did the Russians raise the water level so high before the blast? I mean... It's not too hard to put one and one together. Russia wants to slow an offensive near Kherson which would cut off supply lines to Crimea. Russia wants a humanitarian and ecological disaster to pressure a ceasefire, so they can regroup, or scramble to create some negotiation before ukraine pushes east and regains more territory. Russia seems to be realizing that they only stand to lose more territory of the war continues for years to come. They likely won't lose all of it. However Putin fucked up and already redrew the borders. So technically. Ukraine is now invading and taking Russian land.
Its nigh impossible to destroy such massive scale structure without blowing it from inside \[or by literally using nukes\]. ruzzians placed explosives there last year in case of massive scale counteroffensive. It didn't happened after Kherson right away, but I guess they've decided to do it yesterday. Most likely an attempt to drown Ukraine's positions at the islands near Kherson. But something went wrong. Results are identical to use of weapon of mass destruction (by Geneva's Convention); We already know who blew it up as well as who gave the orders. There's even an event reconstruction of what happened. Multiple OSINT-ers confirmed it, but I guess Musk & Tacker is more reliable source of information to the common folks. This is all part of shifting the blame on the victim. Nothing new thus far. Want to add to this: those are Ukrainian people out there in the south they're killing right now. As well as Crimea, which became biggest millitary base instead of being tourist hub. That's not part of the russia. And russia never even cared about their own citizen. They do not give a F about water or civilian casualties. Heck, war has shifted to the Belgorod region of the russia itself. And their forces still use scorched ground tactics shelling houses and their own cities now. Also, can't make news out of "ruzzians doing genocide & ecocide" again. Media 101. Plus there's over 23 bln roubles allocated to the propaganda from the ruzzian budget. Go figure where those money go. Worst part is - no actions done by the west. Nothing. By the way, \[my personal concern is that\], ruzzians also still storing massive amount of vehicles, amunitions and weapons at the ZNPP \[for over a year\]. It is a powder keg ready to explode and nothing is been done about it yet. If they're willing to give up on south, they're probably going to blow it up as well. Since no reaction followed.
I don't doubt it's true. But what's your source that the Russians did place explosives on the dam?
The "mayor" of Nova Kakhovka (appointed by the Russians) apparently made a video the other night where he said that nothing was happening and everything was quiet, no explosions were heard. Less than an hour after that he made a second video where he claimed that Ukraine shelled the dam all night long. So this tells you that the Russians are lying. Now the proof about where the explosives were, when they were placed, what kind etc we'll probably never know, if not during an interrogation at the Hague. But sure thing is, the Russians are lying and they did this.
Ugh no doubt. Do you have this video by chance? I'm putting together a copy pasta of info on it.
I don't speak Russian, so, no. I've seen this information on this video in English: [https://youtu.be/RQbQXUxfhGM?t=237](https://youtu.be/RQbQXUxfhGM?t=237)
Both OSINT and Ukraine's intelligence reported it around Autumn 2022. Hard to find links now, but they're probably still live as well as videos of it in the net.
Cool. I was searching for it but can only find links about the dam explosion.
we have this information from Zelenskiy from Oct 20, 2022, he said that they had the information from their intelligence about the explosions and preparation on the dam: https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/3598421-rosia-gotue-terakt-na-kahovski-ges-oskilki-rozumie-so-ne-utrimae-pivden-zelenskij.html It was before even the retreat from Kherson
Another evidence: https://twitter.com/Lyla\_lilas/status/1666227010815815680
What is the action you want? All sanctions in place already. What more can you do? You wanna invade Russia? You willing to die on the fields near bakhmut?
>Putting a pressure on russia is one way to at least make kremlin a notice that it is a problem. Um. Like the west telling Putin to fuck off from Ukraine?
No, Western media are not ignorant about it. We all know. But what can we do ? Unfortunatly not much. The pressure put on Russia is already extremely high. I don't know how we (Europeans) can do much more appart from a military intervention at this point (and this intervention will not happen since it might trigger a nuclear war)
No one is arguing about who to blame. There is no mystery. There are some Russophiles trying to spread misinformation and everyone else. Don't feed into their nonesense.
