The Kakhovka Dam Collapse

Mendel

Senior Member.
Article:
MOSCOW/KYIV, June 6 (Reuters) - A major Soviet-era dam in the Russian controlled part of southern Ukraine was breached on Tuesday, unleashing floodwaters across the war zone in what both Ukraine and Russia said was an intentional attack by the other's forces.

[...]

Russian-installed officials in Kherson said Ukraine struck the dam at 2300 GMT several times, destroying the hydraulic valves of the hydroelectric power station but said the dam was not totally destroyed.
Kiev is on GMT+03, so 2300GMT equates to 02:00 local time.

Article:
The Russian-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said there was a risk that water levels in the North Crimea Canal, which carries fresh water to the peninsula from the Dnipro river, could fall. Crimea, which Russia has held since 2014, had sufficient water reserves for the moment, and the level of risk would become clear in coming days, he said.

Article:
"At 02:50, Russian terrorists carried out an internal detonation of the structures of the Kakhovskaya HPP. About 80 settlements are in the zone of flooding," Zelenskiy said after an emergency meeting of senior officials.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson said Russia's aim was to prevent Ukrainian troops crossing the Dnipro River to attack Russian occupying forces.

[...]

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe's largest, gets its cooling water from the reservoir. It is located on the southern side, now under Russian control.

"Our current assessment is that there is no immediate risk to the safety of the plant," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said.

He said it was essential that a cooling pond be left intact as it supplied enough water for the cooling of the shut-down reactors.
 
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We discussed the scenario of this dam breach back in October, when Russia retreated from Kherson. See
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/russia-and-ukraine-current-events.12289/post-281932
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/russia-and-ukraine-current-events.12289/post-282050
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/russia-and-ukraine-current-events.12289/post-282444

It's hard to say who did it and why. 3 scenarios come to mind:
• demolition charges left back in October blew by accident (sun/heat)
• Ukraine has used this tactic to defend Kiev. They might want to strengthen the defense of Kherson so the can transfer troops from there to use in their summer offensive.
• Russia might have good intelligence that Ukraine prepared for an offensive across the Dnipro, and wanted to forestall it.
 
Ukraine is probably not going to be able to push Russia out of Crimea (at this time, that is - anything in the months to come or next year would depend on what happens with the likely upcoming renewal of offensives) but if the area immediately north of the peninsula is retaken they can make it very untenable.

Prior to the invasion last year, Russia was spending an incredible amount of resources making Crimea viable, because Ukraine cut them off from water, food, and power the area had depended on from the mainland. If Ukraine cuts them off again, the question then is whether Russia can start doing that again while still pursuing the rest of the war, or if their position in Crimea becomes unsustainable.
Here's a note from yesterday's ISW report (pre-dam breach):
Article:
The Russian Black Sea Fleet is attempting to mitigate complications with logistical support in occupied Crimea by shifting resources to mainland Russia. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Natalia Humenyuk reported on June 5 that Russian forces are transferring the Black Sea Fleet’s logistics centers from Sevastopol, occupied Crimea, to Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai.[21] Humenyuk stated that Russian forces are moving the logistics centers because of widespread logistical and ammunition provision issues in occupied Crimea.[22] Humenyuk noted that Russian amphibious ships are continuing to maneuver in the Black Sea and enter Sevastopol, but that the overall center of gravity of the Black Sea Fleet appears to be shifting towards Novorossiysk.[23] Recent strikes on Russian concentration areas, logistics hubs, and transportation assets in southern Ukraine may be causing increased anxiety over the security of the Black Sea Fleet, and the move to Krasnodar Krai is likely in part reflective of this fact.
 
I note that John Sweeney discussed the prospect of the Russians destroying the dam in his book Killer in the Kremlin, (2022, revised edn. 2023). He concluded:

While I am an optimist about non-use of a nuke, I’m a pessimist on the dam. I think it highly likely he [Putin] will blow it up, judging that the West will angst but not retaliate. Any non-nuclear degrading of Ukraine’s quality of life is very much on the Kremlin’s wish-list.

[Source: Sweeney, John. Killer in the Kremlin (p. 316). Transworld. Kindle Edition.]
It perhaps hardly needs saying that Sweeney is not a fan of Putin (no prizes for guessing the identity of his 'killer in the Kremlin'). Earlier in the book he gives some good reasons for concluding that the 'Moscow apartment' bombings in 1999, which played a big part in Putin's rise to power, and provided a pretext for the war against Chechnya, were arranged by the FSB under Putin's direction.
 
The President of the European Council Charles Michel on Twitter:

Article:
Shocked by the unprecedented attack of the Nova Kakhovka dam. The destruction of civilian infrastructure clearly qualifies as a war crime - and we will hold Russia and its proxies accountable.


NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg:

Article:
". . . an outrageous act, which demonstrates once again the brutality of Russia's war in Ukraine."


Unlike the foregoing two, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, instead of assigning direct blame on Russia, assigns indirect blame:

Article:
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations had no independent information on how the dam was breached, describing it as "another devastating consequence" of Russia's invasion.


