I think Russia are likely responsible for the blowing up of the dam, but also to your point, they likely have a contingency plan for the nuclear plant. While it’s a pretty ballsy move, it does tend to show some forethought and fortitude on the Russian side and could really limit Ukraine’s push, in the short term. Even if it merely nets Russia 2 or 3 more months of stalemate, it’s a win for them, as officials have already tipped their hand at a desire to wrap this up by end of year.
Fortitude doesn't have to be virtuous. But it took some guts to destroy that dam given its importance in cooling the nuclear plant and it could also end up washing away some of the defensive fortifications Russia have made downstream. It was a risky maneuver, but they may end up benefitting from it immensely. Time will tell on that, but nothing wrong with pointing out when the enemy does something that's risky or bold.
Reading some more about it, it seems like the impact on both sides would be limited. It appears that the bottom part of the dam is holding, so it won't flood half of Kherson city as originally thought, so the damage to Ukraine held territories should be limited. It also means that the nuclear plant still has enough water to cool the 2 out of the 6 reactors that are still online. Crimea's water supply will be affected, but they also have alternative pumped and pipelined water supplies for the time being. As for the war effort, it flooded a bunch of Russian trenches, but the water will subside in a couple of weeks and it's along a very small part of the front, at the very south west of it, so it probably won't affect the war very much. Ukraine had previously considered destroying it, but that was when Russia still controlled Kherson City and it was considered as a last resort to stop Russian crossings. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/29/ukraine-offensive-kharkiv-kherson-donetsk/ Given there's no report of a large explosion heard at the time of the dam's burst and fairly limited damage to both sides, I'm starting to think that maybe it just failed due to a combination of war-related damages and poor maintenance/repairs. As expected though, both sides are quick to point fingers without providing a shred of evidence.
I am not remotely comparing the two episodes morally, not the least of which is because the Belgians were flooding and damaging their own territory, but the first thing I thought of when I read this as a supposed military tactic to slow an advance was Belgium in WWI - Yser, which many believe prevented an early German victory in that War During the early campaigns of 1914, the Belgian army had been pushed out of the fortified cities of Liège, Namur and Antwerp by the German advance. Although they succeeded in delaying the Germans at some actions, they were forced to withdraw, first to Antwerp, and into the far north-west of Belgium. By October 1914, the Belgian forces were holding a position along the Yser and Ieperlee canal. After months of retreat, the Belgian forces were considerably reduced and were exhausted. They flooded a large expanse of territory in front of their lines, stretching as far south as Diksmuide. Between 16 and 31 October 1914, the Belgians held off the German army at the Battle of the Yser, suffering 3,500 killed and 15,000 wounded.[1] The Battle of the Yser established a front line which would endure until 1918. Yser Front - Wikipedia
Russia heroically destroys a farm tractor, then posthumously upgrades it to a Leopard tank. Russia's military falsely claimed to have shredded a Leopard tank. It looks more like abandoned farm equipment. Excellent work, Russia. Excellent work.
I’m not talking about virtue or morality or Just War Theory. I have no problem with defenders using scorched-earth (or in this case soaked-earth) tactics such as these. But you seem to have missed a key aspect of this decision by Russia: these are the kind of tactics used by the weak to delay the strong. Russia has this huge disinformation campaign out there about how they’re actually winning and that in the end their overwhelming force is irresistible, and all Ukraine can do is delay the inevitable conquest. Yet Russia goes and does something like this instead of trying to hold the ground against an opponent they ostensibly view as militarily inferior. Blowing dams and bridges to play for time is something you do when you are losing. Russia just inadvertently admitted to the world that it is losing. And while there might be a kind of “fortitude” in speaking unpleasant truths aloud, I doubt that’s what Russia had in mind.
Cortical spasm … “This is a war of Russian aggression. Therefore, anything that’s bad it was the Russians. Ergo, it was the Russians that blew the damn.”
