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I can explain it to you, even though it will inevitably be downvoted for being unsavory to our readers' mindset .. In the fog of war, all bets are off. Appare

I can explain it to you, even though it will inevitably be downvoted for being unsavory to our readers' mindset .. In the fog of war, all bets are off. Apparently, we do not have the evidence of who actually blew the dam, because we do not have the conditions required to gain sufficiently suitable evidence. Perhaps one day we will, but sufficient doubt exists that we cannot make canonical conclusions. Yet. The best we can do is use conjecture and assumptions - but in the court of world opinion, this just simply isn't enough. It is the same situation behind the destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline or the Duma gas attacks - we can make assumptions, and conjecture, over who did it and how and for what purpose - but until there is actionable evidence, its simply not enough to make conclusions based on ones own political position. Such is the nature of Lady Liberty - she is blind in the face of verifiable evidence - and this is a core Western Value which shall not be abrogated, for any reason - especially in the face of oppression, where she is needed most.

yostrovs 3y ago
From the point of view of morality, I'm of the opinion that Russia did it. Even if Ukraine actually pulled the trigger. Just like in many US states: if you and your buddy get into someone's house to rob it in the middle of the night, and the homeowner gets his revolver and shoots your buddy dead, and you run out and the police catch you, it will be you that will be prosecuted for murder. You created the situation that led to the end result.
- Dabphil 3y ago
  [flagged]
- helpfulContrib 3y ago
  That is a slippery slope argument that can be equitably applied by the Russians who believe this war was started by the West in 2016. Be careful with the ease by which you can adopt this perspective. It doesn't actually serve you to adopt such fallacies. Evidence is important - faith in the world institutions that will act on that evidence, just as important. Literally nothing in your position will have a positive effect on those institutions.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
    > Russians who believe this war was started by the West in 2016. Why 2016? Putin first sent his troops to Ukraine in 2014. So from his point of view it would make sense to convince his citizens he was "forced" to do it earlier, not later.
    - helpfulContrib 3y ago
      For context, I live in middle-Europe, very close to the war, and as a result of my volunteer work with refugees, I have had extensive contact with both Ukrainian refugees, as well as Russian citizens entangled in this heinous mess. The Russians I have spoken to about this consider that the West started aggressively arming Ukraine for this war in 2016, which was when official, overt US policies were put in place to allow it. They identify this year as the point of no return, as "the West started officially arming Ukraine for conflict in 2016", a fact that can be observed in the US' 2016 Section 655 Report by the Dept of State. This is when US weapons first made it to the front lines. I'm not here to argue for them - I would suggest you seek out Russian citizens and engage them on the topic, if it interests you what the other side have to say about this. I relay this merely to give context to this discussion; not because my opinion aligns with any of this.
      - petre 3y ago
        Then: "We were forced to invade Hungary and Czechoslovakia, they wanted free elections." Now: "We were forced to invade Ukraine, the US gave them weapons to defend themselves and they won't have our man as president." The US, UK and now the rest of NATO are doing the right thing arming Ukraine. The US ia doing the right thing approving weapons sales to Taiwan and Korea.
        helpfulContrib 3y ago
        "The US gave them weapons to attack Russia." <- ftfy. The USA, which arms well known fascist totalitarian-authoritarian dictators engaged in actual genocide, is doing absolutely the wrong thing. US' arms exports are a significant cause of war and calamity across the globe - not safety and security. War, and calamity. If the US were building roads and water treatment plants across the globe, instead of bombing them - then your claim that it is doing the right thing might have some substance. But, it isn't. The only thing the US builds on foreign nations' soils, is illegal dark CIA torture bases. You see, this line of thinking works both ways ..
- xg15 3y ago
  > From the point of view of morality, I'm of the opinion that Russia did it. Even if Ukraine actually pulled the trigger. Are you talking about the war at large or about the specific question who blew up the dam? I'd agree with the sibling comment here. In war, morality is always crystal clear for the parties that are at war - we are the good guys, the others are the bad guys. I'd go out on a limb and say this is almost a requirement to be able to fight a war in the first place: If you didn't think you are in the right, how would you even motivate your own troops to risk their lives for your cause? Usually, when historians look back at the war later, they find the actual morality to be anything but clear. > if you and your buddy get into someone's house to rob it in the middle of the night, and the homeowner gets his revolver and shoots your buddy dead, and you run out and the police catch