The current absence of an independently verifiable "smoking gun" does not mean the two hypotheses (a Ukrainian false flag operation / a Russian false flag opertion) are anywhere near equally plausible in light of many other factors that must be brought to bear in any such analysis.
 
I'm seeing suggestions here and there that the Nova Kakhovka Dam may not have been damaged on purpose.

It's unclear whether explosives were involved. It may be a breach due to neglect, including not maintaining the reservoir at the proper level. Could the dam have been damaged by the water level being too high?


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65818705
Stills and video show a massive breach in the dam, with water surging through it and flooding downstream in the direction of Kherson.
It's unclear when exactly the dam was first damaged, but satellite images suggest its condition has deteriorated over a number of days.
A road across the dam appears to be damaged from 2 June, but there does not seem to be a change to the flow of the water until 6 June when the breach of the wall and collapse of nearby buildings can be clearly seen. It is currently unclear whether the damage to the road is linked to the 6 June breach.

That structure seems to be the roadway. Could this show the aftermath of water overburdening the spillways, and perhaps even eroding the roadway?

_130011730_abb6438bd9dc05b65ee6907be3728c208eb88dd6567_205_2566_14442566x1444.png

As it appeared pre-war.
Каховская_ГЭС.png

The dam's spillways in use in 2013
Гребля_і_Каховська_ГЕС_03 (1).jpg

_130009651_nova_hakovka_dam_before_after2_2x640-nc.png (2).png
 
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This video has been making the rounds on Social Media claiming to show an explosion on the Dam on June 6, 2023.

But it's really from November 11, 2022. Russian forces were ordered to withdraw on Nov 9 during the final stages of the Kherson counteroffensive. Russian forces damaged the roadway to keep it from being used by advancing Ukrainian forces. But they've kept possession of the dam itself to this day.
 
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NYT May 17, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/0...&variant=undefined#dam-flood-ukraine-kakhovka

A satellite image captured on May 3 showed water cresting over the top of the Kakhovka dam. Credit...Planet Labs

16vi-dam-superJumbo.png

Water levels at a reservoir that supplies southern Ukraine with drinking water have reached a 30-year high, increasing the possibility of flooding in the area and signaling a lack of regulation. The sudden increase in levels at the Kakhovka reservoir appears in altimetry data — which uses satellites to measure height — published on Friday by Theia, a French earth data provider.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service has not recorded water levels that high at the dam since at least 1992, when the service began publishing data. Russian forces control the dam and the nearby power plant, which are vital to managing water levels in the reservoir.

A New York Times analysis of satellite imagery over a period of several months also showed that the water level has risen significantly, and now covers sandbars that line the waterway. In recent days, the reservoir has reached more concerning levels, appearing to actually crest over the top of the dam.

The development is a dramatic turnabout, coming only a few months after water levels in the reservoir had reached a historic low. At the time, Ukrainian officials raised concerns about a lack of water for drinking, agriculture and the cooling of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant nearby. By the end of February, the water level was sitting at nearly two meters below its usual average.

Recent videos and satellite imagery from late last year show that at least three of the gates that control the flow of water through the dam were opened — apparently by Russian forces in control of the Kakhovka power plant. That, in turn, allowed water to rush through at an alarming rate over the winter, despite relatively little water entering the reservoir from upstream.

It is unclear exactly how the water level rose so significantly since then. But David Helms, a former U.S. Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist who researches the dam, said that Russian forces seem to have kept too few gates open to control the flow of winter snowmelt and spring rains. Likening the effect to a leaky bucket, Mr. Helms said that too much water has been entering the reservoir.

“What the river is doing is dumping a lot of water in,” Mr. Helms said. “And it’s far exceeding the discharge rate.”

The dam, which lies along the front line, has been a point of tension throughout the war. In August, a Ukrainian artillery strike targeted a bridge along the dam, though the dam avoided sustaining any damage. Then, in November, Russian forces deliberately destroyed part of the road directly above the dam’s gates, carrying out an explosion dangerously close to vital dam infrastructure.
 
https://dnyuz.com/2023/06/06/internal-blast-probably-breached-ukraine-dam-experts-say-cautiously/
Experts cautioned that the available evidence was very limited, but they said that an internal explosion was the likeliest explanation for the destruction of the dam, a massive structure of steel-reinforced concrete that was completed in 1956. And local residents reported on social media that they heard a huge explosion around the time the dam was breached, at 2:50 a.m.

A blast in an enclosed space, with all of its energy applied against the structure around it, would do the most damage. Even then, the experts said, it would require hundreds of pounds of explosives, at least, to breach the damn. An external detonation by bomb or missile would exert only a fraction of its force against the dam, and would require an explosive many times larger to achieve a similar effect.

“You’re going to be limited in how much a warhead can carry,” said Nick Glumac, an engineering professor and explosives expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Even a direct hit may not take out the dam.”

“This takes a significant amount of energy,” he said. “You think about the forces on the structure in operation — they are immense. You have the water force, which is massive. This is not like holding on by a thread; these things are tough.”

