Fog of war: Blowing up the Kakhovka Dam

Not what you expected...

[A quick note on my recent absence: my main work is translations, from English to European languages, as a subcontractor for a large international translation bureau. Since December, the stream of work has considerably dried up, and still is, for most part, something that hasn’t happened in the 15 years I have done such work for that company. My suspicion is that the hostilities in Ukraine, the many sanctions, the energy crisis, the inflation, etc. have made companies in the EU more careful with their expenditures, keeping more of their translation work in-house. That means that I had to scramble to find new ways to compensate for that loss in income, which in turn meant I did no longer have the time to devote to the research necessary to write my articles. The irony, that I would find myself an indirect victim of this war, however far removed from the battlefield. My apologies to you, my readers, for the silence. Things have stabilized a bit now, so I can afford some time to address some of the latest news again. My work here, however, will always remain free.]

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This might be a very important changing point in the special military operation in Ukraine. At 2.50am local time, on June 6th, 2023, an explosion rocked the hydropower station of the Nova Kakhovka dam, the last in a series of waterworks that tame the wild river Dnieper. Very quickly afterwards, water levels rose downstream, flooding several villages, on both sides of the river, in a massive flood, that clearly is a huge humanitarian and ecological disaster.

As was to be expected, the Ukrainians are blaming the Russians for this ‘act of terrorism’. Zelensky held a televised address to his nation. “The disaster at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant caused by Russian terrorists will not stop Ukraine and Ukrainians,” he said, and made a strong claim: “Fourth, the whole world will know about this Russian war crime, the crime of ecocide. This deliberate destruction of the dam and other HPP facilities by the Russian occupiers is an environmental bomb of mass destruction.”

As an aside, it is interesting to note his very confident rhetoric. “Fifth, it is only the complete liberation of Ukrainian land from Russian occupiers that will guarantee that such acts of terrorism will not happen again. Russia uses anything for terror – any object. The terrorist state must lose. […] Regarding our south and Crimea. We will find a way to restore normal life on our land after the expulsion of the ruscists. This applies to water and everything else. This applies to all our regions – from Kherson to Dnipropetrovsk, from Mykolaiv to Crimea.

The fact that Russia deliberately destroyed the Kakhovka reservoir, which is critically important, in particular, for providing water to Crimea, indicates that the Russian occupiers have already realized that they will have to flee Crimea as well.

Well, Ukraine will get back everything that belongs to it. And it will make Russia pay for what it has done.”

Zelensky admitted that the Kakhovka reservoir was critically important for the water supply to Crimea, but he explained that this was only proof that Russia is intending to surrender Crimea soon, and will have to flee from it. He called the bombing of the dam ‘ecocide’. Other Ukrainian high-level sources add to this, and an international outcry is started, as Western media copy/paste the Ukrainian claims without the slightest criticism. Putin is evil, and this dam destruction is clearly evil, too, so Putin clearly did it!

Mikhail Podolyak, a Ukrainian politician, journalist and negotiator, officially the adviser to the head of Office of the President of Ukraine, tweeted:

“Russia is mining the floodgates at the occupied hydroelectric power plant and blowing up the Kakhovka dam. This is an axiom. Dozens of villages and towns go under water. Animals die. People sit on the roofs of houses and beg for help. An environmental disaster. Devastating damage to the Ukrainian energy and agricultural sectors, the risk of a major drought in three regions. Some world media: "Who is to blame? It's hard to say... We will never know the truth...". Although the truth is obvious. @elonmusk: "Idea, let's listen to @TuckerCarlson's blog with conspiracy theories that Ukraine itself did it!". Is this some kind of outright form of absurdity? Or is it a proof of the theory that the more absurd the lie, the easier it is to sell?”

Peter Zeihan is such an example of a Western source blindly repeating the Ukrainian story. On his YouTube channel he claimed that the explosion was internal, and that such was incontrovertible proof that it was the Russians. As his 4 points will be explained in this article, I won’t analyze his video in depth, besides this first claim. It is at the core of the back-and-forth between both sides. Let’s take a look.

The NYT reported:

Ihor Syrota, head of Ukrhydroenergo, the state hydroelectric company, said in an interview, “A missile strike would not cause such destruction because this plant was built to withstand an atomic bomb.” He added, “It’s clear: There was a blast from inside the station and the station broke in half.”

