Over the past week, much evidence has come to light which puts beyond reasonable doubt the conclusion that Russian forces occupying the Kakhovka Dam were responsible for its destruction on June 6th, between roughly 2.20–2.54am local time.
Firstly, the dam was designed to withstand a nuclear attack – probably meaning a strike on the Dnipro River, creating a tsunami. As such, it is constructed of large and very thick steel-reinforced concrete piers (see above photo). Each of these are independent – capable of standing on their even if a nearby pier is damaged or destroyed – a point demonstrated by the fact that many of these piers are still standing, despite roughly fourteen having been partially destroyed, with more destruction between the Hydro Power Plant buildings (as well as damage to the buildings themselves). We are not simply talking about a number of sluice gates being destroyed.
The extent of the damage to these piers will only become apparent when the water drains, but the amount of explosive that would have been required to destroy them is well beyond anything that could reasonably have been delivered on target by Ukraine. The Antonovsky Bridge (also constructed of steel-reinforced concrete) survived many GMLRS attacks, and each 200lb high explosive (HE) warhead – perhaps with a time-delayed fuse – only created a neat little hole. Russians were at one point claiming that Ukraine had employed its Vilkha MLRS (with a maximum 550lb HE warhead) to attack the dam, but the biggest explosive ordnance possessed by Ukraine is the 2,000lb Mark 84 JDAM, and even with these, each pier would have to be hit multiple times in order to have any serious effect – let alone to destroy everything above the waterline (with no bits of steel and concrete still poking up, note!).
In the best case scenario, with GPS not being jammed, a modern JDAM can achieve a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of five metres. This means that, on average, 50% of bombs will hit within a circle of radius 5m (area: 78.5m2). The piers are roughly 2m wide, so if the very centre of the pier were targeted (rather than nearer the ends), a pier with an area of 10m2 (2×5m) inside the limits of that circle would encompass only ~12.7% of the CEP. Therefore, only ~6.4% of bombs would hit even a portion of the target. Taking a rather optimistic estimate of only three JDAMs needed per pier, it would take, on average, ~660 JDAMs to achieve the desired effect. This number would be reduced because a few of the off-target JDAMs would hit a neighbouring pier instead, but the overall attack would be much more difficult because the piers on the eastern (reservoir) end were underwater – greatly limiting the effect of any bombs on target (meaning, in reality, only the western end of the piers could be attacked).
Accuracy could be greatly improved if the JDAMs were fitted with a laser seeker. However, it’s highly questionable whether it would be feasible to laser-designate these targets for any length of time in such a contested environment very close to the line of control from, say, a drone – even assuming compatible laser designators have been fitted to suitable Ukrainian drones. And even with perfect accuracy, multiple JDAMs would still be required per pier.
For Ukraine, this would have taken a big air operation involving (conservatively) dozens of sorties over a period of days or weeks. On average, Ukraine carries out about 26 combat sorties per day (sometimes a few more), but these are spread across the entire line of contact, and involve all types of aircraft – only some of which can carry JDAMs. Such an operation would be very predictable, and therefore incredibly dangerous and risky. In fact, it would be a field day for Russian air defence, since even with the ~72km glide range of the JDAM-ER (which can only be achieved at altitude), this would put Ukrainian aviation within range of Russian Buk, S-300 and S-400 systems.
However, even if Ukraine could somehow have assembled enough air power to drop the massive amount of ordnance necessary within the known time-frame of about half-an-hour (an impossibility), and precisely co-ordinated everything so each target could be individually laser-designated without confusing the bombs (another impossibility), it would have been blatantly obvious to the RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft operated by the U.S. and the U.K. which are in constant rotation near Ukraine, and to other nations via satellite reconnaissance, seismographs and the like – besides many observers on the ground, on both sides.
So far we’ve been considering HE warheads, but what about other types of munitions? Even large armour-piercing artillery shells have been found to be ineffective against reinforced concrete – thus requiring a lot of ordnance. Consider the attack on Fort Douaumont in WWI, in which Germany bombarded the fort with huge 420mm armour-piercing shells without result. As a boy, I visited the site and was very surprised by the lack of damage.