Over more than a year of heavy fighting, the Kakhovka dam had been damaged repeatedly, and each side has accused the other of shelling it. The Russians captured it last year when they advanced to the Dnipro and beyond, but months later the Ukrainians pushed Russian forces off the west bank, turning the river — and the dam — into part of the boundary between the warring sides. The Russians held onto the dam, itself.

It is not clear, though, that the kind of damage the dam had sustained was anywhere near enough to cause it to break down.

“Dams do fail; it’s absolutely possible,” said Gregory B. Baecher, a professor of engineering at the University of Maryland and member of the National Academy of Engineering, who has studied dam failures. But, he said, “I look at this and say, ‘Gosh, this looks suspicious.’”

In August, a Ukrainian rocket struck the roadway on top of the dam. In November, as Russian forces withdrew across the river, an explosion destroyed part of the roadway; after that, images verified by The New York Times showed damage to some of the sluice gates that let water through. But there was no indication of damage to the underlying structure.

Since November, the gantry cranes that open and close the sluice gates have barely moved, though it was not clear if they had not been working. That led first to record low water levels and then, as winter snowmelt and spring rains flowed into the reservoir upstream, to a 30-year record high water level.

Since early May, water has risen above the gates and crested over the top of the dam. Satellite images taken last week showed more of the roadway gone; whether it was washed away by the flow of water or destroyed in a strike is unclear.

Some dams have collapsed because of unusually heavy water flows “overtopping” them. “Normally, such a failure would start on the earthen part of the dam, on either bank,” said Professer Baecher.

But photos and videos show that the Kakhovka dam was first breached in the middle, next to the power plant adjoining the Russian-held bank. Both ends of it appeared to be intact at first, though as the day went on, more and more of the dam collapsed.

A combination of damaged sluice gates and high water might tear away a few gates, but would not be expected to rip apart so much of the dam, the professor said.

Ukraine on Sunday appeared to begin a long-expected counteroffensive against Russian forces, and its officials said that Moscow blew the dam to hinder their advance by causing flooding and removing the only remaining river crossing between the enemies. It is not clear, though, whether Ukraine’s plans call for a major crossing of the lower Dnipro.

Ukrainians questioned why they would want to destroy their own infrastructure, towns and farms, while noting that those have been frequent targets in the brutal Russian conduct of the war. Moscow wanted to “show they are ready to do anything” if Kyiv aggressively pursues its counteroffensive, said Roman Kostenko, chairman of the defense and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s Parliament. “They do everything to stop our counterattack.”

Mr. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, claimed that Ukraine had destroyed the dam to cut the flow of water through a canal from the Dnipro to the Crimean Peninsula. After Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine halted the flow, but Russia restarted it last year after taking the dam.

Other Russian officials claimed the attack was meant to support a Ukrainian offensive that they said was sputtering — possibly to allow Kyiv to reposition some forces, or to have floodwaters push back Russian artillery near the river.

Some Western military analysts struck a cautionary note about trying to assign blame quickly, or even about saying whether the dam collapse was intentional.

“It’s too early to tell,” said Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va. The disaster, he said, “ultimately benefits nobody.”
 
I'm seeing suggestions here and there that the Nova Kakhovka Dam may not have been damaged on purpose.

I saw something similar, but can't find it now. It may have been a reference to the same article from BBC.

IF the sequence of satellite photos are correct, it seems plausible. From the NYT article above (bold by me):

Recent videos and satellite imagery from late last year show that at least three of the gates that control the flow of water through the dam were opened — apparently by Russian forces in control of the Kakhovka power plant. That, in turn, allowed water to rush through at an alarming rate over the winter, despite relatively little water entering the reservoir from upstream.


It is unclear exactly how the water level rose so significantly since then. But David Helms, a former U.S. Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist who researches the dam, said that Russian forces seem to have kept too few gates open to control the flow of winter snowmelt and spring rains. Likening the effect to a leaky bucket, Mr. Helms said that too much water has been entering the reservoir.
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Too much water running out in winter and not enough running out in spring.

Recall the Oroville Dam near disaster, discussed here:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/oroville-dam-spillway-thread-quick-links.8416/

In that case, an aging spillway suffered considerable damage after a very wet winter filled the reservoir to capacity and then some, resulting in the emergency spillway being employed, only to have it sustain even more damage. The reservoir was full and more water was running in, so the damaged spillway was employed again destroying most of it but averting disaster.

This was all being orchestrated by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), which were theoretically, seasoned professional water resource people and engineers (many locals would disagree with this sentiment).

Who was running the Kakhovka dam? It's under Russian military control, so one would assume the former Ukrainian operators are not there. Russian dam operators brought in from other dams in Russia? The Russian military operating it under directions from remote Russian dam operators? Or maybe just the Russian military garrison doing what they could?

If it was being badly mismanaged, then a natural failure seems possible. I can find lots of news stories that say something about a "blast" at the dam, but nothing really convincing.
 
Whilst not stating it's impossible, the mismanagement/accident hypothesis is not seriously explored by most credible analysts.