you, it will be you that will be prosecuted for murder. You created the situation that led to the end result. This isn't how it works. In this case, you have two separate crimes - robbery and murder - with two different perpetrators - the burglars and the homeowner. The homeowner has a good chance that his charge will be dropped as a case of self-defence - but in no way would the robbers suddenly end up with a murder charge against themselves because they are "obviously" the bad guys. (And by the way, the homeowner might in fact be prosecuted for murder if it turned out there was no self-defence situation and he just shot the robber out of rage. You can use this to counter the russian argument too, btw: Even if you assume, for the sake of the argument, that Russia was threatened by an expanding NATO and by a militarized Ukraine, is it still "self-defence" to invade - and keep invading - a country, annexing land, attacking power stations and grain storage sites?)
  - rich_sasha 3y ago
    I think it's hard to imagine a future historical context in which Russia is the goodie here.
    - xg15 3y ago
      Then you should ask a few people from South American or African countries.
      - rich_sasha 3y ago
- jrmg 3y ago
  in many US states if you and your buddy get into someone's house to rob it in the middle of the night, and the homeowner gets his revolver and shoots your buddy dead, and you run out and the police catch you, it will be you that will be prosecuted for murder. This isn’t actually true, is it?
  - lisper 3y ago
    Yes, it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule IMHO it's a defensible position.
rjzzleep 3y ago
Did everyone forget that Ukraine was happily shelling the Kakhovka dam last year and that every western media outlet was reporting on it[1]? It's sort of a rhetorical question, since the answer is clearly yes, but come on, we sit here talking like we know everything better than everyone else, about the world, about policy and everything else in general, yet we constantly forget things that happened only a couple of months ago? Russians did this because Russians are crazy evil beings that like to destroy their own shit. Really? I understand that sort of reasoning coming from the media outlets that gave us the Iraq war amongst other things, but hacker news? Is that what we pride ourselves in? [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-russian-held-nova-kakhovka-dam-damaged-shelling-russian-media-2022-11-06/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-russian-held-n... EDIT: Just to add to this, did people also forget that the nuclear power plant was shelled by "someone" while Russia was occupying it and IAEA inspectors were observing?[2] And that even the IAEA director general ended up refuting claims/lies[3] by Zelensky about mining the power plant[4]. [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/11/20/russia-ukraine-live-ukraine-implements-planned-blackout https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/11/20/russia-uk... [3] https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20230629-iaea-saw-no-evidence-moscow-planning-attack-on-zaporizhia-nuclear-plant-but-anything-can-happen https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20230629-... [4] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-sabotage-nuclear-power-plant-halt-ukraine-zelenskyy/story?id=100776623 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-sabotage-nuclear-powe...
- pmfgpmfg 3y ago
  [dead]
- Theodores 3y ago
  I think the question has to be asked - who benefits? It is like Nordstream where we are supposed to believe the Russians did it. Yet they controlled the taps to it and had no benefit from blowing it up. I read a lot of information from the Russian side and we clearly have two truths regarding the Kakhovka Dam. The Russians understand that the Kiev regime did it. Furthermore, if you look at the graph of the water level in the lake, the Kiev regime released water from upstream to deliberately top it up so they could blow it up and sweep away all of the Russian armed forces downstream in the Kherson area. People that only get their news from one side - the NATO side - are not aware of how the Russians understand what happened. I suspect these people are the ones that are modding you down, but sometimes getting down voted is worth it.
dindobre 3y ago
Next stop: a nuclear bomb gets dropped on a Ukrainian city wiping out thousands of people like nothing and we'll still have someone stating "we don't really know who did it". I'm honestly amazed humanity made it to 2023
- helpfulContrib 3y ago
  Ask yourself, by what means do we get there? The answer is: people believing they are more right than anyone else. >humanity We have been doing the opposite - believing in the righteousness of others - as well. Somehow, it has balanced out so far, but that is really the point of being a fair and open society, seeking truth in the face of all duress, in order to provide justice: we have a balance. Until the call for the more base, banal emotions overwhelms the rational and the discreet, and - above all - the common truth-seeking which all humans can produce, no matter the languages we use, we have peace. But, when that happens, it happens fast and it happens on the basis of forgone conclusions, know-best, pride, hubris and arrogance. On all sides of the fence. As long as there is a modicum of truth-seeking left - and not assumption-based superstition-driven mob rule - we humans have a lot more than 2023 to attain ..