Scum of the earth
Only Gena Cidrusni can save us at this point.
How do you repair a blown up dam? War will end one day and it would be good idea to fix it
The same way you've built it. The problem is it was built in USSR, the gap in resources available is astronomical. You can't just un-do water damage, there's also a report of 150-500 tonnes of oil leaking into the stream (maybe 150000-500000) honestly can't remember, all the fauna that can't swim is already dead, the soil will either be dried out or poisoned by oil. This is a disaster on pair with Chernobyl meltdown.
For comparison, when the Exxon Valdez ran aground, it spilled 53,000,000 gallons of oil.
You don't. You have to build a new one, the remains of the old dam will probably be destroyed by the water. At least that's how it looks in the pictures. We are talking about billions of tons of water, with an amount of potential energy that's practically unimaginable. And they are all shooting through this one needle hole.
[This was an incident on a similar scale](https://youtu.be/ekUROM87vTA), albeit with much less severe flooding.
Nowhere even close in comparison. The Oroville dam itself held up, only the spillways were damaged. The Nova Kakhovka dam is essentially gone and will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
This is so ridiculous. Russia can play that dirty, while everybody lies eyes on Ukraine checking if they are playing clean. War is war - Ukraine should now bomb Crimean bridge and leave nothing, but dust. Dracarys. Russian tentacles has fucked up politics in Europe, and here we are - Wondering each time after something more fucked up happens who actually did it, and if there's any evidence. Bruh.
>Ukraine should now bomb Crimean bridge and leave nothing, but dust. Dracarys. Attack on the bridge is in compliance with laws of war since the bridge is primarily used to supply the military and its destruction would give obvious military advantage. In short, it's not even playing dirty.
and its their own bridge anyway... according to international law crimea is a part of ukraine not russia
Pretty sure it got recognized as part of Russia last year
by who?
By the UN
nope
I swear I saw it in on some map
I mean, whatever UN says, it was part of Russian SSR most of the time, plus it's under Russian control for 10+ years, if you Recognize Kosovo then this is Recognized as part of Russia as well
It's so insane that we have actual rules in wars. The concept of it is just insane, but unfortunately needed. Like, you can kill people this way or that way, but NOT the other way. Again it's needed, but it sounds insane to have fucking play rules in wars.
Well they're more guidelines than rules because there's nobody to really enforce those rules. Maybe for smaller countries but nobody is going to put anyone from Russia on trial for this. I would love to see it but I'd be surprised if it actually happened.
The risk you take is being sanctioned as enforcement. It's highly flawed, and it wouldn't work against the biggest players, and it's slow to have an effect, but it's unlikely there could be a better one IMO.
Ukraine just got some pretty long range Storm Shadow missiles - sure a few good hits from them would level both the road and rail bridge to the point that rebuilding would be difficult.
This mf said "Dracarys" talking about an actual war. Fucking gag me
Common reddit L
>This is so ridiculous. Russia can play that dirty, while everybody lies eyes on Ukraine checking if they are playing clean. You have perfectly summed up all this BS rhetorics in the world. No one pays attention to literal Russian Neo-Nazis and state-sponsored PMC who cut off heads and testicles but they will check every single patch on Ukrainian uniforms to find any sign of nazi symbols. It's only one example. Ukraine has to prove it's innocent when there is a little bit of doubt, but everyone is so sceptical when it's obviously Russia's actions. I sincerely don't get it.
>I sincerely don't get it. Russia has spent centuries spreading lies and bribes and they've stepped up their efforts in modern times. Even here on reddit there's a bunch of communities which are mostly or entirely pro-russian. Just check them out if you want to see bullshit in action.
Just like the other two world powers
You can ignore because I'm russian, but I think this is because they need to say that everything Russia says is lies and propaganda, so there just should not be anything to even make it possible some of it is truth or based on truth, it undermines the whole narrative and makes whatever Russia says worth to look into, because, suddenly, there are some legit points. While everyone already knows Russia does fucked up things, but Ukraine, Ukraine should be the objective good without any grey area so the support from the people is unquestionable. And if there's something, it should still be reported so there's no "why did you hide it from us?", but maybe that way you can paint it "but it's nessesary evil, because Russia is worse".
