6/6/2023

35 Responses to “Russia Destroys Dam in Evident Effort to Flood Ukrainian Towns and Scramble Plans for Counteroffensive”

1. This action cuts the water supply to Crimea. So, it is pretty self destructive, particularly if the Ukranians can cut the land bridge in their counteroffensive.

   I guess the Russians feared the Ukranians woud try a water crossing and wanted to thwart that. Or, they just wanted to make a big humanitarian mess that distracts from the counteroffensive. This would be cnsistent with the whole lot of missiles shot at Kiev strategy that’s been going on all month.

   Appalled (5aa024) — 6/6/2023 @ 8:46 am

   
   

2. OK, Devil’s Advocate here: If Russia is truly evil, does that mean that it’s time for the West to intervene militarily?

   JVW (1ad43e) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:01 am

   
   

3. OK, Devil’s Advocate here: If Russia is truly evil, does that mean that it’s time for the West to intervene militarily?

   JVW (1ad43e) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:01 am

   Only if Russia used chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, which doesn’t seem likely at this stage. But if the Ukrainian offensive makes large gains (such as reoccupying Crimea) I can see Russia using such weapons to slow the advance. Sort of Putin saying “if Russia can’t have it, Ukraine can’t either” response. Unfortunately the West does not possess anywhere near the same number of tactical nuclear weapons that Russia does (2,000-4,000 Russian warheads of all types v. 100 US gravity bombs) so any response would be asymmetrical.

   Had Ukraine been a member of NATO the war would never have happened.

   Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:20 am

   
   

4. OK, Devil’s Advocate here: If Russia is truly evil, does that mean that it’s time for the West to intervene militarily?

   I can see us beginning some clandestine activity, like Seals exploderating the rest of that Crimean bridge. But I don’t think we should intervene officially unless Russia steps over the nuclear threshold.

   Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:34 am

   
   

5. What if Putin Loses His War in Ukraine?
   ………
   A Ukrainian victory—which we can describe as an end to the conflict that leaves Ukraine with all or most of its original territory, independent of Moscow and aligned with the West—would be a geopolitical earthquake. The Russia that Europe has known and feared since the 18th century, an immense and looming presence relentlessly bent on expanding westward, will be gone. The consequences would reshape the politics of Europe and the Middle East and define a new era in U.S.-China competition.
   ……….
   Mr. Putin wants to follow in (Lenin’s and Stalin’s) footsteps, but he doesn’t covet only Ukrainian territory. He wants Ukraine’s DNA. Russia faces one of the greatest demographic challenges of any country in the world. After peaking in 1992, the population of the Russian Federation declined by roughly five million through 2021. Worse, from Mr. Putin’s viewpoint, despite substantial immigration by ethnic Russians from newly independent ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia, the ethnically Russian population is in free fall, diminishing by 5.4 million between 2010 and 2021. During those years the percentage of the federation’s population that was ethnically Russian fell to 72% from 78%.
   ……..
   A Ukrainian victory would also present Moscow with a dangerous political challenge. It is by no means certain that Ukraine will emerge from the war as a genuinely democratic and modern state. Many former Soviet republics and ex-Yugoslav republics and even some former Warsaw Pact nations have had a hard time establishing stable democracy, and Ukraine is likely to have more governance struggles. Even so, if Ukraine is seen as the victor in Mr. Putin’s war, it will have demonstrated that his style of governance isn’t the only model that can work among Orthodox Slavs, and many Russians will want to learn from the winners.

   A Russian defeat would basically strengthen America’s hand globally, but there would be complications. On the plus side, with Russian expansionism firmly checked, the task of maintaining the status quo in Europe would require less U.S. investment. ……..
   ………

   Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:35 am

   
   

6. Rip, there is no such thing as a “tactical nuclear weapon.” Nuclear bombs just come in various yields and Russia deludes itself that lower yield bombs somehow “don’t count.”

