A regular commenter recently observed in comments:
So it has gone from the
“Russians bombed their own pipeline†to
“who knows who actually did it†to
“perhaps some Ukrainians did it with no link to Ukrainian government and with no foreknowledge to the American government†to
“the Ukrainian military did it without President Zelensky being involved and the American intelligence knew and told the Germansâ€.How long before it is
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of another NATO nation (Poland) and the CIA but the White House wasn’t looped in†to
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of NATO (Poland and US) through the CIA and the White House was looped in but the President was not†to
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of NATO (Poland and US) through the CIA and the White House, the President was looped in but he doesn’t recall because of his age and signs of dementiaâ€
Maybe it’s just me but I think we may be seeing that same evolution again with respect to the explosion at the Khakhovka Dam but at a greatly accelerated pace. The Western media have pretty much decided that the Russians blew up the dam. The Russians deny involvement. Meanwhile, at Asia Times Stephen Bryen sees it somewhat differently:
For the Russians to have blown up the Kakhovka dam they would have needed to move tons of explosives using boats or underwater equipment, put explosives on the dam facing the reservoir and set off a massive explosion. From the video posted by the Ukrainian government, it looks like the explosions happened below the waterline.
concluding:
It will take time to get a full accounting if we ever get one. We still don’t have one for the Nord Stream pipeline or for Crimea’s Kerch Strait Bridge.
If the idea behind this was to cause a major nuclear accident that could be blamed on the Russians, it is an outrageous act that threatens Ukraine and Europe, maybe the world.
If it was Ukraine that did it, did they act on their own or did they get permission from outside? If it was Russia, then someone had better come up with arguments supporting that proposition.
Read the whole thing. It has some other interesting tidbits. He makes a pretty credible case that the Ukrainian military did it.
I think this is the “fog of war”, the uncertainty of war described by von Clausewitz. It’s even foggier than usual because there are so many participants:
the Russian military
the Wagner Group
pro-Russian militias and partisans
the Ukrainian military
pro-Ukrainian militias and partisans
the intelligence organizations of NATO members
the actual military of NATO members
and the communications between groups on the same side and their respective political leaderships doesn’t seem to be particularly good.
“For the Russians to have blown up the Kakhovka dam they would have needed to move tons of explosives using boats or underwater equipment, put explosives on the dam facing the reservoir and set off a massive explosion.”
The same would hold true for Ukraine. This guy is suggesting that the Ukrainians wanted to do this and were able to do it in a Russian controlled area. The Russian military has been less than stellar but do we really believe they wouldn’t notice a boat large enough to carry tons of explosives snuggling up next to the dam for a day or two while divers planted the explosives? If you find that credible then I would think you would believe it is impossible for the Russians to win the war.
Steve
As far as I’ve been able to tell (and I haven’t dug deeply) is that there isn’t any video of the dam breaking. There are reports of people hearing an “explosion,” but there are things that sound like explosions that aren’t explosions. And if it is the case that the dam was blown via explosive deep underwater, much of the sound would have been muffled.
My working theory at this point is that the dam broke due to a combination of previous damage from Ukrainian and Russian forces and either the inability to manage the water level or the negligence in failing to do so. The “explosion” sounds could well be the dam and structures breaking up early in the breech.
Supporting this theory is there is no obvious cui bono here, nor any obvious reason someone would blow up the dam at this particular point in time. IOW, if the dam was deliberately destroyed at this particular time, then what is the purpose of doing it? There’s no obvious reason why either Ukraine or Russia would want to do it given the present circumstances.
So many who think Russia definitely did it have settled on the “well, Russia is stupid” explanation, which speaks for itself.
But that’s just my guess. We really don’t know. The US has a lot of intelligence collection that could give strong clues or a definitive answer, but so far the US is saying it doesn’t know yet.