ISW on who's responsible for the dam destruction (the bolded bits were not added):

Article:
ISW has not yet observed clear evidence of what transpired at the KHPP on June 6 and is therefore unable to offer an independent assessment of responsibility at the time of this publication. White House spokesperson John Kirby noted that the US still cannot say conclusively what caused the destruction of the dam but is assessing reports that “the blast was caused by Russia.”[26] NBC additionally reported that the US has intelligence indicating Russia’s responsibility for the dam’s destruction but is currently working to declassify relevant information.[27] Various European officials made statements indicating that they believe Russia is involved and underlining the resulting humanitarian impacts of the flooding.[28]

Statements by US and European officials are generally consistent with ISW’s October 2022 forecast that the Russians have a greater and clearer interest in flooding the lower Dnipro despite the damage to their own prepared defensive positions and forces than the Ukrainians.[29] ISW previously assessed on October 21, 2022, that Ukraine has no material interest in blowing the dam and pointed out that 80 settlements would risk flooding.[30] Ukrainian officials confirmed on June 6, 2023, that 80 settlements risk flooding as a result of the damage.[31] ISW further assessed that by contrast, Russia may use the flooding to widen the Dnipro River and complicate Ukrainian counteroffensive attempts across the already-challenging water feature.[32] Russian sources have expressed intense and explicit concern over the possibility that Ukraine has been preparing to cross the river and counterattack into east bank Kherson Oblast.[33] Available footage from June 6, corroborated by claims made by Russian milbloggers, suggests that the flooding washed away Ukrainian positions near the Dnipro shoreline and forced Ukrainian formations to evacuate while under Russian artillery fire.[34]

Ukrainian officials acknowledged that Russian formations and positions on the east bank may have been caught off guard and threatened by the flooding due to the topography of the area, some Ukrainian officials suggested that this was a result of the chaotic handling of the intentional detonation of the dam by Russian forces.[35] Some Russian sources indicated that the damage to the dam could threaten the water supply to occupied Crimea, but ISW previously noted that Crimea survived without water from the Dnipro River in the years between Russia‘s initial illegal annexation in 2014 and when water access was restored following the 2022 full-scale invasion.[36] There is also the possibility, of course, that pre-existing structural damage to the dam eventually caused breakage and flooding, as some sources have additionally suggested, although reports of noises like explosions are not necessarily consistent with this notion.[37] ISW cannot offer a definitive assessment of responsibility for the June 6 incident at this time but finds that the balance of evidence, reasoning, and rhetoric suggests that the Russians deliberately damaged the dam.
 
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That structure seems to be the roadway. Could this show the aftermath of water overburdening the spillways, and perhaps even eroding the roadway?
I don't understand why the dam broke in 3 places at once:
Screenshot_20230607-044620_Samsung Internet.jpg
You'd think a breach would relieve pressure on the rest of the structure? and why would the power station building be damaged if the station was inoperable?

Recall the Oroville Dam near disaster
I don't think that reservoir dam is comparable to the river dam.
 
It's hard to say who did it and why. 3 scenarios come to mind:
• demolition charges left back in October blew by accident (sun/heat)
• Ukraine has used this tactic to defend Kiev. They might want to strengthen the defense of Kherson so the can transfer troops from there to use in their summer offensive.
• Russia might have good intelligence that Ukraine prepared for an offensive across the Dnipro, and wanted to forestall it.
more option:
• charges left by Russia in October (and April?) set off by shots or artillery fire
• erosion

I don't understand why the dam broke in 3 places at once:
if the first breach was next to the powerhouse, there would be erosion of the foundations, subsequent damage to the house, water entering from the side and flowing "sideways" in the open room seeking an exit, which would lead to the subsequent breaches.
 
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A report in the UK Times yesterday (paywalled) stated that Russian sources were claiming the dam had been 'shelled' by the Ukrainians. I leave it to others to opine on whether an artillery shell could have done the kind of damage observed. I do think it would require exceptional accuracy for a single unguided shell to hit such a narrow target. Guided munitions like HIMARS or Excalibur might do it.

Edit: The Times statement is repeated in today's front page article:

Moscow said Kiev had shelled the dam itself to facilitate troop movements.

Like many Russian claims, this doesn't even begin to make sense. How would shelling the dam facilitate any troop movements, other than swimming?

John Sweeney, who (as I mentioned in #4 above) predicted that Russia would blow up the dam, has commented on it in an article here:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/blowing-up-the-dam-nova-kakhovka-john-sweeney/

Like me he is skeptical about the 'shelling' claim:

There is no doubt in my mind that the Russians blew up the dam. Locals report one explosion, then the sound of gushing water. Note the singularity. The Russian fairy story is that the Ukrainians fired artillery shells at the dam and destroyed it to make the Kremlin look bad. It is nigh on impossible to blow up a massive concrete structure like a dam with one artillery shell.

However, it seems from the evidence that the damage was not to the 'massive concrete structure' but to a sluice gate or some other more vulnerable part of the dam. This might make the 'one shot' theory more physically plausible, but would also heighten the need for exceptional accuracy.

Interestingly, Sweeney sees the dam explosion as a sign that Russia is 'giving up on Crimea':

...the dam supplied water to barren Crimea. Blowing up the dam is a critical sign that Russia has abandoned its long-term strategy of holding onto the peninsula. This is not being promulgated in the Kremlin’s patsy media but the long traffic jams going east leading to the Kerch bridge speak to Crimxit. Unarticulated, but Putin’s supporters are going back to Russia. The last time a mass of Russians voted with their feet was not good news for the tsar.
 