This is where so-called ‘bunker buster’ bombs come along. These are gravity bombs that are dropped from altitude, reaching supersonic speeds on descent, with hard penetrator tips and smart fuses that can detonate the bomb when certain conditions are met (e.g., loss of rotational energy, time, etc.). This enables them to explode within a reinforced or buried structure – which gave Saddam Hussein such a nasty surprise during Operation Desert Storm.
But we don’t need to imagine Ukraine has been secretly developing bunker buster munitions, or been given some on the quiet by the U.S. or perfidious Albion. In fact, given bunker busters would have to be dropped from altitude and suicidally close to the target (~10 nautical miles), Ukraine has something much better: Storm Shadow. These are standoff weapons that can be air-launched from inside safe Ukrainian airspace. They’re equipped with BROACH warheads that can defeat hard targets, including those protected by reinforced concrete, with a shaped-charge penetrator followed by a variable-fuse 990lb warhead that detonates inside the target.
Given Storm Shadow’s reputedly first-rate guidance and targetting capabilities – and the apparent inability of Russia to shoot them down – I’m going to be generous and stipulate arguendo that pinpoint accuracy could be achieved with a horizontal head-on attack against the piers from the western (non-reservoir) side. This couldn’t be done from the reservoir side because those piers were under water – meaning the optical/IIR target recognition system wouldn’t work, and GPS guidance wouldn’t be nearly good enough.
This kind of attack would be limited to one Storm Shadow per pier, because absent a detailed bomb damage assessment in daylight, followed by programming in new target recognition parameters, the damage to the piers would almost certainly prevent a second Storm Shadow positively identifying and choosing to attack the target (rather than heading to its ‘safe’ crash site). It would also be very likely that the impact of a single Storm Shadow (and the resulting debris and floodwater pouring through) would so confuse the next Storm Shadow attacking a neighbouring pier that it would fail to recognise the target. So this is all highly implausible.
But even assuming all 14 missiles could achieve a perfect hit against each of the piers, given that the piers are at least 10m in length, it’s also highly questionable whether a single Storm Shadow – which could theoretically explode ~3.7m inside the target – would be able to completely destroy any given pier above the waterline. Then try that 14 times. And if it didn’t work perfectly, there’d be a lot of evidence left to point to Ukraine.
But there are other reasons why this didn’t happen. Even assuming Ukraine has modified enough Su-24s to carry Storm Shadow (they’d need seven, with two missiles per plane), nevertheless launching that number of Su-24s all at once would have been noticed – not just by the U.K. and U.S., but also by Russian ground-based radar as well as AWACS, and by other nations. The missiles themselves might also have been detected – even if Russian air defence isn’t sophisticated enough to shoot them down. Humans on the ground would have heard (and possibly seen) them coming in at perhaps as low as 30m above ground, and at roughly two-minute intervals. Of course, none of this was reported or claimed, either by civilians in the area or by Russia – who claimed it was rocket artillery.
This also doesn’t match the seismograph readings, which show a big explosion at 2.54am local time, with U.S. infra-red satellite imagery seeming to suggest the same. However, the picture is rather unclear, and it seems likely there were actually two explosions, each one taking out roughly half of the 14 piers.
As for the claims made by some incautious commentators, who initially suggested that tubed artillery could have done this: an M107 155mm shell contains 15lbs of HE, and is not very accurate, so it would be like trying to cut down a tree with a blunt nail file. No, the dam could only have been blown in the way we saw using explosives pre-positioned inside the structure. It was therefore fortunate for the Russians that the USSR built their dams with this in mind, providing sites for the placement of explosive charges in the event of a need to flood the downstream area for defensive purposes – as in this instance.
Besides observations and the laws of physics being on Ukraine’s side, we have other evidence pointing to Russia. Zelenskyy claimed back on October 20th that Russia had mined the dam, but he also called for international observers to be sent to the dam (hardly suggesting evil intent). The next day, there was some chatter in the Telegram channel of some members of the 205th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade (believed to have been occupying the dam) discussing the fact that the dam had been mined, and also seeming to suggest they would be ordered to blow the dam in the event of an “uncontrolled advance of the enemy”. In December, there were boasts that the dam was mined and would be blown up on New Year’s Day in order to wash Ukrainian forces away – the idea being uncontroversial, having been proposed at one point on Russian state TV and recommended by military expert Roman Svitan, as well as by the more extreme Vladlen Tatarsky (further details on Russian ‘chatter’ before and after June 6th can be found here).