The NYT reporters tried to maintain a ‘we don’t really know’ attitude, but added the following paragraphs:

“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 dam. 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.”

Most important part: ‘available evidence is very limited’. I’d like to know the proof that the explosion was ‘internal’. As far as I can tell, there is NO video or picture evidence of any explosions. On the contrary, a witness report by a worker in the hydroelectric plant stated that all the damage seen was done by water, that there were no explosions who had caused the complete collapse of the dam.

Is that worker speaking the truth? Or coaxed by the Russians to make that statement? The nature of the video seems to be that of a single individual, surveying the carnage to the structure after the full collapse, on his own. But are there ways to get any conclusive evidence, or at least good indications, of what actually happened? I think there is. To find such evidence or indications, we first need to figure out what happened, and the exact timeline of what happened.

Based on images from Twitter threads by David Helms, GeoConfirmed, and Geoff Brumfiel, and from Substacks from Simplicius The Thinker (for a great analysis of the different reasons each of the sides involved might have, give this article a read!), Big Serge, and random google searches of images of the Kakhovka dam, I was able to piece together the following timeline, that offers a very good sense of what actually happened. Some others have gone in the right direction, but I haven’t found a full analysis trying to reconstruct the timeline of destruction. You read it here first! It will be picture heavy, to show the different visual elements that are available, pointing to a clear conclusion.

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To begin, a look at the dam itself.

It consists of 3 main parts: a large, earthen dam, that spans most of the valley (3273 m long). In the middle, a large spillover structure was installed adjacent to the actual hydropower plant with the turbines (combined 447 m long), as well as a lock to let ships pass through.

On the below image, you can see the earthen dam on both sides, the spillway (looks like train tracks here) and the actual power station (the building on a bridge), as well as the location of the lock.

 The spillover part is only accessible from above, and has no internal rooms, whatsoever. This is an important detail for later in the story.

 The power station itself has the following cross-section:

 From the outside, the spillover has sluice gates, to control the level of the reservoir. The gates are operated by using two gantry cranes, that each can lift a gate, where each individual gate can be locked into place so the cranes can be used to lift or lower other gates.

That shows the structure of the dam.

Next, we need to talk about prior damage to this dam.

A first element to talk about, is in relation to a video that has been circulated these last few days, that shows a nighttime explosion on the dam, either as a video, parts of the video, or as stills from that video. NBC reposted that video here:

Any story showing those images with the claim that the dam was blown up, should be disregarded as an untrustworthy source on this story. The video dates from November 12, 2022, when the Russian army was withdrawing from Kherson and the area northwest from the Dnieper river. The day before, they had blown up the Antonovsky bridge, and on the 12th, they blow up the last 3 spans of the road and railroad crossing the spillover portion of the dam, to prevent Ukrainian vehicles from crossing.

The below picture gives a nice overview of the dam, again, with the damage visible in the rightmost part of the spillover. A close-up is next, showing a small trickle of water coming down over the spillway, showing that at least some damage was done to the sluice gates in those last 3 sections.

Notice also the trench lines and shell holes on the earthen dam, on the right side:

Next we need to discuss the damage inflicted by Ukrainian strikes, either from traditional artillery or missile strikes.

This happened from August through November 2022, when the dam was fully in Russian hands, on both sides. Pictures show several rocket impacts on the road deck, right where it makes that S curve to turn around the power plant buildings.

GeoConfirmed explained on Twitter:

“The Nova Kakhovka dam is shelled by Ukraine for months. It's Russia's biggest MSR (Main Supply Route) for the occupied Kherson region, even more since the Antonovsky bridge isn't usable.

Still the dam itself isn't destroyed yet...

Why? Because the Ukrainians aren't targeting the dam itself but instead the lock and a turn in the road. And this  with very precise shelling to disrupt Russians MSR.

Shelling those two locations will not endanger the stability of the dam itself.”

Here is a map showing blown up bridges and strike points, centered indeed around the S turn and the lock.

A closer view of the attacks on the S-turn:

And:

This next picture shows the previous holes patches up, but a whole series of new ones added:

One more, that matches the tweet by Timothy Hurley just a bit below, showing the view from the road surface.

That those attacks were made by the Ukrainian army is beyond any doubt, as the source for those pictures is the Odessa Journal, in an article from August 13, 2022.