   Only two nuclear weapons have ever been exploded in wartime, and both of those were of lesser yield than anything in anyone’s inventory, but each of them killed about 100,000 people.

   Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:38 am

   
   

7. Rip, there is no such thing as a “tactical nuclear weapon.” Nuclear bombs just come in various yields and Russia deludes itself that lower yield bombs somehow “don’t count.”

   Whatever. National governments seem to think so.

   Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:40 am

   
   

8. Russians aren’t having kids because they don’t want to raise children for Putin, not because they don’t want children. The more he tightens his grip the more potential children slip though his fingers.

   Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:42 am

   
   

9. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a ‘tactical nuclear weapon.’ Any nuclear weapon used at any time is a strategic game changer.”

   –Secretary of Defense James Mattis, 2018

   Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:50 am

   
   

10. #2

    No. First, we are not 150% sure Russia did it quite yet. (We will be soon, I am sure). Second, the Ukranians seem to be doing fine without US troops. Save the troops for when it is time to man the wall between Ukraine and Russia that will be one of the outcomes of this war.

    Appalled (5aa024) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:50 am

    
    

11. Only two nuclear weapons have ever been exploded in wartime, and both of those were of lesser yield than anything in anyone’s inventory

    Not so. The Nagasaki bomb was 20 kilotons, while the Hiroshima bomb was 16 kilotons. The current B61-12 air-launched tactical bomb has a variable yield of 0.3, 1.5, 10, and 50 kilotons.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:54 am

    
    

12. This action cuts the water supply to Crimea.

    That is a good observation and it helps explain part of the NPR article I linked yesterday:

    Russia appeared to have spent several months using the Kakhovka Reservoir to refill a network of reservoirs in Crimea, according to David Helms, a retired meteorologist with decades of experience working for the U.S. federal government, most recently at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. “There’s 23 reservoirs; they’re topped off,” he says.

    Clearly there was some planning.

    BuDuh (eaef9b) — 6/6/2023 @ 10:05 am

    
    

13. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 9:54 am

    Also the new W76-2 warhead for the Trident II missile is 5 kilotons.

    The (2018 Nuclear Posture Review) explicitly justified the W76-2 as a response to Russia allegedly lowering the threshold for first-use of its own tactical nuclear weapons in a limited regional conflict. Nuclear advocates argue that the Kremlin has developed an “escalate-to-deescalate” or “escalate-to-win” nuclear strategy, where it plans to use nuclear weapons if Russia failed in any conventional aggression against NATO. The existence of an actual “escalate-to-deescalate” doctrine is hotly debated, though there is evidence that Russia has war gamed early nuclear use in a European conflict.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 10:16 am

    
    

14. tactical bomb has a variable yield of 0.3, 1.5, 10, and 50 kilotons.

    They’re Dial-A-Yield and go up to 340 kilotons actually. And we have 150 of them, deployed inside NATO. Calling a bomb that is 20 times Hiroshima’s yield “tactical” is not all that accurate. Sure, you can dial them down to very low yield, but that is not how we plan to use them.

    Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 11:04 am

    
    

15. And again, even 5-7 KT is not “tactical” if used as they will be used. These are put on long-range ballistic missiles (aka strategic delivery devices). Not real damaging to a city (it would only wipe out half of Manhattan), but more than adequate for the real target — counterforce against Russian missile silos and military bases.

    The extreme accuracy of the missiles means you don’t nee the huge footprint any more, but it would be a HUGE mistake to call these “tactical.”

    Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 11:10 am

    
    

16. Rip, a question:

    Let’s say that we used a 0.3 KT weapon to take out that Crimean bridge. Do you think that the Russians would say, “oh, it’s only a little nuke”?

    Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 11:12 am

    
    

17. Shoot, I made my comment in the open thread, but one other thing: Russia has a track record of blowing up dams, and the reasoning back then appears similar to today.

