3 ms·

This is tactical, not terroristic. Flooded rivers and drained reservoirs are harder for armies to cross than developed riverside real estate. This eliminates

by ajross 3y ago

This is tactical, not terroristic. Flooded rivers and drained reservoirs are harder for armies to cross than developed riverside real estate. This eliminates the Dnipro as an invasion route and allows Russia to concentrate on defending the north. Putin may not care much about Crimean civilians but he's not going to go through all this trouble just to make them suffer.

skjoldr 3y ago
Terrorism always has a cold, tactical calculation behind it, to achieve some goal.
lostmsu 3y ago
> This is tactical, not terroristic I am not sure why you believe these two things contradict each other.
- ajross 3y ago
  No, but one is easier to understand than the other. Spending a ton of intelligence capital on a complicated clandestine demolition operation just to impoverish a region under context just doesn't make a lot of sense, even for Putin. At best it's a side benefit. It also requires that you assume Putin genuinely believes he's going to lose Crimea in this war, which seems questionable (a Ukrainian military conquest of the peninsula is a *huge* ask, much more so than just retaking the occupied Donetsk territory). The tactical explanation, and especially the timing, really seems much more likely.
CRConrad 3y ago
Above all, it's economical. Say what you will about Peter Zeihan, but he's been going on about it for months: ~“Once winter is over, and they can't hurt the Ukrainian population by going after energy and heating infrastructure, they'll go after their economy. And with Ukraine a major agricultural exporter, that's probably what they'll go after.” The Nova Khakovka reservoir fed not only the Crimea Canal, but three (or was it four?) other major canal systems... Irrigation canal systems. Without the dam, the erstwhile reservoir's water level is of course far below that of those canal systems, so they're all out of commission. And with them some significant proportion (a fifth? Something like that) of Ukraine's agriculture.

by ajross 3y ago

skjoldr 3y ago

Terrorism always has a cold, tactical calculation behind it, to achieve some goal.

lostmsu 3y ago

> This is tactical, not terroristic I am not sure why you believe these two things contradict each other.

ajross 3y ago
No, but one is easier to understand than the other. Spending a ton of intelligence capital on a complicated clandestine demolition operation just to impoverish a region under context just doesn't make a lot of sense, even for Putin. At best it's a side benefit. It also requires that you assume Putin genuinely believes he's going to lose Crimea in this war, which seems questionable (a Ukrainian military conquest of the peninsula is a *huge* ask, much more so than just retaking the occupied Donetsk territory). The tactical explanation, and especially the timing, really seems much more likely.

CRConrad 3y ago

Above all, it's economical. Say what you will about Peter Zeihan, but he's been going on about it for months: ~“Once winter is over, and they can't hurt the Ukrainian population by going after energy and heating infrastructure, they'll go after their economy. And with Ukraine a major agricultural exporter, that's probably what they'll go after.” The Nova Khakovka reservoir fed not only the Crimea Canal, but three (or was it four?) other major canal systems... Irrigation canal systems. Without the dam, the erstwhile reservoir's water level is of course far below that of those canal systems, so they're all out of commission. And with them some significant proportion (a fifth? Something like that) of Ukraine's agriculture.