A engineer minder user on Twitter made the following observation. Notice his remark on eroded concrete: with a Soviet structure from the 50s, to be expected. This says something about the state of the dam itself, prior to the hostilities.

A pro-Ukrainian source posted a video, from which I took the following still, showing the damage in the road surface of the S turn, attempts to repair temporarily with metal plates, and in the front damage to the railroad. The green numbers correspond to the sluice gates, the 4th of note, see below.

A tweet reported this:

This matches the description given by Maj. Gen. Andriy Kovalchuk, the initial commander of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson region. (Ukrainian Operative Commandment South), as reported in a long article by the WaPo that has been cited often these last few days.

Attacks were made, most aimed at the bridge parts, sparing the dam, but at least one deliberate attack on the floodgates themselves was made, as well. There is photographic evidence of the result of that single sluice gate that got damaged, as reported on Twitter by Brumfiel:

Of note is that this is gate 4, very close to the S turn. The importance of that will become clear further in my analysis.

Another confirmation of the success of that attack, is the small trickle of water that is seeping from the damaged gate. Right, the trickle from the explosion caused by the Russian retreat, destroying the road surfaces, slightly damaging the gates, as well, but on the left the trickle from gate 4, target of that Ukrainian attack.

In close-up:

The use of missile attacks was also confirmed by a Russian source, “Russian "Arkhangel Spetsnaza" with a more sober assessment of Kakhovka situation, says the dam is in order.”

That shows the damage that we know was inflicted on the structure of the dam.

As a later addendum, based on an article that reader Starmax777 shared in the comments, a list was published that seems to give a rather exhaustive and complete chronicle of all the strikes at the Kakhovka dam and power plant, with dates and type of munition used.

On July 11, 2022, the HPP was hit by a HIMARS MLRS missile.

On July 18, 2022, the control room of the shipping floodgate was damaged during an attack on the HPP.

On July 24, 2022, the plant came under fire from HIMARS.

On July 26, 2022, large-calibre shells hit the hydroelectric dam.

On the night of July 29-30, 2022, the HPP was again hit by HIMARS.

On August 5, 2022, the hydroelectric power plant came under a massive shelling attack. It was hit by HIMARS, Olkha MLRS, and Tochka-U.

On August 7, 2022, the plant was hit by a HIMARS missile.

On August 9, 2022, the dam once again came under fire.

On August 12, 2022, three of the six turbines of the power plant were damaged as a result of shelling. The HPP was switched to emergency mode (half of the design capacity).

On August 18, 2022, large-calibre shells were fired at the hydroelectric dam.

On August 19, 2022, the plant came under fire from Olkha and Tochka.

On August 21, 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a missile attack on the hydroelectric power plant.

On August 24, 2022, the plant was subjected to massive shelling from HIMARS.

On August 27, 2022, the HPP was hit by Olkha and Tochka.

On August 28, 2022, a missile attack was launched from HIMARS MLRS against the hydroelectric dam.

On August 29, 2022, the plant once again came under fire from HIMARS.

On August 30, 2022, a missile attack was launched on the hydroelectric power plant.

On September 1, 2022, the plant came under fire from HIMARS.

On September 2, 2022, large-calibre shells were fired at the HPP.

On September 5, 2022, the plant was hit by missiles.

On September 6, 2022, a HIMARS missile attack was launched on the HPP.

On September 8, 2022, the regional authorities reported that the HPP and access roads to it had been shelled.

On September 10, 2022, HIMARS hit Novaya Kakhovka and the HPP. The dam was not hit. 

On October 18, 2022, Sergey Surovikin, commander of the special military operation, reported damage to the Antonovsky Bridge and the dam of the Kakhovskaya HPP as a result of shelling from HIMARS MLRS.

On October 21, 2022, Russia circulated a letter in the UN Security Council in which it called for preventing Ukraine’s provocations against the Kakhovskaya HPP. The document stated that “the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been shelling the city of Novaya Kakhovka in the Kherson Region for five months. Up to 120 missiles per day are launched.”

On October 24, 2022, the hydroelectric power plant and civilian infrastructure in the area of Novaya Kakhovka were hit by HIMARS and Olkha.

On November 6, 2022, the HPP was hit by six HIMARS missiles. One of them hit a floodgate, which was damaged.

On November 17, 2022, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that Ukrainian troops had reached the right bank of the Dnieper along its entire length, including in the area of the Kakhovskaya HPP.