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Could the reported "explosion" sound have been the sound of some dam structure (e.g. a power house wall) collapsing? i.e. could the sound of collapse have been mistaken for an explosion? (9/11 comes to mind.)
 
Overall an internal explosion seems to be the most likely explanation. But the collapse due to damage from being overtopped can't be ruled out. The progressive damage to the roadway over the gates is certainly something to think about.

And there's a murky hybrid model. Perhaps explosives had been put in place sometime before this, going back even to November of 2022. Maybe the Russians decided to use them rather than lose them to progressive damage.
 
Whilst not stating it's impossible, the mismanagement/accident hypothesis is not seriously explored by most credible analysts.

Agreed, I was just commenting on the BBC article and noting that it appears there was at least some progressive damage prior to the complete failure. And so far, it seems most of the reports of a "blast" are 2nd hand and possibly politicized.

At this point, the Russians were in control of the dam when it failed making Ukranian sabotage unlikely. Experts say a volley of Ukrainian artillery or HARMS weapons is unlikely to destroy a large concrete structure. The Ukrainian air force seems unable to deliver or even have large scale "bunker buster" type bombs. So, if the reports of blasts are credible, that leaves the Russians as the likely culprits.

But...

I don't think that reservoir dam is comparable to the river dam.

Agreed. I was referring the idea of the power of water to weaken and/or destroy aging infistructure, particularly concrete ones. The Oroville spillway was constructed in the late '60s and its exact cause of failure is unknown:

...the exact cause of the spillway failure remains uncertain, though they identified "24 possible causes for the spillway failure, including a faulty drainage system, variations in concrete thickness, and corrosion in the structure’s rebar."[51]
Content from External Source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oroville_Dam

Could some of the same issues with the concrete and corrosion of the rebar been happening at Kakhova.

The dam is a Soviet era project that is over 70 years old now. Carefully managed, it might be fine, but in the last year and half it's been full of large military vehicles, it's been shelled, the Russians have blown up part of the car deck, then massive amounts of water were allowed to run through it at much higher-than-normal flow rates for the winter, then it was closed up to hold back the most water in 30 years.

It might be asking a lot of a 70-year-old structure. The timing does seem to help the Russians, though much of their defensive works were wiped out.

As I said above, some sort of deliberate destruction is most likely and if that's the case, the Russians are the likely culprit as they were in control of it. But until we get something better than "reports of a blast being heard", I don't think the idea of failure caused by abuse and mismanagement of an aging dam is completely off the table.
 
The timing does seem to help the Russians, though much of their defensive works were wiped out.
According to some reports, a lot of Russian soldiers were also washed away and presumably drowned. If true, I don't think this counts very heavily against the hypothesis that the Russians deliberately destroyed the dam. It might just show incompetence and/or callousness, neither of which would be surprising.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of an accidental collapse. Especially from a distance, an explosion can be difficult to distinguish from the collapse of a building, etc. I remember that in 1991 I was working about half-a-mile from 10 Downing Street (the UK Prime Minister's office and residence) when the IRA launched a number of home-made mortar bombs at it. When I heard the explosions I thought they sounded like some scaffolding collapsing.
 
It's possible that the Russians let the reservoir rise on purpose to make the flooding as devastating as possible. Once the Ukrainians started the reconnaissance in force and probing attacks phase of the offensive, that was the signal to destroy the dam.

The reports of Russian troops being caught up in the flooding are of no consequence. A long history teaches us that the Russians treat their troops as non-living chess pieces. There's only cost/benefit calculations to be considered. Maintaining secrecy was of more benefit than the cost of losing some disposable frontline troops and defensive installations on a section of the front that has now been neutralized for many weeks.
 
It's possible that the Russians let the reservoir rise on purpose to make the flooding as devastating as possible. Once the Ukrainians started the reconnaissance in force and probing attacks phase of the offensive, that was the signal to destroy the dam.

The reports of Russian troops being caught up in the flooding are of no consequence. A long history teaches us that the Russians treat their troops as non-living chess pieces. There's only cost/benefit calculations to be considered. Maintaining secrecy was of more benefit than the cost of losing some disposable frontline troops and defensive installations on a section of the front that has now been neutralized for many weeks.
Yes, and "their" troops can mean a lot in those circumstances, just because they're Russian or Russia aligned. There's all sorts of disparate units of course, it's not like you've got central, intact chain of command or communication network, let alone encrypted. So whether that was even possible with all the chaos and presumably limited time is not all clear. Apparently even the region's (installed) "governor" was kept unaware. What are these dupes to Moscow/Russian MoD?
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/29/ukraine-offensive-kharkiv-kherson-donetsk/ via https://archive.is/9Py2F, dated December 29, 2022, talking about the Ukrainian attack on Kherson:
Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages.