yostrovs 3y ago

From the point of view of morality, I'm of the opinion that Russia did it. Even if Ukraine actually pulled the trigger. Just like in many US states: if you and your buddy get into someone's house to rob it in the middle of the night, and the homeowner gets his revolver and shoots your buddy dead, and you run out and the police catch you, it will be you that will be prosecuted for murder. You created the situation that led to the end result.

Dabphil 3y ago
[flagged]
helpfulContrib 3y ago
That is a slippery slope argument that can be equitably applied by the Russians who believe this war was started by the West in 2016. Be careful with the ease by which you can adopt this perspective. It doesn't actually serve you to adopt such fallacies. Evidence is important - faith in the world institutions that will act on that evidence, just as important. Literally nothing in your position will have a positive effect on those institutions.
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
  > Russians who believe this war was started by the West in 2016. Why 2016? Putin first sent his troops to Ukraine in 2014. So from his point of view it would make sense to convince his citizens he was "forced" to do it earlier, not later.
  - helpfulContrib 3y ago
    For context, I live in middle-Europe, very close to the war, and as a result of my volunteer work with refugees, I have had extensive contact with both Ukrainian refugees, as well as Russian citizens entangled in this heinous mess. The Russians I have spoken to about this consider that the West started aggressively arming Ukraine for this war in 2016, which was when official, overt US policies were put in place to allow it. They identify this year as the point of no return, as "the West started officially arming Ukraine for conflict in 2016", a fact that can be observed in the US' 2016 Section 655 Report by the Dept of State. This is when US weapons first made it to the front lines. I'm not here to argue for them - I would suggest you seek out Russian citizens and engage them on the topic, if it interests you what the other side have to say about this. I relay this merely to give context to this discussion; not because my opinion aligns with any of this.
    - petre 3y ago
      Then: "We were forced to invade Hungary and Czechoslovakia, they wanted free elections." Now: "We were forced to invade Ukraine, the US gave them weapons to defend themselves and they won't have our man as president." The US, UK and now the rest of NATO are doing the right thing arming Ukraine. The US ia doing the right thing approving weapons sales to Taiwan and Korea.
      - helpfulContrib 3y ago
        "The US gave them weapons to attack Russia." <- ftfy. The USA, which arms well known fascist totalitarian-authoritarian dictators engaged in actual genocide, is doing absolutely the wrong thing. US' arms exports are a significant cause of war and calamity across the globe - not safety and security. War, and calamity. If the US were building roads and water treatment plants across the globe, instead of bombing them - then your claim that it is doing the right thing might have some substance. But, it isn't. The only thing the US builds on foreign nations' soils, is illegal dark CIA torture bases. You see, this line of thinking works both ways ..
xg15 3y ago
> From the point of view of morality, I'm of the opinion that Russia did it. Even if Ukraine actually pulled the trigger. Are you talking about the war at large or about the specific question who blew up the dam? I'd agree with the sibling comment here. In war, morality is always crystal clear for the parties that are at war - we are the good guys, the others are the bad guys. I'd go out on a limb and say this is almost a requirement to be able to fight a war in the first place: If you didn't think you are in the right, how would you even motivate your own troops to risk their lives for your cause? Usually, when historians look back at the war later, they find the actual morality to be anything but clear. > if you and your buddy get into someone's house to rob it in the middle of the night, and the homeowner gets his revolver and shoots your buddy dead, and you run out and the police catch you, it will be you that will be prosecuted for murder. You created the situation that led to the end result. This isn't how it works. In this case, you have two separate crimes - robbery and murder - with two different perpetrators - the burglars and the homeowner. The homeowner has a good chance that his charge will be dropped as a case of self-defence - but in no way would the robbers suddenly end up with a murder charge against themselves because they are "obviously" the bad guys. (And by the way, the homeowner might in fact be prosecuted for murder if it turned out there was no self-defence situation and he just shot the robber out of rage. You can use this to counter the russian argument too, btw: Even if you assume, for the sake of the argument, that Russia was threatened by an expanding NATO and by a militarized Ukraine, is it still "self-defence" to invade - and keep invading - a country, annexing land, attacking power stations and grain storage sites?)
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  I think it's hard to imagine a future historical context in which Russia is the goodie here.
  - xg15 3y ago
    Then you should ask a few people from South American or African countries.
    - rich_sasha 3y ago
jrmg 3y ago
in many US states if you and your buddy get into someone's house to rob it in the middle of the night, and the homeowner gets his revolver and shoots your buddy dead, and you run out and the police catch you, it will be you that will be prosecuted for murder. This isn’t actually true, is it?
- lisper 3y ago
  Yes, it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule IMHO it's a defensible position.