The article also provided the the following statement by Vladimir Leontyev, Head of the Novokakhovsky District from March 14, 2023, “that the HPP is hit regularly; in addition, sabotage and reconnaissance units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are regularly attempting to penetrate the territory and the dam. He said that snipers are also working actively, preventing repair and maintenance work on hydraulic structures.” I had earlier read an allusion to that, but without any further information to check it, even though a first attempt to find confirmation of his words failed to turn anything up. This confirms the statements about the Russians having trouble operating the flood gates.

Looking at the list, most of the strikes were aimed at either the road and railroad itself, right past the power plant buildings (see the previous pictures of that), or at the lock area right past the control building of the power plant, safely on the earthen dam/river bank. I can imagine the power plant building itself was also targeted at times, as the Russians had military assets there guarding the dam, with machine guns, snipers and grenade launchers, as attested by pictures (see below for example). There was generally, with some exceptions, a certain carefulness about what to hit, is my impression.

And:

The reports talk about the dam (which is the earthen structure, I did point out shell holes in one of the first pictures, together with a dug in trench line). Such attacks are rather harmless, as even the larger caliber strikes would do just about no meaningful damage to the earthen structure, nor indirectly through the repeated impact and vibrations of each impact on the concrete structure.

It also talks about the HPP or the plant, which means the buildings at the left side, that collapsed later.

Next, we need to talk about the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir, as strange things happened with that, of huge importance to what happened a few days ago.

This is how it started, and the whole story of Kakhovka Dam in a nutshell:

The actual beginning is late 2022, when the Russians start to slowly drain the Kakhovka Reservoir. Slowly, as damage to the installation made that work very difficult.

This can be see on water level charts from a variety of imputable sources. The following chart comes from an international group, Theia, that tracks water levels all over the world (as seen on the blog from Simplicius):

First, the water level decreases to well below the average. This caused a lot of concern on the Ukrainian side, as this clearly was because of deliberate action by the Russians.

This can be seen from several articles from November 2022, such as this one from Censor.Net, with a decidedly anti-Russian tone, titled "Occupiers are dumping water from Kakhovka Reservoir, bringing disaster at ZNPP closer.”

The article states: “As NPR writes, since the beginning of November 2022, water has been gushing from the Kakhovka reservoir in southern Ukraine through the sluice gates of a hydroelectric plant controlled by the Russian occupiers. Satellite images show that the water level in the reservoir has fallen to its lowest level in three decades.”

The American based international organization Hydro Review confirmed that, in an article from  February 2023, titled “Russia needs to restore function of Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, Ukraine PM asserts”. They wrote “Ukraine said it “calls on all available means to put pressure on Russia to close the gates and restore the hydraulic structures” at the Kakhovka plant, or to allow Ukrainian specialists to do so”, signaling that Ukraine was very well aware of what was going on, and demanded the Russians altered course (which would benefit Ukraine, and not Russia). They also reported that “the UK government’s Ministry of Defence issued an intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine on Nov. 16, specifically related to Kahkovka Dam”, signaling that Western governments and intelligence agencies had this dam on their radar, too, early on.

This next chart zooms in on the next phase, a sudden increase, starting in mid February, a rise in water level due to actions undertaken by the Ukrainian agency for hydroelectric power plants, Ukrhydroenergy, channeling water from upstream reservoirs into the Kakhovka Reservoir (source: twitter)

A pro-Russian account on Twitter noted the following, confirming what the pro-Ukrainian Intermarium 24, quoted earlier, had suggested:

 She sounds the alarm over the sudden increase and points out that it was about to reach critical level, endangering the integrity of the dam, as well as that this was because Ukraine (Kiev) had opened the floodgates from the higher placed dams and reservoirs on the Dnieper. But she added a new element: that the Kakhovka dam had been damaged, and that this made operating the water level controls very difficult.

Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev stated the following:

"Blowing up Kakhovskaya dam is another planned terrorist attack by Kiev regime.

Kiev first made a large-scale water discharge at the Dnieper hydroelectric power plant and then struck the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant." He was aware of the actions of Kiev regarding the water level, but he was wrong about them ‘striking’ the power plant, as we will see. (Ah, I spilled the beans, it seems! Only partially, you will still be surprised at how mundane the real story is.)