The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.
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On the other hand, I think it's established that Russia had mined the dam
 
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The dam is a Soviet era project that is over 70 years old now. Carefully managed, it might be fine, but in the last year and half it's been full of large military vehicles, it's been shelled, the Russians have blown up part of the car deck, then massive amounts of water were allowed to run through it at much higher-than-normal flow rates for the winter, then it was closed up to hold back the most water in 30 years.
Whilst we may never know if either side (if any) deliberately destroyed the dam.
We can say unequivocally that at best on the Russian side it was pure incompetence to allow a damaged dam to hold the most water its had in ~30 years.
The question is was it just pure incompetence or was it done with deliberate malice.

The last data I could find was 12th May 17.37m (data valid up to 14th May)
I'm not sure of the height at the time of its breech.
 
We can say unequivocally that at best on the Russian side it was pure incompetence to allow a damaged dam to hold the most water its had in ~30 years.
The question is was it just pure incompetence or was it done with deliberate malice.

The last data I could find was 12th May 17.37m (data valid up to 14th May)
I'm not sure of the height at the time of its breech.
Article:
Screenshot_20230608-073516_Samsung Internet.jpg

First, the dam is on the front line. Both sides (!) would have needed to negotiate a ceasefire to let civil engineers come in and assess the structure and any need for repairs.

Secondly, this isn't a reservoir dam. 1 extra meter of pressure (4 feet) doesn't break the dam.

Thirdly, Russia controlled the dam since March 2022, and operated it well in summer 2022.

However, in normal operations the sluice gates would be lifted such that the water spews forth at the bottom of the gate; the water pressure gives it horizontal velocity. When the sluice gate is overtopped, the water falls down the height of the gate onto the concrete slope, and the downstream flow is different. (It's highly turbulent in any case—don't swim downstream of a weir.)

Now the question becomes, were the gates operable? and if they weren't, should a ceasefire have been negotiated to make them operable again? Would contractors have wanted to work on a dam that was mined? Some things are just not possible in an active war zone, as I'm sure you can appreciate.
 
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https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-7-2023
 
SBU has posted on Telegram an "intercepted" telehone call supposedly proving a Russian 'sabotage group' blew up the dam. I'm not on Telegram (nor will ever be) and have no access to the recording.

Article:
KYIV, June 9 (Reuters) - Ukraine's domestic security service said on Friday it had intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian "sabotage group" blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and dam in southern Ukraine.

The destruction of the facility on Tuesday unleashed mass flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee and wreaking environmental havoc.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) posted a one-and-a-half minute audio clip on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation, which featured two men who appeared to be discussing the fallout from the disaster in Russian.

Reuters could not independently verifying the recording. Russia, which has accused Kyiv of destroying the dam, did not immediately comment on its content.

"They (the Ukrainians) didn't strike it. That was our sabotage group," said one of the men on the recording, described by the SBU as a Russian soldier. "They wanted to, like, scare (people) with that dam."

"It didn't go according to plan, and (they did) more than what they planned for."

The man also said "thousands" of animals had been killed at a "safari park" downstream as a result.

The other man on the line expressed surprise at the soldier's assertion that Russian forces, which were occupying the dam following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, had destroyed the hydroelectric plant and dam.

The SBU offered no further details of the conversation or its participants. It said it had opened a criminal investigation into war crimes and "ecocide".
 
Article:

Evidence grows of explosion at collapsed Ukraine dam​

Evidence was growing on Friday that there was an explosion at the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine around the time it collapsed, according to Ukrainian and U.S. intelligence reports and seismic data from Norway.

Ukraine's security service said it had intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian "sabotage group" blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and dam early on Tuesday in the Kherson region.

Norway's research foundation Norsar said that data collected from regional seismic stations showed clear signals of an explosion. Norsar said in a statement that the data from one seismic station in Romania showed activity at 02:54 a.m. local time on Tuesday, indicating an explosion, and the timing coincides with media reports of the dam collapse.

And U.S. spy satellites detected an explosion at the dam, a U.S. official was quoted as saying by the New York Times.
The U.S. official said that satellites equipped with infrared sensors detected a heat signature consistent with a major explosion.
 
SBU has posted on Telegram an "intercepted" telehone call supposedly proving a Russian 'sabotage group' blew up the dam. I'm not on Telegram (nor will ever be) and have no access to the recording.

Article:
KYIV, June 9 (Reuters) - Ukraine's domestic security service said on Friday it had intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian "sabotage group" blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and dam in southern Ukraine.

The destruction of the facility on Tuesday unleashed mass flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee and wreaking environmental havoc.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) posted a one-and-a-half minute audio clip on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation, which featured two men who appeared to be discussing the fallout from the disaster in Russian.

Reuters could not independently verifying the recording. Russia, which has accused Kyiv of destroying the dam, did not immediately comment on its content.

"They (the Ukrainians) didn't strike it. That was our sabotage group," said one of the men on the recording, described by the SBU as a Russian soldier. "They wanted to, like, scare (people) with that dam."

"It didn't go according to plan, and (they did) more than what they planned for."

The man also said "thousands" of animals had been killed at a "safari park" downstream as a result.