    In 1941, as Nazi German troops swept through Soviet-era Ukraine, Josef Stalin’s secret police blew up a hydroelectric dam in the southern city of Zaporizhzhya to slow the Nazi advance.

    The explosion flooded villages along the banks of the Dnieper River, killing thousands of civilians.
    […]
    The Zaporizhzhya events took place in August 1941. As Nazi troops approached the city, Moscow sent in agents from the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB, to blow up the city’s DniproHES hydroelectric dam.

    The team successfully carried out its secret mission — which historians say was ordered by Stalin himself — tearing a hole in the dam and temporarily cutting off part of the city from the invaders.

    But the explosion also flooded villages and settlements along the Dnieper River.

    The tidal surge killed thousands of unsuspecting civilians, as well as Red Army officers who were crossing over the river.

    Since no official death toll was released at the time, the estimated number of victims varies widely. Most historians put it at between 20,000 and 100,000, based on the number of people then living in the flooded areas.

    JVW, I’d say we already are intervening against Putin, just not in a way that starts WW3.

    Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 6/6/2023 @ 12:00 pm

    
    

18. JVW, I’d say we already are intervening against Putin, just not in a way that starts WW3.

    I mean whole hog: no-fly zones, strategic bombings, boots on the ground, etc. I get that there can be various levels of evil (I played Dungeons & Dragons in my youth), and perhaps Russia/Putin has not quite become evil enough, but how close is he? Does it really have to be a bioweapon or nuclear weapon launched, or at some point do we believe that his attacks on civilians has crossed a line and placed him in that rarefied Hitler territory?

    JVW (6e8f09) — 6/6/2023 @ 12:07 pm

    
    

19. As long as Putin is stuck in the Ukrainian quagmire of his own making, JVW, I’d rather not start WW3. And because he’s stuck there, he’s too preoccupied to try to conquer other non-NATO territories such as Moldova. And credit goes to the Ukrainians for keeping Putin mired there, so I’d rather arm the Ukrainians and keep him stuck there, hollowing out his military and economy and demographics.
    Even if he drops WMDs, I’d still be hesitant to opt for “whole hog”, because such an act will politically backfire on Putin and isolate him even further.
    But the moment he invades a NATO member, he’s the one who started WW3.

    Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 6/6/2023 @ 12:21 pm

    
    

20. Let’s say that we used a 0.3 KT weapon to take out that Crimean bridge. Do you think that the Russians would say, “oh, it’s only a little nuke”?

    Kevin M (2d6744) — 6/6/2023 @ 11:12 am

    No, but the West won’t be first one to use a nuclear weapon.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 12:58 pm

    
    

21. Stephen Schwartz.

    Russia mined the Kakhovka Dam months ago. Russia deliberately damaged the dam last year when it occupied nearly Kherson. Russia currently has the most to gain from its destruction, and the widespread flooding that will result.

    I’d like to know his sources, but he’s an expert in nuclear energy.

    Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 6/6/2023 @ 1:31 pm

    
    

22. Last Fall A Russian Brigade Nearly Blew Up Ukraine’s Dnipro River Dam. Eight Months Later The Russians Finally Pulled The Trigger.

    ……….
    Russia blamed Ukraine for blowing the 65-year-old dam. Ukraine blamed Russia. The evidence clearly implicates the Russians, however. It apparently had been the plan, all along, for Russian forces to breach the dam in the event Ukrainian forces advanced in southern Ukraine.

    The Ukrainian military warned this might happen. “We would like to remind you that the Main Directorate of Intelligence reported on the implementation of major mining works immediately after the capture of the Kakhovka hydroelectric powerplant [in February 2022],” Ukrainian military intelligence stated.

    “In April last year, additional mining of locks and supports was carried out,” the intel agency continued. “Tented trucks with explosives were installed on the dam itself.”

    The Kremlin’s goal, it seems, was to complicate a Ukrainian attack across the Dnipro, which since last fall has demarcated the front line in the south. Russian officials may not have taken into account the second- and third-order effects, however.