It can be seen that Russia had opened at least 3 of the sluice gates, numbers 5-7:

This is also reflected in this very nice chart from David Helms:

Why only 3, to lower the level initially, and not more the moment Ukraine started to increase the levels again? Damage? The fact that they would come under fire from the opposite river bank? Because Russia wanted it so high as well?

Slavyangrad posted on Telegram the following:

“Here are two reports. The first is the Ukrainian TG channel Resident, which reported that as late as last night, on Kiev's orders, a large release of water started at the Dnieper hydroelectric dam (the previous one before Kakhovskaya).

And that this is the case is indicated by a report from the guys at the dam breach site. It turns out that after 10 hours, the water level in the reservoir is not falling (as was supposed to be), but ... on the contrary is growing (see video).

This means that Kiev, even if originally it was not intended to destroy the dam, is now doing EVERYTHING to make sure the flow of water takes it down to the very end!!!”

On the accompanying video, it can be clearly seen that the dam has completely collapsed, it is midday, and the water level is still very high, much higher, indeed, as expected (even though hard to gauge with the structure as demolished and sunken lower than normal).

This completes that story: Ukraine was very upset about the low water levels, and demanded Russia fill the Kakhovka Reservoir again. When the Russians were understandably less than forthcoming, they took matters in their own hands, and started to release massive amounts of water from the higher lying reservoirs, in order to force a leak, and pin that on Russia.

How could they know something bad would happen? Because even pro-Ukrainian Western source/expert David Helms reported already in early May, when the rising water had become apparent, that ‘over-topping’ a dam is very risky (remember the Oroville Dam?).

Pictures show clearly that this was happening:

 Notice from this earlier picture how there was NO water flow over the spillway, except where the Russians had opened the sluice gates:

So, what happened?

Now we laid out the preconditions and early events, the cascade leading to the total collapse of the Kakhovka Dam becomes very clear.

We start here:

Late May, the water was seriously over-topping, and only increased (look how much further the disturbance in the water reaches on the June 5th picture). This could only lead to problems, as the pressure from the flowing water increased pressure on the superstructure of the dam, not really built to withstand such high forces and pressures for very long. We know that the concrete showed deterioration, and that at certain places damage was inflicted by attacks. Precisely where the Ukrainians had shelled both a sluice gate and the road, we see the first damage appear, the day before the actual collapse. Suddenly, the S turn is gone… How did that happen? Likely because the mounting pressure of the water slightly pushed the superstructure of the spillway forward, enough for the already damaged road slabs to fall off. A first sign of movement of the structure itself.

The fact that this weak point was about in the middle of the dam did not help at all, either: there the pressure of the water was the highest!

From a video showing presumably a nighttime drone reconnaissance mission over the dam, we learn that the next phase was that the superstructure of the spillway itself gave way, pushed forward. (Video available on the substack of Simplicius)

As well as this still from another video (same article), that has the added benefit of providing a time stamp: 06-06-2023, at 02:46:00 AM local Ukrainian time… Notice how the superstructure has been pushed out, and the buildings of the power plant itself are still in perfect shape.

Notice also that the time given for the collapse is 2:50 am…

The American based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported in her daily campaign assessment of June 6th that “Russian and Ukrainian sources began reporting loud noises resembling explosions emanating from the KHPP (across the Dnipro River in the Nova Kakhovka area about 55km northeast of Kherson City) between 0200 and 0230 local time on June 6, followed by reports of rushing water and an overall increase in the water level of the Dnipro.” During a war, such ‘loud noises’ would easily be misunderstood for explosions, but were only the cracking and groaning of the concrete and steel of the superstructure failing and collapsing. Remember that there are no ‘internal spaces’ in this part of the dam, as the schematics proved. No ‘mining’, but simply nature’s merciless force of water, pushing against an already weakened and aging man-made structure, that proved no match.

Next, as the rushing waters suddenly found themselves liberated, and came down in such higher volumes over such a large opening, the force exerted by the waters started to push along the edge of the power station. The farthest part of the building (consisting of 4 parts: 3 with each 4 generators, and a smaller control building, easily seen by counting 2 round windows high in the walls, and by the black lines on the roof where each section was connected to the next, check the second to last picture again) started moving, being pushed along the rushing water, into the newly opened flood channel.