The other man on the line expressed surprise at the soldier's assertion that Russian forces, which were occupying the dam following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, had destroyed the hydroelectric plant and dam.

The SBU offered no further details of the conversation or its participants. It said it had opened a criminal investigation into war crimes and "ecocide".
Just someone repeating rumors?
 
I believe that a structural collapse, not an explosion. Russia is still to blame for this calamity, but I believe the structural failure occurred due to overtopping and hydrodynamic scour due to frequent use of the southernmost sluice gate and spillway.

I didn't realize that those gantries are on rails and move along the length of the gravity dam. The author is suggesting that the Russians kept the gantries at the southern end because the Russian personnel didn't want to expose themselves to possible Ukrainian sniper fire from the northern side. He suggests that the southern sluice gates were over used, which caused scour on the downstream side at that point. He also addresses the supposed seismic evidence for a single explosion.


I have to admit to confusion on my part. There's a difference between the spillways on the Boulder Dam and Oroville Dam which are designed to automatically release water when it reaches a certain elevation and have no sluice gates... and the spillways on this dam, which all seem to have sluice gates.

In this photo, all of the sluice gates are open. These spillways are not automatically releasing water. The gantries have moved along the length of the gravity dam, raising the gates one by one.
Гребля_і_Каховська_ГЕС_03 (1).jpg


Spillway at Boulder Dam designed as protection against over topping. No sluice gates.WTS3QVXCVJELXGEBSLLJNT4L34.png
 
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Press reports based mainly on Ukrainian sources claim that Russia did start withdrawing its troops from the areas likely to be affected by flooding before the dam was breached. If true, this would be a strong pointer to Russian prior knowledge, though not conclusive, because there might coincidentally be other reasons for withdrawal.

I say 'if true', because I don't think any claim by interested parties should automatically be accepted, without independent verification. In the case of withdrawal of Russian troops, there should be satellite evidence.

I am not placing claims by Ukraine on the same footing as those by Russia. Ukrainian official statements are subject to scrutiny by relatively free domestic and international media. Russian statements are not. I think the default position with regard to Russian claims should be (to quote somebody or other) that every word they write is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'.
 
I have to admit to confusion on my part. There's a difference between the spillways on the Boulder Dam and Oroville Dam which are designed to automatically release water when it reaches a certain elevation and have no sluice gates... and the spillways on this dam, which all seem to have sluice gates.

In this photo, all of the sluice gates are open. These spillways are not automatically releasing water. The gantries have moved along the length of the gravity dam, raising the gates one by one.
Yes.

In addition, the river dam sluice gates can also be overtopped, but that should never happen in normal operations.
 
https://theins.ru/en/amp/news/262443
A week before the explosion at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), the Russian government passed legislation allowing to forgo the investigation of accidents at hazardous facilities that occurred due to “military actions” and terrorist acts. The ruling applies throughout the country, including the occupied territories of Ukraine. The document, Russian Government Decree No. 873 dated May 30, is available on Russia’s official online portal of legal information.

The document, signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, came into force on the date of publication – May 31.

“Until January 1, 2028, the technical investigation of accidents at hazardous production facilities and accidents at hydraulic structures, which occurred as a result of military actions, sabotage and terrorist acts, shall not be carried out,” read the last paragraph of the decree.
Content from External Source
Ilya Shumanov, director of Transparency International-Russia, said in a conversation with The Insider that each facility is assigned its own hazard class, and is supervised based on the category it is issued – either at the level of the territorial department of Rostekhnadzor [Russia’s Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision – The Insider], or directly by Russia's federal authorities in case of a higher hazard class.

“Every facility that falls under this criterion and is assigned a hazard class must develop a declaration suggesting that you meet the requirements – that you have an evacuation plan, procedures, contact information, inspections, trained specialists, a license to work, and so on.

In case of armed hostilities, no one in the occupied territories will make these declarations, because the facilities change hands. There is no design documentation for the facilities. You have to make them again, look, study, conduct an expertise. And if it's also hit by a couple of shells... This applies even to, say, a flour factory, not to mention oil production sites and similar structures. This applies to all critical infrastructure facilities.”

The expert added that the clauses could have been lifted not in order to hide the destruction of the dam, but because there was no possibility to evaluate the facility due to the lack of technical documents. Shumanov noted that Ukrainian specialists took the documents with them when they were evacuated from the facility. The people that Russia has put in charge of maintaining the plant do not know its production capacity, what it’s connected to, and they have no trained specialists to assist them in finding out.
Content from External Source
 
The document, Russian Government Decree No. 873 dated May 30, is available on Russia’s official online portal of legal information.
Content from External Source
Confirmed. I suspected I could fling this in the direction of some putinista trolls that infest one of the darker corners of the internet I hang around in, so felt obliged to "do my own research" and verify the information to my own satisfaction (which they never do, which is why I so enjoy our little discussions, they tend to come out way worse off), and there's no point in not sharing the results of the brief dig. Thanks for this update.