    Perhaps most importantly: Russian-occupied Crimea heavily relied on fresh water channeled from the now-drained reservoir. No reservoir means much less water for the occupiers.
    ………

    Flashback October 2022:

    Russia threatens hundreds of thousands of people by mining dam, Zelenskyy warns

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 1:52 pm

    
    

23. I mean whole hog: no-fly zones, strategic bombings, boots on the ground, etc.

    Not electing Republicans is enough.

    nk (bb1548) — 6/6/2023 @ 3:38 pm

    
    

24. Appalled (5aa024) — 6/6/2023 @ 8:46 am

    This action cuts the water supply to Crimea. So, it is pretty self destructive, particularly if the Ukranians can cut the land bridge in their counteroffensive.

    It’s an act of desperation, and they may not even have assessed Ukraine’s plans, or all of them, correctly.

    Ukraine is now doing some attacking within Russia and the Biden Administration’s last worry – that Russia might decide to expand the war to NATO territory, has been abandoned.

    Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 6/6/2023 @ 3:51 pm

    
    

25. Coming soon to a 2024 GOP debate: Appeasement of Russia

    ………
    It looks like appeasement of Russia will be on the GOP debate stage relatively soon. And, as importantly, it’s not difficult to see that position catching on.

    Upstart candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has in recent days sought to differentiate himself from his GOP opponents by embracing what he acknowledges would be “major concessions” to Russia. Basically, his idea is to end military support for Ukraine and negotiate a peace deal.

    Under his proposed deal, Russia would agree to end its military alliance with China, withdraw nuclear weapons and systems from surrounding areas and rejoin the nonproliferation START accord. In exchange, the agreement would “cede most of the Donbas region” in eastern Ukraine to Russia, and it would end any efforts to have Ukraine join NATO.

    Ramaswamy has called this “a Korean War-style armistice agreement that codifies the current lines of control.”

    This is, of course, a highly speculative framework proposed by a novice political candidate with no foreign policy experience and little chance of victory. ……..
    ………
    We’ve noted for a while that the Republican Party has gradually drifted away from supporting Ukraine. The numbers have stabilized over the past few months to the point where, generally speaking, about half of Republicans say that we’re doing too much to help Ukraine, while less than 1 in 5 say we’re doing too little.

    The question from there becomes: How much less should we do? And what about giving Russia “major concessions” to bring things to an end?

    The answer is that many Republicans would at least entertain those questions.
    ……….
    ……….And we’re just a few months removed from learning that Trump floated territorial concessions during a Fox News interview, only to have Fox edit those remarks out. “At worst, I could’ve made a deal to take over something,” Trump reportedly said in the unaired clip. “There are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could’ve worked a deal.”
    ………..

    Related:

    McCarthy Opposes Extra Ukraine Spending After Debt Deal

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 4:16 pm

    
    

26. McCarthy Opposes Extra Ukraine Spending After Debt Deal

    For now.

    Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 6/6/2023 @ 4:45 pm

    
    

27. McCarthy Opposes Extra Ukraine Spending After Debt Deal

    For now.

    Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 6/6/2023 @ 4:45 pm

    If he wants to continue as speaker, he will be oppose it for the next two years.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/6/2023 @ 5:25 pm

    
    

28. AllahNick’s perspective is good, like usual.

    Every sensational attack in the Ukraine war is a whodunnit.

    Russians are capable of anything, of course. They’re always suspects.

    But rarely can one firmly rule out Ukrainian responsibility. For them the stakes of the war are existential, so they’re necessarily ruthless in pursuing victory. And they’ve proved more capable of spectacular operations, including deep behind enemy lines, than anyone believed possible before February 2022.

    That drone fly-by of the Kremlin last month? That was them, as your humble correspondent surmised. Assassinations of Russian propagandists? Them. Last year’s explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge? Them. The sinking of the Moskva? Them.

    Sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline? Them too, probably.

    The same goes for the recent mysterious armed incursion into the Russian province of Belgorod, although in that case a line has been carefully drawn between “Ukrainian forces” and “independent anti-Russian militias” to preserve a bit of plausible deniability. Which, ironically, is a tactic Vladimir Putin should appreciate.

    But this morning’s breach of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine doesn’t smell like a Ukrainian operation, spectacular though it is. It has the hallmarks of the Russian way of war.

    Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 6/6/2023 @ 7:19 pm

    
    

29. Michael Weiss weighs in on Tucker’s Putin-friendly inaugural Twitter episode.

    Carlson cost Fox News almost $800 million for spreading lies he didn’t believe. He lost his job. His first Twitter episode (yes) is all about blaming Ukraine for blowing up the Kakhovka dam, which he falsely describes as “effectively Russian,” and Russia’s “own infrastructure.”

    The Soviets built the dam in 1956. It has been under sovereign Ukrainian control since 1991 — until Russia launched an illegal war of conquest in Ukraine. Soldiers attached to 205th Motorized Rifle Brigade of Russia bragged about mining the dam.

    If you watch his missive, Tucker is still up to his usual RT-friendly, Ukraine-blaming Putin-absolving anti-American tricks, calling Zelenskyy “sweaty and rat-like” and “comedian turn oligarch” and a “shifty, dead-eyed Ukrainian friend in a tracksuit”.
    Tucker’s stripes haven’t changed ever since he declared that he wanted Putin to conquer Ukraine 3½ years ago.

    Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 6/6/2023 @ 7:41 pm

    
    

30. Well, the Russians have a history of blowing up Ukrainian dams, but according to the Washington Post the Ukraine did a test hit on that same dam with HIMARS

    Russian history of blowing up dams (stolen from wikipedia):

    When Russian forces retreated from Kherson in November 2022 they destroyed the bridge deck, damaging some of the sluice gates.[5] Then the Russians intentionally opened additional sluice gates, allowing water to rush out of the reservoir. At that time the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration in a statement suggested that one of the purposes of draining the reservoir might have been to flood the area south of the dam, in order to keep Ukrainian Forces from crossing the Dnieper River. Officials stated that Ukrhydroenergo, Ukraine’s hydro electric company, believed Russian occupiers “opened the station’s locks fearing an advance of Ukrainian soldiers.”[6]

    In the following months of Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, several other dams were struck and left large portion of residents without access to water. Examples include the Russian missile attack on the Kryvyi Rih dam and the destruction of the Oskil river dam by Russian land forces.[7][8] In October 2022, the Foreign Minister of Moldova, Nicu Popescu, claimed Ukraine had intercepted Russian missiles that were targeting the dam on the Dniester river.[9]

    Ukrainian use of HIMARS on the dam (also stolen):
    In late 2022, with the Kherson counteroffensive approaching the Dnieper, Ukraine accused Russia of planning to breach the dam using explosives in retaliation.[3] During the counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces conducted a HIMARS strike on one of the dam’s floodgates, in a test that showed that they could flood the river downstream to prevent Russian crossings.[4]

    steveg (1e2f4c) — 6/6/2023 @ 11:25 pm

    
    

31. Here’s a good thread on the canals that were fed by the now-emptying Kakhovskyi Reservoir. The Ukrainians have no motive to destroy the farmland they intend to reclaim from the Russian occupiers. Hopefully, we’ll see the declassified intel soon.

    The United States government has intelligence that is leaning toward Russia as the culprit of the attack on the dam in Ukraine, according to two U.S. officials and one Western official.

    President Joe Biden’s administration was working to declassify some of the intelligence and share it as early as Tuesday afternoon.