Look how insignificant that building looks, compared to the incredible flood stream rushing -and PUSHING!- by it… Being part of a rigid concrete building, the middle structure was the ‘flex point’. It being rigid, meant that it did not flex, but failed, and collapsed, which explains the fact that the 1st and 3rd portion of the building survived (somewhat), and that middle part simply vanished. Later pictures show that the 1st building is no longer aligned with the remaining control portion of the power station: proof that it was pushed inwards.

 Notice how the fragments of the 1st segment, to the left, closest to the reservoir, are also being pushed in, and how the whole section has ‘sunk’ down, most likely due to being undercut by the torrential flood waters. If this was the work of an ‘internal explosion’, why was that 1st section ‘sunk’, and not the middle one, where the explosion would have taken place (to explain the total collapse of that section, while the building of the 1st segment remain largely intact, torn right off along straight edges where each segment touched)? That makes little sense, so the explosion of internal mines can be discarded. What we see much better fits a normal flood event, where the extreme pressures of the rushing waters did what they do best: erode and displace everything on its path…

Futher information, provided in this article, seems to add corroborating information. In the list with Ukrainian attacks on the Kakhovka Power plant, it interestingly mentioned a report that 3 of the 6 turbines had been damaged by shelling on August 12, 2022, forcing the plant to run only at half capacity. Those 3 turbines, if I were to bet, would have been in the central portion of the building of the power plant, weakening that central part even further, making that collapse even more probable.

Here is another look:

And:

Do you notice how the 1st segment of the power plant is out of alignment?

Look here:

The following video connects this latest part of the collapse with the next one, take a look to both parts of it:

Here is the relevant still for this next stage of collapse:

Notice how now the 3rd portion of the power plant has been dislodged, and sunk compared to the original place of the building. That created cracks, however small, in the concrete wall separating the power plant itself from the dam, on which the control portion of the building was built. Water found its way down those cracks, and quickly eroded a new channel. Notice how the water is rushing in behind the protective wall, and disappears as if in a sink hole. Proof positive that the whole part was undermined by the water…

This is another angle of this stage of the collapse.

Now the final part began: the earth portion of the dam stood no chance against the flood, and was simply washed away, stopped only by the concrete walls of the lock and lock basin:  

Notice the small control portion of the power plant, the 3rd segment, the missing middle segment, and the displaced 1st segment. Notice also how everything between the control building and the lock (the thin straight line of relatively calm water at the left of the picture) is now completely washed away… The collapse is now complete.

To help you visualize this again, here is the before picture:

Now visualize the 4 phases of collapse, numbered 1 through 4:

1 A weakened section in the middle starts to leak profusively, and ultimate gives way

2 This creates a chain reaction along the superstructure of the spillover

3 The created flood stream pushes against the edge of the power station, collapsing the middle section.

4 This undermines the whole power station, creates cracks between the earthen dam and the station, and washes away a good chunk of the earten dam (until it reaches the concrete lock section).

And this was the result:

And again, with the 4 phases indicated:

As far as I can tell, and as far as the available evidence allows me to reconstruct the timeline of this catastrophic dam collapse, the dam was not ‘attacked’ directly with any sort of explosives. Prior damage, old age, and the over-filling of the reservoir by Ukraine, with over-topping for way too long to be good for the old, damaged structure, caused a series of failures that only enabled the next failure, until the complete dam was gone. Did Ukraine plan for this total destruction? I think it likely they got a whole lot more than they bargained for.

I could talk about the ‘cui bono’, and weigh both sides against each other. At this point, that is irrelevant. We know what happened. We know that the direct cause of the collapse was the reckless over-filling of the Kakhovka Reservoir, and that this was in line with prior stated goals of Ukraine (albeit most likely on much smaller scale). One important point to mention, is that I think that even though one might see military advantages to Russia to this collapse, they do not outweigh the cost for the civilians in Crimea and Donbass, losing their water supply and their irrigation water. Those territories have been part of Russia itself for almost a year now: they would not endanger their own people like that (look at Mariupol, how quickly they rebuilt that town after a very bloody and destructive siege against Azov).

One other element: the physics of this. You might have read that this dam was build to withstand a direct hit from a nuclear bomb several times larger than the one dropped on Hiroshima. True. But the power of water, and the physics involved, don’t care about that. A small weakness is at that is needed to lead to complete collapse, of even the strongest structure.

Disclaimer: I am no engineer or physicist, but I put this out nonetheless. Correct me if I am wrong!