http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202305310067
Постановление Правительства Российской Федерации от 30.05.2023 № 873
"Об особенностях применения на территориях Донецкой Народной Республики, Луганской Народной Республики, Запорожской области и Херсонской области положений законодательства Российской Федерации в сферах промышленной безопасности опасных производственных объектов и обеспечения безопасности гидротехнических сооружений"
Content from External Source
Deepl translate (and all the key words I recognise match):
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 873 dated 30.05.2023
"On peculiarities of application in the territories of the Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic, Zaporozhye region and Kherson region of the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of industrial safety of hazardous production facilities and safety of hydraulic structures"
Content from External Source
 
We discussed the scenario of this dam breach back in October, when Russia retreated from Kherson. See
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/russia-and-ukraine-current-events.12289/post-281932
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/russia-and-ukraine-current-events.12289/post-282050
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/russia-and-ukraine-current-events.12289/post-282444

It's hard to say who did it and why. 3 scenarios come to mind:
• demolition charges left back in October blew by accident (sun/heat)
• Ukraine has used this tactic to defend Kiev. They might want to strengthen the defense of Kherson so the can transfer troops from there to use in their summer offensive.
• Russia might have good intelligence that Ukraine prepared for an offensive across the Dnipro, and wanted to forestall it.

Well, no.

Charges to breach the dam would be have to rather large and noticeable. And modern explosives aren’t as detonation prone as you think. And the breach was at the exact point where the dam had been hit by himars.

There is no chance the Russians would gamble an advance on that route, e cause of the risk to the dam. None, zero, nada. And the Ukrainians would want to stop them - they’d want them to do exactly that and then strike the dam.

There is equally little chance the Russians would want to stop an attack over the Dnipro. Such forces would be sitting ducks and the easiest kill of the war. If prevented from such an operation, they would just be shifted somewhere more dangerous.

In fact, what happened seems very simple -

The dam was weakened by himars months ago

The Ukrainians dumped more water into the reservoir from upstream than it was capable of taking.

As for why, one reason would be to strain Russian logistics by cutting water to Crimea. But a larger one maybe indicated by zelensk’s speech concerning the dam, where he was outraged that foreign aid organisations didn’t flood into the area. Which suggests that he expected them to, which would be another way of trying to drag the west into more direct involvement- which has been his strategy all along and is probably the only thing that might save him.
 
Well, no.
I've since added two more options,

• charges left by Russia in October (and April?) set off by shots or artillery fire
• erosion
Charges to breach the dam would be have to rather large and noticeable. And modern explosives aren’t as detonation prone as you think. And the breach was at the exact point where the dam had been hit by himars.
Well, some charges had been noticed.
But the "erosion" argument looks most plausible to me now.

The HIMARS strike was on a single sluice gate, if I remember the pictures correctly.

The Ukrainians dumped more water into the reservoir from upstream than it was capable of taking.
That's a reversal of the facts. The rain and the rivers "dump" water into a reservoir, and it is up to the dam operators to regulate the water level. In short, the Russians should have opened more sluice gates to lower the water level. If they thought it too dangerous to operate the gantries that move the sluice gates, they should have negotiated with Ukraine for a ceasefire to do that. (And one of many sluice gates being broken does not change this.)

It was not in Ukraine's power to fill the reservoir. It was in Russia's power to empty it.



But a larger one maybe indicated by zelensk’s speech concerning the dam, where he was outraged that foreign aid organisations didn’t flood into the area.
Could you source that for me, please?
 
I've since added two more options,

• charges left by Russia in October (and April?) set off by shots or artillery fire
• erosion

Well, some charges had been noticed.
But the "erosion" argument looks most plausible to me now.

The HIMARS strike was on a single sluice gate, if I remember the pictures correctly.


That's a reversal of the facts. The rain and the rivers "dump" water into a reservoir, and it is up to the dam operators to regulate the water level. In short, the Russians should have opened more sluice gates to lower the water level. If they thought it too dangerous to operate the gantries that move the sluice gates, they should have negotiated with Ukraine for a ceasefire to do that. (And one of many sluice gates being broken does not change this.)

It was not in Ukraine's power to fill the reservoir. It was in Russia's power to empty it.

You are assuming that the Ukranians have no water management systems above the dam. This doesn’t seem to be the case…

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-em...h-water-level-in-main-rivers-stabilizing.html

As for the link, if you had searched zelensky, dam speech, this would be near the top of the first page:

https://www.anews.com.tr/world/2023/06/07/zelensky-in-shock-over-lack-of-aid-for-dam-disaster

Also, what on earth makes you think there was only a single strike on the dam??? Presumably you watched a single video… That doesn’t mean that there was only one strike. Indeed, one would have to ask why a target worth hitting would be hit only once... The Russians are saying 28 strikes, btw. The ukranians definitely spoke of strikes, plural.

But, honestly, the strangest claim you have made is that the Russians would want to prevent an amphibious operation. If there is one thing that every military analyst agreed on, it is that such an operation would be suicide - tanks and APCs would be moving at a snails pace in the water for literally an hour while gunships sniped them. It’s a generals dream.

Al though even that isn’t as strange as you’re not considering that Crimea has lost its main source of water. You would think this would be a fairly major reason for the Russians not to blow the dam and for the Ukrainians to blow it, but it doesn’t seem to occur to you…?
 
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