Never before have we had access to so much information just a few clicks away, and yet never before have we been so drowned in disinformation. If the truth can’t be suppressed, it is simply hidden behind disinformation.
First things first: I don’t know who blew the dam.
Usually, when answering these questions, the very first question to ask is: who benefits?
With the dam blown, the south-west of Zaporozhye is now impassable and so no Ukrainian attack can occur there. If the real counter-offensive has indeed started in earnest, why would Ukraine limit its options and allow the Russians to concentrate on the non-flooded sections of the frontline?
Some Z-posters are saying that this is a clever Ukrainian ploy to destroy prepared fortifications and sweep away Russian minefields. These same posters routinely portray the Ukrainian command as suicidal, brain-dead zombies on every other occasion except this one time.
Others are pointing to the fact that Crimea might lose water access because the reservoirs will now be damaged or destroyed and water water inflows to the Crimea canal will fall off. But, so far, this is just speculation. We can add rumors that Ukraine is pumping water from another river to raise the flood levels to this category as well.
If this was a Ukrainian attack, I have yet to conclude exactly how they benefit from it.
From the Russian perspective, it also makes little sense, but they have slightly more incentive, admittedly.
From the American perspective though, it makes perfect sense as a ploy to make things worse, basically, and blame Russia for it. This has been their MO since the very beginning of the Not-War. And, if this leads to a situation where a nuclear reactor goes critical, well, all the better. Even as the situation stands now, the whole Western world will blame Russia for the humanitarian catastrophe regardless.
I don’t see the point of speculating about the dam beyond this though.
As for the counter-offensive, well, the Z-posters were telling us for months now that no such attack was possible. Period. End of story. They also said that Ukraine’s divisions were phantoms and that it was all just a propaganda ploy for weak-willed people to fall for. Now that the attack has indeed begun, they move the goalposts and say that it has already been quashed. But, it is too early to say. Ukraine has not achieved a significant breakthrough anywhere yet, true. But it is also impossible to say whether or not they have truly committed to a particular vector of attack yet. From what we can tell, the Russian MoD is lying through its teeth about destroyed Leopards and 3k UAF casualties and only 70 some Russian casualties using Scott Ritter’s crowd-tested 14:1 K/D metric again. However, should the UAF break through successfully, they will then pour in the reserves to try and envelope and then overrun the Russian positions. At that point, the only chance for Russia is if they took the time beforehand to make sure that they had enough men in the region ready to prevent envelopment. I kept my eyes peeled all the while these last few months to try and ascertain whether or not Russia had, in fact, prepared enough men, but my efforts were in vain. I simply could not find any information on this coming from the Russian side.
Now, with the Ukrainians, the situation is clearer. Unlike the Russians, the Ukrainians were bragging about the new army that they had trained and raised. Then, they launched their attack. Is it too much of a leap to assume that, if Ukraine decided to launch this attack, that they probably did, in fact, calculate that they had enough men to pull off the operation? I understand that, if you read Z-bloggers, you are laboring under the impression that the UAF zombie horde run by braindead generals that lose 14 men for every one Russian they kill. With this kind of mindset, it becomes quite easy to believe that Ukraine would launch a doomed assault for no discernible reason whatsoever. Despite my best efforts at blogging, this view continues to predominate. So, the logic that I use, where I assume that the UAF does things for a reason and based on some semblance of military reality, is completely incomprehensible to them and can only be explained by accusing me of being CIA or a traitor to the Orthodox Eurasian Anti-Nazi cause. To me though, it makes perfect sense to assume that Ukraine probably has enough men to go on the attack and reason to believe that they will be successful.
Despite the fog of war and lack of reliable information as of yet, my general calculations remain the same though.
If Ukraine breaks through somewhere and Russia doesn’t have enough men in the region to deploy to prevent envelopment and encirclement, then, a “strategic regrouping” i.e. a retreat will follow as surely as night follows day. Also, I have no reason to believe that Russia took the task of fortifying the line and preparing sufficient reserves seriously, unfortunately. True, I don’t have proof that they didn’t, but I also don’t have the proof that we would all like to hear, which is that they did.
So far though, things are progressing pretty much exactly as I predicted all the way back in winter. It was Ukraine, not Russia who went on the offensive. And they chose to move on Zaporozhye. The date I gave after being forced to was June 1st and things seem to have kicked off for real about 3 days ago.
Should I really be ashamed that I was less than a week off with my prediction?
He drank, quarreled, knocked over a tree and now he is ashamed to look people in the face!
I also said that there was a very good chance that the UAF would succeed. Because I had little information on the Russian reserves, I used the silence and panicked gulping of the Russian media which appeared to be tasked with softening the blow, as a hint that all was not well.
So, all that is left to do is wait a few more days.
I can’t make any sense out of the conflicting information that we are receiving now.
Hold on to your butts.
It Is Too Soon to Say
Another disaster where thousands were forced to evacuate, animals left to drown, farms obliterated as catastrophic floods engulfed low-lying areas.
They say the dam holds back a reservoir equal in volume to Utah's Great Salt Lake--locals call it the "Kakhovka Sea."
In any event, it's a damn shame. A comment not meant to be amusing, but to emphasize the tragedy of a country being systematically destroyed while the most powerless are either being slaughtered or coerced into become refugees.
"As of May 2022, 100 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide. This accounts for an increase of 10.7 million people displaced from the end of the previous year, propelled by the war in Ukraine and other deadly conflicts."
One could cynically believe a demographic shift of the world's population is being deliberately orchestrated. As it doesn't take a genius to know the sociological outcome of endless wars and political instability.
But I digress, as the decimated dam is the most recent crisis which should be addressed. That being said, I'm not a structural engineer but wouldn't you need to plant high-powered underwater explosives at just the right
depth in order to demolish such an enormous concrete structure. It would require a skilled team. Perhaps, the Nord Stream divers were available or a similar bunch looking for a side hustle.
Nontheless, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to jeopardize a dam which might supply water to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station. Here's a link of what would happen if that nuclear plant blows.
https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/nuclear-power-ukraine-what-would-happen-if-zaporizhzhia-was-hit#:~:text=At%20Zaporizhzhia%2C%20the%20large%20amounts,site%20and%20city%20of%20Enerhodar.
Another reason why nuclear plants if built should only be constructed in locations where "billionaires reside." I'm sick and tired of seeing the middle-class poisoned, radiated, or drowned for profit.
And that pretty much sums up this Ukraine mess which is another needless manufactured crisis where the middle-class, poor, and elderly are sacrificed so wealthy mobster rulers residing in splendor on every continent can abscond with additional billions.
The Thais have a saying: "When elephants fight, all the grass is flattened." That's pretty much where I'm at.