rjzzleep 3y ago

Did everyone forget that Ukraine was happily shelling the Kakhovka dam last year and that every western media outlet was reporting on it[1]? It's sort of a rhetorical question, since the answer is clearly yes, but come on, we sit here talking like we know everything better than everyone else, about the world, about policy and everything else in general, yet we constantly forget things that happened only a couple of months ago? Russians did this because Russians are crazy evil beings that like to destroy their own shit. Really? I understand that sort of reasoning coming from the media outlets that gave us the Iraq war amongst other things, but hacker news? Is that what we pride ourselves in? [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-russian-held-nova-kakhovka-dam-damaged-shelling-russian-media-2022-11-06/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-russian-held-n... EDIT: Just to add to this, did people also forget that the nuclear power plant was shelled by "someone" while Russia was occupying it and IAEA inspectors were observing?[2] And that even the IAEA director general ended up refuting claims/lies[3] by Zelensky about mining the power plant[4]. [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/11/20/russia-ukraine-live-ukraine-implements-planned-blackout https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/11/20/russia-uk... [3] https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20230629-iaea-saw-no-evidence-moscow-planning-attack-on-zaporizhia-nuclear-plant-but-anything-can-happen https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20230629-... [4] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-sabotage-nuclear-power-plant-halt-ukraine-zelenskyy/story?id=100776623 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-sabotage-nuclear-powe...

pmfgpmfg 3y ago
[dead]
Theodores 3y ago
I think the question has to be asked - who benefits? It is like Nordstream where we are supposed to believe the Russians did it. Yet they controlled the taps to it and had no benefit from blowing it up. I read a lot of information from the Russian side and we clearly have two truths regarding the Kakhovka Dam. The Russians understand that the Kiev regime did it. Furthermore, if you look at the graph of the water level in the lake, the Kiev regime released water from upstream to deliberately top it up so they could blow it up and sweep away all of the Russian armed forces downstream in the Kherson area. People that only get their news from one side - the NATO side - are not aware of how the Russians understand what happened. I suspect these people are the ones that are modding you down, but sometimes getting down voted is worth it.

dindobre 3y ago

Next stop: a nuclear bomb gets dropped on a Ukrainian city wiping out thousands of people like nothing and we'll still have someone stating "we don't really know who did it". I'm honestly amazed humanity made it to 2023

helpfulContrib 3y ago
Ask yourself, by what means do we get there? The answer is: people believing they are more right than anyone else. >humanity We have been doing the opposite - believing in the righteousness of others - as well. Somehow, it has balanced out so far, but that is really the point of being a fair and open society, seeking truth in the face of all duress, in order to provide justice: we have a balance. Until the call for the more base, banal emotions overwhelms the rational and the discreet, and - above all - the common truth-seeking which all humans can produce, no matter the languages we use, we have peace. But, when that happens, it happens fast and it happens on the basis of forgone conclusions, know-best, pride, hubris and arrogance. On all sides of the fence. As long as there is a modicum of truth-seeking left - and not assumption-based superstition-driven mob rule - we humans have a lot more than 2023 to attain ..