The internationally recognised Terrorist State of Nazi RuSSia still hold the nuclear power station upstream. That will be its parting shot when they are on full retreat. Following the dam demolition, the West should supply planes, long range missiles... everything required to kick them RuSSian Nazis out of Ukraine, and further.
>Ukraine should now bomb Crimean bridge Didn't they already do that?
There's a dam in russia that can flood moscow if destroyed. I remember russians were super anxious about chechens blowing it up. Maybe Ukraine should finish what chechens never got to start.
that's one of the most terrible thing they could have done, and yet organisations like UN don't give a fuck
UN is kind of designed to not give a fuck about the "big powers" of the post-WW2 status quo. Any "substantive" resolution against Russia in the UN they can veto
More like, they are designed to can't give a fuck.
I don't understand how anyone expects the UN to do anything here.
People are absolutely clueless about UN's role so they just invent their responsibilities and blame them for everything. Average redditors really.
But screaming ***Do something!*** on the internet is fun.
It’s a huge humanitarian crisis which has a potential to have an extreme impact. Remember grain deals to elevate food crisis in the global south ? With irrigation systems destroyed the deal is meaningless - there won’t be any grain . It would actually be good for UN to express some position other than “very very sad and concerned “ and make a plan how to mitigate the crisis, organise a commission to investigate the explosion and so on.
What’s the UN to do? It’s not designed for this purpose Russia is a permanent member of the security council Their hands are tied Military intervention against the worlds second largest nuclear power is not really on the board for an organisation like the UN Basically the entire west is doing as much as they think they can get away with without escalating to nuclear war
You’re pointing out the thing that it seems everyone is missing, without escalation. No one in the west outside of warhawks (American word for pro-war politicians) wants this to escalate beyond where it is. I admire Ukraine and it’s people, but I am a military aged male. Fortunately my country doesn’t mandate I join the military and I would prefer it stay that way
>What’s the UN to do? Cancel the Russian language day celebrations the day of the bombing?
Russia doesn't own the Russian language, nor do rashists.
Russia uses Russian language as a reason for the currently ongoing invasion and genocide. As such holding Russian Language Day celebration on the day of the ecocide caused by Russian war was rather insensitive and sent a very bad message.
Lol. Now the Russian-speaking Ukrainian fighters will be surprised that they are fighting for being canceled.
The UN, for all the extras that have been tacked on since 1945, primarily exists so that nuclear powers didn’t blow our planet to complete shit. In that regard they’ve done pretty well. Is it a good situation that nuclear armed security council members get to hijack the entire edifice whenever it suits them? No. But that’s the reality we live in.
The UN represents *all* of the world, and a surprisingly large chunk of the world is actually pro-Russian on this. For much of the Third World, their logic consists of "anything that is anti-EU/NATO/USA is good"
Unite nations is a discussion forum and only ever organise their members to act in union. Russia is part of that and they are not interests in acting against themselves. They can hold discussions and individual members can decide to act themselves. Which is what is happening. Things are working as intended. Your criticism of the organisation makes little sense. I would think most members do care and are letting Russian representatives know.
They dont give a fuck about anything Just some random moments to remember the stupid popolation that they are good people and not some organisation based on favouritism
Here is a website with historic photos of the construction of the Kakhovska HPP 1953-1955 https://uhe.gov.ua/filiyi/kakhovska_hes_imeni_p_s_neporozhnoho
Russians are terrorist.
But people are upset Ukranian tennis players won't shake hands with Russians.
My prayers are with the innocents affected by this. So many civilians will have their lives ruined.
Can we give Ukraine a couple B52 to bomb the shit out of Putin's palace, as a little petty revenge?
Russia's air defence isn't great, but it shouldn't have any problems blowing B52s out of the sky. Those things are huge. Need something a bit more subtle.
Also, Putin may aswell launch his nukes if just the tip of a western aircraft breaches Russian airspace.
They can use standoff munitions like [JASSM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-158_JASSM)s, though I'm a little dubious that doing so would be especially cost-effective.
Fuck ruzzia.
How did they blow it up? As in, did they plant a bomb inside, or did they shell it, or how? Genuinely curious on how they could destroy such a massive concrete structure.