There is such thing as static pressure and dynamic pressure in liquids. If one increases, the other decreases in equal measure. Yet the way each works in on a dam, is important. The static pressure is dependent on depth, and the weight of the column of liquid above it. At the bottom of a dam, this pressure is the highest, and as such, the structure is calculated to withstand such force many times over.

This expert drawing (ahum) makes that clear: static pressure A is much larger than static pressure B, with the dam being intact.

Imagine now the stream on the top increasing, through over-filling and over-topping, and later increased through the collapse of the spillway superstructure.

Now you have dynamic pressure and forces at play, lowest at point A, where there is not that much flow, but extremely high at point B. Which is precisely the weaker part of the dam, not designed to withstand such a strong pressure for a long time, from that direction. A short blast from above, even if bigger, might be easier to deflect, and with air pressure vs. water pressure, I’d bet on the water pressure.

In proper parlance, “hydrodynamic loads are those load that result from water flowing against and around a rigid structural element or system”, which means indeed that there is no dynamic load where there is no direct flow, such as at the bottom of the dam, but only where there is flowing water pushing against and around, in this case, the dam or power plant building. And “the pressures are functions of velocity, direction of flow relative to the object, object geometry, and object surface roughness characteristics.” Increase the flow, velocity by widening the gap, have the flow perpendicular against the corner of the building, and you see the stress build up. (In a very simplified manner, don’t shoot me here, I am trying to be as complete as I can, based on my understanding of the physics, and an obsession on the impact and erosive power of flowing water since I was a kid playing at the beach).

As a small addendum, a reader pointed out the importance of the process of cavitation. A presentation by the US Army Corps of Engineers from 2019 was dedicated to this problem, as it applies not just to propellers in boats (for the boaters among the readers, you know exactly what I am talking about), but also, and very specifically, to the at times extremely turbulent flows in and around dams and spillways.

I am not claiming that cavitation itself caused this collapse, but it certainly added to the potential of the destructive forces present, and played a role in the events in a long cascade, allowing the water pressure to do more damage, quickly. Creating cracks, changing surfaces, changing the drag of the water on those surfaces, etc.

One last point to mention: there ARE several videos of the dam in various stages of collapse, that do show explosions. But those are without any sound or view of incoming rockets or shells. The most likely explanation is that those are caused by mines that Russian troops had placed on the beaches of the reservoir, being washed away by the rising and high water, and being flung against parts of the dam, causing them to explode.

Tucker Carlson opened his first show on Twitter with this very story. As usual, Carlson did not mince any words.

"The Kakhovka dam was actually Russian. It was built by the Russian government. It is currently in Russian-controlled territory. The dam's reservoir supplies water to Crimea, which has been home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet for the past 240 years. Exploding the dam could It may be bad for Ukraine, but it will hurt Russia even more, and it is for this reason that the Ukrainian government considered destroying it.

Any sane person would conclude that the Ukrainians probably blew it up, just like they blew up the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline last fall. And in fact, as we now know, the Ukrainians did just that. It does not appear that Vladimir Putin is seeking to unleash a war against himself.

Putin did it! Putin did it! Putin is evil. And those who are on the side of evil do evil solely for the sake of enjoying the process itself. In this case, Putin attacked himself, which is the highest form of evil and therefore ideal for a person of this warehouse. That's how they explained everything to us (Americans).”

That sums up most of the explanations I’ve read that try to maintain that it was the Russians.

I challenge anyone to pick apart the timeline laid out before you, and the inevitable chain of events that led to the complete collapse of the Kakhovka Dam. Not because of Russian mines that exploded, or even Ukrainian rockets in the middle of the night, several days ago. But simply prior damage creating weak points in an aging Soviet era structure, against prolonged over-topping.

That’s all there is to it.

(But still the responsibility of the Ukrainians.

Looking at that comprehensive list of Ukrainian strikes provided, it shows, while Ukraine mostly did aim carefully at certain spots, the immense risk they DID take of targeting such a sensitive structure, so often, and with at times such heavy weaponry. Each impact on the concrete parts of roads, railroads or the power plant buildings themselves, would have reverberated trough the concrete, adding to the weakening of it. As such, it only confirms the further weakening of the concrete parts of the dam by the Ukrainians in the months leading up to the full collapse.

Ukraine knew this, they knew the state of the dam, and they nevertheless added immense pressures and risk by over-topping the reservoir, when Russia could not properly regulate the dam to keep it safe.)

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