The Putin regime once again confirms that it’s a pack of reckless vandals, thieves and gangsters.
Please. Are you auditioning for a job at Faux News or Chris Licht’s CNN?
Ukrainian civilians died as a result of this incident, with Russia soldiers targeting them as they fled. If Ukraine did this as a defensive action* they would have cleared out their own people in advance.
[* Blowing up a dam is not a surprise attack meant to drown enemy troops]
Looks like the Ukrainian response to the disaster on the government-controlled right bank of Dnipro is about as good as it can be under the circumstances. Emergency response agencies, NGOs and local volunteers have come together to help evacuate people and animals, preparations are being made for cleanup once the flooding subsides.
But the Russian-controlled left bank is a typical shitshow. There was no warning to the civilians: people living in flooding zone got the news about the approaching wave from relatives living on the Ukrainian side or even in Poland. Russians had previously taken all civilian-owned boats to prevent them from going over to the Ukrainians, so no chance of grassroots volunteer action. And the Russian government response ranges from useless to actively hostile: some reports say that soldiers have blocked roads out of flooded villages telling the residents they are going to die there.
Ukrainian drones scouting the area can see people trapped in flooded houses across the river, but can only help a little:
The impact on agriculture in southern Ukraine and Crimea:
There’s footage of Russians shelling flooded areas and evacuation points, reportedly resulting in at least one death and multiple injuries. Contrast that to Ukrainian volunteers risking their lives to help people trapped on the other side of the river. This sort of thing illustrates just how futile it is to reason about “who benefits from this more” - to make any sense you first have to adjust to the fact that one of the sides is plain evil. Russians could no longer effectively terrorize Ukraine with drones, so they found another way to terrorize civilians that can’t be stopped by a Patriot missile.
It’s a well-known tactic, but busting dams is aimed at either denying enemy forces mobility through an area or denying the enemy the benefits of infrastructure (e.g. hydroelectric power). Only the Russians benefitted from destroying this dam, and the responses of both sides in the aftermath only confirm that.
The dam was reputedly designed so that it could be blown up from inside if the USSR was invaded.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
