Someone just blew up Ukraine’s Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and took out a major dam

[Kruska]

Damn it. Read my post 258 again.

You mean post 257?

And what does this post have to do with your claim (post 291) towards propaganda and never having heard of artillery and HIMARS having hit the sleuth gates and the dam?

Also I had never claimed recent strikes - as you had errantly stated in another post.

 

[ESay]

You mean post 257?

And what does this post have to do with your claim (post 291) towards propaganda and never having heard of artillery and HIMARS having hit the sleuth gates and the dam?

My bad. Post 268.

 

[Kruska]

My bad. Post 268.

yes, and I had already corrected your errant statement in my post 282.

 

[ESay]

yes, and I had already corrected your errant statement in my post 282.

Actually, by this post you only brought confusion. Your citing of the general gave me impression about relatively recent strikes.

 

[Litwin]

yes, and I had already corrected your errant statement in my post 282.

your RT.ru :

 

[Kruska]

Actually, by this post you only brought confusion. Your citing of the general gave me impression about relatively recent strikes.

If you can't read and comprehend what is written, - then blame yourself and not others - mate

 

[ESay]

If you can't read and comprehend what is written, - then blame yourself and not others - mate

Nah, if you put down come citations then give the link to represent the whole context of this citation. It is basics, actually.

 

[JohnDB]

Here's yet another opinion of how the dam got breached:

 

[para bellum]

Here's yet another opinion of how the dam got breached:

I don't know who this guy is, but I'm not impressed. He has dates screwed up, and he claims to have spent $1500 on satellite images, but he shows ones that were already posted by others.

Of course, if you become a "paid subscriber", he promises to show you his exclusive stuff...

Saying there was no damage in October is wrong. There was already damage in August, and everyone knew about it.

The "brown stains" that he "doesn't know where they came from" are the steel plates that Russia put over the 3 HIMARS holes from August 10. See the AFU announcement I linked in post #284. That link has pics and video of the holes before they were covered.

I believe the August 10 strike was the "test" that the AFU General was referring to in the December WAPO piece- it is 3 closely spaced hits near the sluice gates. His statements are being misinterpreted as "admitting" they wanted to strike the dam. All he really said is they developed a plan to do that, they made a test strike to see if they could cause a limited release.

They never targeted the gates, they just wanted to see if they could hit them precisely enough to have the desired effect. They concluded that they could, but ultimately decided against the plan.

Here is a screen grab I made after the plates were put down. Zoom in on it- you can see it is FUBAR.

That little curved bridge was still there on May 28. You can see the "brown stains" that he refers to in the MAXAR image.

By June 5 it had collapsed.


There is no reason that little bridge falling into the water would cause a catastrophic failure of the dam. That thing was an incredibly robust structure. I have more pictures that I haven't posted, but just the side walls of the power station were like one-foot thick reinforced concrete, and it was built as a series of connected cubes. Very strong.

If someone said to me "I think the dam was destroyed by taking out turbines 2 and 3 with explosives", I would say that conforms to the damage I am seeing. It is the center section of the power plant that is gone- it didn't start collapsing at the end and cascade fail toward the land. The center blew out, and the unsupported section in the water toppled over where it stood.

 

[Ringo]

 

[para bellum]

I believe the August 10 strike was the "test" that the AFU General was referring to in the December WAPO piece- it is 3 closely spaced hits near the sluice gates. His statements are being misinterpreted as "admitting" they wanted to strike the dam. All he really said is they developed a plan to do that, they made a test strike to see if they could cause a limited release.

I've thought about this a little more and think I need to revise this. The first time they hit the dam was in August where they hit the road section. The strike on the road did it's job- it stopped heavy vehicles from crossing. The Russians put the plates there and drove some light vehicles, but that's all they dared.

The second time was the strike on locks, at the end of September or very beginning of November.

That strike was the test the AFU General referred to. The attempt wasn't on the dam at all, it was on the lock gates. Take out those gates, the water will flow through the channel and flood the areas below, but it's waaaay less damage than attacking the dam. That was the plan they were considering.



The locks are a good distance away from the dam structure.

 

[para bellum]

Also I think it wasn't really a "test". I think they really wanted to take out the lock last fall.

I mentioned the Russians filled the canal with rubble and concrete, but I don't think it was to restore the road. The road was already FUBAR anyway. I think the Russians knew what the AFU was trying to do by hitting the lock, and reason they filled it was to stop the AFU from finishing the job. They probably got one gate the first time, and needed another strike to hit the other one.

With the lock full of rubble, hitting the other gate wouldn't accomplish anything, so the AFU abandoned the idea.

At that time, the Russians were using pontoon bridges to evacuate to the left bank. (A bunch of them are piled up on the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson now) Making the river wider back in November would have complicated the Russian withdrawal.

 

[JohnDB]

I don't know who this guy is, but I'm not impressed. He has dates screwed up, and he claims to have spent $1500 on satellite images, but he shows ones that were already posted by others.

Of course, if you become a "paid subscriber", he promises to show you his exclusive stuff...

Saying there was no damage in October is wrong. There was already damage in August, and everyone knew about it.

The "brown stains" that he "doesn't know where they came from" are the steel plates that Russia put over the 3 HIMARS holes from August 10. See the AFU announcement I linked in post #284. That link has pics and video of the holes before they were covered.

I believe the August 10 strike was the "test" that the AFU General was referring to in the December WAPO piece- it is 3 closely spaced hits near the sluice gates. His statements are being misinterpreted as "admitting" they wanted to strike the dam. All he really said is they developed a plan to do that, they made a test strike to see if they could cause a limited release.

They never targeted the gates, they just wanted to see if they could hit them precisely enough to have the desired effect. They concluded that they could, but ultimately decided against the plan.