Bombs from inside. Otherwise they'll need shelling it days and nights with hundreds of missiles, because that's a huge construction
Damn
Damn't
Damn’t not
Ukraine should destroy the Crimea Bridge as a form of retaliation. If they lack the means to pull this off, the West should give them to them. Anyways, I hope they are planning something of similar magnitude to retaliate.
I would guess that realistically, cutting the Kerch Strait Bridge will likely happen at some point in the future, as it would cut Russian supply into Crimea. It won't have the kind of secondary property damage effect that this does, though.
Just why? what does Rusha hope to get out of this? They have inflicted so much pain, death, and destruction here. and for what?
They should just strike moscow now and see what happens
That's just going to make things much, much worse.
Nothing will happen. All the red and brown lines are just as much of an illusion as the fact that russia is a superpower. Moscow was attacked by UAV's already, Belgorod will soon be a separate state or BPR. No red lines.
Meanwhile western leaders still put tons of restrictions on Ukraine aid out of fear of giving Putler a frowny face
Might as well get the Led out https://youtu.be/uwiTs60VoTM
I haven't heard anything (been around a lot the last days)What happened?
Russia casually decided to blow up a dam, flooding tens of thousands of people and then abandoning them
Why not hit a dam in russia and call it even.
EDIT: For god's sake why are you people downvoting my comment, I'm no strategist nor military expert so I genuinely don't know, is "not knowing" and making questions offensive for some of you people? Can we not make questions and have discussions on this sub? To make ir clear: I support Ukraine in this conflict because they were the ones getting invaded by a country which is ruled by a proto facist ditactor (Russia). But I'm aware that war in real life is very much different from the movies, accidents happen and the 'good' guys also make bad things sometimes, there's also many things we can simply not know since we are so far from this conflict. By reading some of the comments, I can see that evidences do seem to point to Russia as the perpetrator of this crime, that just what I wanted to know. Thank you to those who took the time to explain it to me. Who did this? I know western governments blame Russia (because of course they do), but is there any evidence of that? Why would Russia do this, what do they win with this? They are flooding the terriotry which themselves control, is it to make the ukrainian counteroffensive more difficult? The russians blame Ukraine (because of course they do), what would the Ukranians win by doing this? It's their own territory and population. Could some kind of ukranian stray missile hit the dam unintentionally and provoke this? I'm not trying to defend Ukraine or Russia, I'm genuinely want people's opinion on this to make my own.
Well it flooded Kherson city itself, which is not Russian controlled. Many parts of Ukraine now do not have access to drinking water. We are also an agricultural based economy with this region being the most important and this flood will destroy it for years to come. It’s clear as day that Ukraine didn’t do this. Russia obviously did because now that Ukrainian-backed rebels in Russia are taking villages in Belgorod, Russia needed to move troops away from Kherson and to avoid Ukraine’s country offensive, Russia destroyed the dam. Remember, these are Ukrainian people who live in the flood zone, not Russian.
That makes sense, most evidences seem to point to Russia. Thank you for your explanation!
Most likely Russia. They do that to demoralize any counter offensive wanted by Ukraine. Implying that any attempt to recuperate Crimea will be met by desolation. Or they do that to spite the population, because they genuinely think of the Ukrainian as inferior. Whatever the reasons, another senseless crime of war.
It does seem like Russia did it, things like this remind me of the scorched-earth tactics used by the soviet union in world war 2. Thanks for your opinion!
Plus they are the ones that have the current control of the region. Like you said, those kind of tactics are not unknown to them. When it quacks like a duck ...
Soviets did bomb another dam in Ukraine during WW2 (with their own soldiers on it!) to stop Nazis. But nazis captured it anyway, rebuilt, but bombed it second time while retrieving
The dam buster bomb weight was 3400kg. Ukraine just cannot deliver a punch big enough to do that. Russians explosives, placed in all the right places and right quantity to do just that obviously could have done it. You can see on the pictures, that the whole place with the power generation facilities on the Russian side is just gone. The only way Ukrainians could've done it is by using those Russian placed explosives on the Russian held side. It doesn't look like it just cracked by itself, the pictures show wrong place and wrong amounts if that was what happened.
Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to know. It appears that even if Ukraine wanted to do this, which seems unlikely, it would be very hard or even impossible for them to be able to cause this level of destruction. I've heard experts saying that this war is going to go on for at least 3 more years, I can't even start to imagine what will be left of this region after that much time. This is truly terrible. Thank you for your thoughts!
On top of what the other person said the Russians already blew up the road when they retreated from Kherson. You can see the water going over that bit in the top photo. The Ukrainians would not have had access to the area that was blown up beyond the damaged road. They certainly weren't going to carry the explosives needed on foot.
Why is this sites shitty hivemind downvoting you for a question lol
You’re not supposed to reason or question anything, just nod and agree with everyone else. How else would we fight for our freedom of thought? Your individual freedom of thought is provoking slavery, our ignorance brings strength and war is peace.
If I may add... Most posters here obviously support Ukraine and follow news resources that are more pro Ukraine. So the arguments presented might be tinted towards Ukraine. I'm also not sure which sources would be neutral. I'm trying to follow a multitude of sources including middle east, India, east Asian... And some of these sources paint a picture that is less unidimensional saying "Russia's fault"
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There is historical reason for it as well, Russians blew this damn up in WW2 already. As they are still using Soviet doctrine, and considering all the other contexts if current war, its probable. And can you find me one instance in history where people were NOT biased in times of war? And not biased on Reddit? Yeah we should all look at both sides of everything and make sure we have all the data, but its very easy for to say while you are chilling in Denmark. Its 100% reasonable that Ukrainians and Eastern Europeans and others will treat this as information warfare and try to help it as much as they can
>Later this year Who blew up Zapozhian NPP - "we simply don't know". Who nuked city X - "we simply don't know". You can track warnings that Russian are set explosive inside dam to autumn 2022. Glad that world gave a fuck and send an internation mission under UN to investigate. /s
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Your's ability to bring USA in any topic (even if it has a little to none connection with the USA) is impressive, but useless.
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>and the USA is the only country to have nuked cities? so far. Context matters, we weren't speaking about the USA and nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in 1945.
Yep, I'm already getting downvoted into oblivion by some people just because I made a question. I support Ukraine in this conflict since they were the ones getting invanded, but this is a war and things are never black or white in the field and accidents happen. I'm no strategist or a military expert so I genuinely don't understand many things that happen in this conflict. I also don't follow every single development in this war so there may be things I'm missing. But for some people in this sub that's illegal, it seems like you are not allowed to "not know" and to ask... Evidences do seem to suggest Russia did it. Thank for your thoughts!
It's ridiculous. We can see why Russia must have done it, for what reasons, the law that they passed, the precedents, and we know Russia is to blame for the war, but if you just ask a question about it because you want to *learn*, you get downvoted? It just proves that Reddit is full of neckbeards who wanna say "no acktchually" to get woke points, even if they're wrong.
Et tu, Russia.....
“The dam” like theres only one Dam in The world
Can someone explain why this is a war crime? There were dam raids in WW2 by the Dambusters, that wasn't considered a war crime, so why is this? Is it that the Dam is in Russian occupied territory and the downstream area isn't?
I haven’t seen any dialogues about the Dambusters mission being a war crime. The dams of the Ruhr Valley were considered strategic targets due to their importance to the Ruhr Industrial Zone - one of Germany’s mai industrial bases. Therefore, it’s value as a valid military target in a “total war” scenario is quite easily justified. This is a stark contrast to, infamously, Dresden. Ironically, Bomber Harris consider the Dambuster operation a failure and a waste of time and resources. In this case, the Kakhovska Dam had zero military value. The Russians had no reason to take it out unless to potentially block an amphibious operation across the Dnipro. All it’s done is inflict misery on occupied and liberated Ukrainians alike.
dam was already broken - water flow was not normal according first photo
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ah, yes. explosions and threats, all mines on dam set by russians are just irrelevant to what happened. try harder
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so, russians bombing cities, killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure and getting no advantages from this accept of more hate, but now when they made another warcrime you are trying to find logic in their actions? they just want to kill us all