    Paul Montagu (8f0dc7) — 6/7/2023 @ 6:11 am

    
    

32. I think the dam sabotage just underscores the true futility of war. It destroys people, wastes incredible amounts of money, and transforms countries into disaster zones. The Ukrainians are fighting for their lives, their liberty, and the their homeland. The Russians are fighting to take that away, without a shred of legal justification. This is the problem with dictators and authoritarian strongman regimes. They are not constrained by norms or humanity. Internal dissent is ruthlessly crushed and then buried under tedious propaganda. It’s sad that Russian citizens are trapped in Putin’s delusions of grandeur. As if Russia is realistically threatened by NATO, the EU, and Western democracy. Only a dictatorship is threatened by neighbors embracing liberty, capitalism, and modernity.

    It would be sad if Ukraine destroyed their own dam and created a natural disaster and human crisis. The evidence suggests that the Russians mined it and controlled it. There’s always the remote possibility that the Ukrainians did it to build international outrage and put pressure on Crimea. You can’t rule it out without perusing the surveillance data. Still, without clear evidence, I will continue to blame the aggressor. Documenting war crimes is almost an academic exercise. Putin will die by coup, not by some tribunal at the Hague. Ukrainian excesses in my mind are provoked. This is the awfulness of war. We fire-bombed Dresden and Hamburg to quicken the end of a rotten war. We just hope to not completely lose our humanity.

    AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 6/7/2023 @ 9:04 am

    
    

33. ISW’s Take:

    ……….
    Russian officials accused Ukrainian forces of destroying the KHPP dam and used the allegations to bolster ongoing efforts to portray Ukrainian assaults elsewhere in Ukraine as immediate failures. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that Ukrainian forces conducted a sabotage attack at the KHPP dam because “Ukrainian armed forces are not achieving their goals” in large-scale offensive operations. This explanation is implausible because Ukrainian forces have not yet conducted large-scale offensive operations.

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Ukrainian forces intend to send forces from the Kherson direction to support ”failing” offensive operations elsewhere and thus destroyed the dam to disrupt Russian forces‘ ability to take advantage of weakened Ukrainian defenses on the west (right) bank of Kherson Oblast. This explanation is also implausible because the limited Russian forces on the east (left) bank of the river pose no meaningful threat to the west (right) bank that would require extensive Ukrainian forces to defend against. Russian officials appear to be increasingly trying to immediately characterize Ukrainian offensive efforts as failures and have likely decided to use their accusations against Ukraine concerning the KHPP dam to bolster this informational effort.

    Shoigu also claimed on June 6 that Russian forces – specifically elements of the Eastern Military District’s (EMD) 433rd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 127th Motorized Rifle Division (5th Combined Arms Army), the 37th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (36th Combined Arms Army), and the 60th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (5th Combined Arms Army) – repelled Ukrainian offensives in five different directions in the last three days. Shoigu preposterously claimed that Russian forces have killed and wounded 3,175 Ukrainian servicemembers and destroyed 205 armored combat vehicles and 52 tanks in the previous three days of fighting in Ukraine. Russian sources have previously attempted to paint Ukrainian counteroffensive actions as immediate failures and Russian sources are likely attempting to do the same with what they view as the start of the announced Ukrainian counteroffensive.
    ………
    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. 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. Ukrainian officials confirmed on June 6, 2023, that 80 settlements risk flooding as a result of the damage. 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. 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. 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.
    ………

    
    Paragraph breaks added. Footnotes omitted.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/7/2023 @ 9:59 am

    
    

34. Not sure how credible this is… but, this points to the Russian blowing up the dam:
    https://twitter.com/akihheikkinen/status/1666167107099262976

    Meduza: In some occupied towns Russian troops prevent people from fleeing the flood, say “you will all perish here”

    whembly (d116f3) — 6/7/2023 @ 12:29 pm

    
    

35. Tucker is still up to his usual RT-friendly, Ukraine-blaming Putin-absolving anti-American trick…

    Tucker should register as a foreign agent.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 6/7/2023 @ 1:50 pm