Here is a screen grab I made after the plates were put down. Zoom in on it- you can see it is FUBAR.
View attachment 793334
That little curved bridge was still there on May 28. You can see the "brown stains" that he refers to in the MAXAR image.
View attachment 793336
By June 5 it had collapsed.

View attachment 793339
There is no reason that little bridge falling into the water would cause a catastrophic failure of the dam. That thing was an incredibly robust structure. I have more pictures that I haven't posted, but just the side walls of the power station were like one-foot thick reinforced concrete, and it was built as a series of connected cubes. Very strong.

If someone said to me "I think the dam was destroyed by taking out turbines 2 and 3 with explosives", I would say that conforms to the damage I am seeing. It is the center section of the power plant that is gone- it didn't start collapsing at the end and cascade fail toward the land. The center blew out, and the unsupported section in the water toppled over where it stood.

It's a theory just like anyone else's. Including the one where a Russian Colonel was holding it hostage and trying to extort money out of Ukraine for not blowing it up.

He has listed his sources of information and people who are real experts in engineering unlike the many Twitter "experts" running around today.

As an electrician I do know that hydroelectric dams are essential for black starts for a power grid....and Ukraine is going to get a black start if things keep going the way they are. (Russia has been pounding their generating capabilities)

I tend to think incompetence and ignorance is in play here on both sides....to what extent I don't know. I've seen arc flash explosions do some damage as if it was an explosive munition used....but I'm not an explosive engineer either. So I really don't know.

At this point nobody wants the responsibility for it....I can't blame them for denials. War crimes have no statute of limitations....the IDF was busy going after Nazis in Argentina until the 2000's. And they executed withered old men without hesitation. I don't see Ukranians ever having any mercy at this point.

Ultimately the earlier shelling is not relevant because Russia had control of the dam and its repairs were Russian responsibilities....they obviously made some repairs knowing this. Just because the repairs were insufficient is not an excuse. It's more liability. Ukraine is not Russia either so the invading army has a responsibility to the civilians....they must be held responsible no matter what. All the war maps show that Russia held the dam militarily...so they get the responsibility.

Unless there is some radar recordings of mortars or artillery from Ukraine at the dam during the night in question or a few days prior....it's all Russia.

 

[para bellum]

He has listed his sources of information and people who are real experts in engineering unlike the many Twitter "experts" running around today.

Can you name one of these "real experts" you say he is citing? Or any source? He didn't give a single attribution that I saw...

Who is he? I've never heard of him- he doesn't offer any credentials or claim to be a hydro-engineer. AFAIK he's just another talking head on youtube, making superficial presentations and begging for money. Who has time to sit through all that bullshit?

I already outlined the problems I saw with his presentation.

If he spent $1500 on satellite images why does he use only use pics that were published by Reuters or on someone else's twitter feed (without proper attribution, btw)?

Why didn't he know the dam had already sustained damage by October?
Why doesn't he know what the "brown stains" were?
There is no dam structure under that curved piece of road to undermine- it's just a few columns that support the roadway. And that bridge was already in the water at least a full day before the dam was blown. It was a nice cartoon, but completely irrelevant.
He makes no attempt to explain the way the powerhouse fell.
He is apparently completely unaware of the strike on the road and lock, or the public statements by the AFU back August and December.
He basically dismisses the seismology from Romania, which pinpointed the explosions on June 6. He wasn't even aware it was from Romania- he seemed to think it was from Norway just because it was a Norwegian monitoring system.

The whole thing was just half-baked- nothing new, and too many errors or omissions. Sorry if you don't like to hear that, but I don't see that guy is a reliable source of anything. He just looks like another nobody who is trying to build an Internet fan club to pay his way...

 

[para bellum]

Ultimately the earlier shelling is not relevant because Russia had control of the dam and its repairs were Russian responsibilities....

The earlier shelling is relevant to the discussion because that's the excuse the putinheads are using to claim Ukraine is responsible for blowing up their own dam.

Of course it has nothing to do with the dam being blown up. They were precision strikes that had the particular purpose of slowing the Ru withdrawal from the right side of the Dnipro, and trapping as much heavy equipment on the Ukr side as possible.

 

[Ringo]

 

[AntonToo]

Russians did it 100%.

Their downstream units were evacuated within 10 min of dam explosion.

Pro Russian blogger:

“Our guys have contacted me. Everyone has left the islands. There was no one there by 3 a.m. There have been no losses. Therefore, all the information being published in this context is a shameless lie,” wrote Talipov.

Blogger claims Russian soldiers had prior knowledge of attack on Kakhovka dam, evacuated in advance – HUR

Crimean collaborator and blogger Alexander Talipov has dismissed as fake posts by Russian military bloggers claiming that Russian servicemen were left stranded on Dnipro River islands after an explosion breached the dam at Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, releasing a deluge of water downstream.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Ringo]

Moscow is to blame for the destruction of the Kakhovska hydroelectric plant, the United States said. "This dam was controlled by the russians, and they are responsible for the destruction caused by the war," White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said in Washington

О.К. idiots. Then NYC is to blame for the destruction of the WTC.

 

[Ringo]

People, who have not been able to figure out who blew up the North Stream in their own waters for six months, have figured out in just a few hours, who blew up the Kakhovka Dam thousands of miles away from their home. Professionalism!

 

[JohnDB]

Moscow is to blame for the destruction of the Kakhovska hydroelectric plant, the United States said. "This dam was controlled by the russians, and they are responsible for the destruction caused by the war," White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said in Washington

О.К. idiots. Then NYC is to blame for the destruction of the WTC.

Nope....on these things the truth is SLOWLY coming out. But the US has said that they have definitive proof of who destroyed the dam but currently is unable to release this information due to ongoing security reasons. (Meaning they have an internal spy)