If it was one of our Hellfires, then maybe. They went for about $75K 20 years ago (I remember because we had one pilot who missed a target with one in training due strictly to operator error, and her callsign was going to be “Lexus” because you could buy one in those days for the cost an AGM-114). No idea how much one costs today. But let’s not make a false equivalence. We are talking about a POS Russian missile that might only hit one tank if you were aiming at the one next to it (on a good day). So you might be wrong as wrong can be. Maybe that tractor would go for more on the open market.
Changes nothing in terms of my personal belief in the righteousness of the Ukrainian cause. Putin started this fiasco, I put the blame on his shoulders.
Lol you left out the small details of military competence and of course obtaining policy goals. NATO cowering to the Russian Bear? FAIL Russia achieving military objectives? FAIL Russia preventing NATO expansion? Lol See Finland and Sweden. The Russian rose your painting is wilted and dying the way I see it.
Some analysis of the FLIR video followed by an amusing related tale from younger days. - The missile appears to be wire-guided as opposed to laser-guided or fire-and-forget. The operator seems to need to keep track manually on the target and the way the missile “swirls around” as it closes is consistent with what a TOW shot looks like. I mention this because wire-guided missiles launched from helicopters have been obsolete in the U.S. for a long, long time. - A couple other indications that this wasn’t a tank (at least not a manned one) are that it’s by itself (tanks are always employed at least in pairs), it’s in the open and not moving (you wouldn’t just park a tank there like that; you find some kind of concealment for a static position), and there would be hot spots on the tank if it had been run recently (it’s appears to be one consistent color). So it might very well end up being a military vehicle (shape looks way too off to be a tank), but if it is, then it probably broke down in that spot and was abandoned. - This engagement must have taken place at night. The FLIR image can fool unless you take a look at the target from a couple of different aspects, but the operator probably wouldn’t have been fooled with a daytime look at the vehicle. Now my story. I was in a Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) in 2003 for the invasion of Iraq. About two weeks into the war, the Pentagon sent over one of our sister HMLAs to reinforce, but then Baghdad fell faster than anyone thought it would. By the time that squadron got to Kuwait and was ready to fly it was all over. Their squadron name was the Gunfighters, so of course, in the spirit of unhealthy competition that characterizes units like these, we called them the “Didn’t Fighters.” They hated us, and we hated them. Now as an actual adult I see the childishness and cross-purpose to that, but in my early 20s that hatred of a fellow HMLA was as natural as can be. From our perspective, there was no real fight left to speak of (that would change later, but at the moment our piece of Iraq was quiet), but these guys were doing everything they could to find a fight or make one. That made us dislike them more, so we would make fun, so they would try even harder to find something to shoot, and on it went. Well, during one of their misadventures in trying to find a fight, this Gunfighter Cobra crew spots “hot mortar tubes” in a palm grove at night and shoots up the area. They came rolling back into the base like the music from Top Gun was playing. Then higher headquarters analyzed the FLIR tape and determined whatever it was didn’t appear to be “hot mortar tubes.” This coupled with no reports of enemy indirect fire in the area caused them to send out a ground patrol to investigate. Good thing they brought the checkbook with them, because that dirt-poor farmer was reportedly very upset at the loss of his irrigation equipment. Moral of the story is, you can see what you want to see on the FLIR, especially when you’re edgy and/or really want to shoot something … oh, and that the Gunfighters still suck.
All true, but the jury’s still out. If this ends in a strategic victory for Russia, then much of what you’re pointing out matters relatively little. It’s very important that Russia loses. It doesn’t have to be a catastrophic 1917-type loss, but it has to be one where they can’t claim victory with a straight face.
The 1917 loss had an awful lot to do with Germany handing Lennon tens of millions of dollars to finance his revolution and take Russia out of the War. The German financing had as much or more to do with Russia abandoning the War than any battlefield loss.
Right, if we're talking strategic results, I think it's a bit too early. We'll have to compare the West + Ukraine from before and after the war, and Russia from before and after the war to get a good sense of it.
