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> * Russia chose blow up the Kakhovka dam, cutting off water to Crimea, the same Crimea that Ukraine cut water to and Russia restored. I know you're doing your

• EGreg 3y ago
  Okay, when I was writing this, I knew I shouldn’t have included the latest and most controversial thing, because it’s not settled yet. The others mostly are (eg CIA involvement in Laos, Afghanistan, Ukraine, bombing of Yugoslavia, Libya, the Iraq war, WMDs, the use of “freedom” to sell these ridiculous notions to much if the US public, the use of “unprovoked” being systematically in a coordinated way inserted everywhere, etc etc.) It’s bad debate technique to include ONE controversial thing among 20 settled things because you can be sure someone will seize on that ONE easiest-hanging fruit and others will think that taints the whole list. I should have left it out. And yet… Let me add nuance. This one is different from all the others because whoever did it was clearly either going rogue / breaking chain of command, or that PLUS it was an accident and they went too far. Neither Russian top military brass nor Ukraine’s would order the blowing up of Kahkovka’s dam, because whatever speculative temporary “advantage” that would confer to their side would be MASSIVELY outweighed by the long-term damage to their own side. For Russia, it is the utter cutting off of FRESH DRINKING WATER to Crimea from Ukraine, something that Ukraine had cut off before and Russia worked hard to restore and did so as soon as they got control of the dam and reservoir. Russia considers Crimea its own terreitory and citizens, and wouldn’t undo all that effort by blowing up the dam. Not the higher-ups anyway. Furthermore, Russian troops had to retreat as a result, and abandon their positions. It is not clear that Ukrainian troops were harmed more than Russian ones. Putin even publicly said that he wishes the explosion hadn’t happened since they WANTED the Ukrainians to attack via that direction and were prepared. Speaking of other dams on the Dnieper, the one upstream of this one, controlled by Ukrainians, was opened to maximum capacity flow, almost as if to exacerbate the flow downstream, right around the same time as the explosion. The amount it was opened to (all 3 valves) was unprecedented in decades. Who did that and why? Whoever did, it wasn’t the Russians. I will read about Yegor Guzenko, but I predict he’s likely going to describe a rogue group that went too far, or something, rather than Russia directly ordering this. And why do we believe what he says? Weeks after an event (eg Bucha massacre), hundreds of “intercepted conversations” appear, almost “too good” where the soldiers say exactly what is the most incriminating stufff to Russia itself. Maybe those are true, but how would we know? I prefer The Guardian’s analysis in Bucha, or the UN’s independent investigations, which should include people from Russia and Ukraine — of both the pipeline and the Kakhovka dam. Again I would prefer to stay away from this speculative stuff and focus on the known facts and settled stuff, which is extremely egregious for USA (as they have done it far more than any other country). But since this is threaded, we can focus on exclusively this one weak point in my list, which I should have known better than to include among the others.
  • _kbh_ 3y ago
    > For Russia, it is the utter cutting off of FRESH DRINKING WATER to Crimea from Ukraine, something that Ukraine had cut off before and Russia worked hard to restore and did so as soon as they got control of the dam and reservoir. Russia considers Crimea its own terreitory and citizens, and wouldn’t undo all that effort by blowing up the dam. Not the higher-ups anyway. I never said they were smart just they blew up the dam and admitted to it. We have pictures of a car full of explosives on the dam with a wire leading to the Russian controlled side as well. > Speaking of other dams on the Dnieper, the one upstream of this one, controlled by Ukrainians, was opened to maximum capacity flow, almost as if to exacerbate the flow downstream, right around the same time as the explosion. The amount it was opened to (all 3 valves) was unprecedented in decades. Who did that and why? Whoever did, it wasn’t the Russians. The Ukrainians don't control how much rain hits the dam. Do you know who does?. The Russians, they had control of the spill gates and decided to keep them closed they purposely closed the gates and let it fill up as much as possible. This isn't surprising given the videos we have where they admit that they want to blow up the dam and then admit that they do blew up the dam.
    • EGreg 3y ago
      Anytime your explanation is “well I dont know why they’d blow their own pipeline, or cut off water to their own civizens forever, they’re just that dumb” you have to suspect that may not be the explanation. At the very least it shows it wasn’t ordered at the highest levels of either army or government. Russia even tried to warn the UN security council that Ukraine is about to blow up the dam (around the time of your second link, Dec 2022) so they were saying the same “they are evil/dumb” bullcrap about Ukrianians. Same with “I don’t know why Assad would use chemical weapons after he was winning with conventional ones, just so he can do the one thing that would force USA to attack him, he’s just a dumb evil man” I watched your twitter linked video. I understand Russian. The guy says he WARNED about it going to be blown up after Russians retreated from Kherson (thus presumably he means by Ukrainians). He says he won’t speculate on who did it (hardly a proof that he admits Russians did it). He goes on to say that now that it’s done what matters is how well the evac their guys. And then goes on to say bravado things like “we should do this stuff to more dams.” (as in — well, the Ukrainians did it to this one, they dont give a shit about civilians, so let’s do it to other dama too). That last part is what’s monstrous about war. Soldiers may just be exasperated and just say “fuck it” and start destroying civilian infrastructure, raping, and causing a lot of suffering. And all for what? My position isn’t that Russians are somehow good, or “whataboutism” to excuse war crimes. My position is that we could have had averted the war in 20 different ways (putting Russia on a path into NATO, agreeing not to push Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, also the CIA NOT arming training paramilitary groups in Ukraine) some of which are well accepted (Minsk II agreements, or the deal brokered by Naftali Bennett to stop the war 2 weeks in —- tell me, why was it blocked by USA?) Every expert trivially predicted this would be the outvome of NATO expansion for decades, and were systematically ignored. Is this wise foreign policy, or reckless? We disregard Ukrainians, Afghans, Kurds etc. sacrificing them as the tip of the spear to achieve adversarial geopolitical goals: https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-...