When the dam was blown, it was at first denied by various Russians. RIA Novosti reported that “everywhere is quiet and peaceful” in the city, with Nova Kakhovka’s gauleiter, at 6am, calling reports of the breach “nonsense”. Not long after he claimed “a series of numerous strikes” had “destroyed the latches” – in line with Russia’s emerging narrative of rocket artillery strikes. But of course it wasn’t merely the sluice gates that were destroyed. Ukraine’s SBU released a signals intercept a few days later, supposedly between Russian soldiers discussing how their side blew the dam, and in which they said the scale of the destruction and flooding was unintentional – a not implausible statement, in my opinion. (Nonetheless, members of the 205th SMRB seem to have been given medals for their actions.)
Indeed, the scale of the flooding does seem to have taken Russia by surprise, with some units having to relocate; although it seems there were orders issued on June 4th to move some military equipment away from the area they thought would be flooded. However, I think it very unlikely that clear warnings were given, since the resultant signals traffic could have made it all the more obvious. (The situation is reminiscent of Stalin’s destruction of the Dnipro Dam in 1941, which killed tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers.)
However, Russia did show some high-level skirt before their war crime. As reported by The Insider, a week before the dam was blown, a decree was issued by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin forbidding the investigation of any accidents at “hydraulic structures”, whether as a result of military action or terrorist attacks, until 2028. This is of course very convenient, since Russia has also been blowing up other dams in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, notably between Tokmak and Berdyansk – directly in the path of Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
Besides having the means and opportunity to destroy the Kakhovka Dam, Russia had fairly obvious motives – to cause chaos, create a humanitarian crisis for Ukraine, and most importantly to prevent Ukrainian forces attempting a river crossing, or holding positions on the islands downstream. This has enabled Russia to move forces from Kherson Oblast to other parts of the theatre in order to try to counter Ukraine’s advances – at least for a few weeks, until the flooded areas dry out again.
As for Ukraine possibly having a motive, given their adherence to the Geneva Conventions and the likely consequences (given the inevitability of being discovered), that seems most unlikely. At least, while they seem to have been willing to destroy one or more sluice gates in order to hamper the retreat of Russian forces from Kherson last year by increasing the flow rate of the water, that would have been legitimate under the laws of war – and of a different order of magnitude to what we’ve seen here. But in fact, it seems they only did minimal damage to the sluice gates.
Leaving aside military considerations, it would be completely mad for Ukraine to deliberately kill its own civilians by blowing the dam – citizens that they are in the process of liberating. Not only that, but (unless a cofferdam can be installed) this will destroy almost all agriculture in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts (not to mention parts of Dnipropetrovsk and as far east as Azov). Without irrigation from the Kakhovka Reservoir, those areas will revert to being an agricultural desert (having a global impact). And then there’s the effect on the flora and fauna of Ukraine.
The loss of agricultural irrigation both in these regions and in Crimea (which was, in any case, without irrigation between 2014–22) is of little significance to Russia – they have almost no regard for the lives of their troops, and none for Ukrainian civilians. This is simply part of their scorched earth policy, and any claim to the contrary is without foundation.
My thanks to David Brookfield, formerly of the Royal Engineers and currently a co-host of MriyaReport, for his comments and suggestions throughout.
Stop Press: The New York Times has now weighed in, reaching much the same conclusion but with expert analysis of precisely where inside the dam Russia would have placed the explosives.
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“...it would be completely mad for Ukraine to deliberately kill its own civilians...”
Isn’t this how it all started in the first place though, Mr Rons? Wasn’t Ukraine already ‘completely mad’ because it was killing its own civilians from 2014 onwards? I’m not saying the Russians didn’t blow the dam – who knows, maybe they did to deny the Ukrainians irrigation or to lower morale – but you have to agree that a high degree of madness exists in that failed state and amongst its lowest moments was the deliberate campaign against its ethnic Russian community.
Agree. Makes little sense for the Russians to do this. Given the US 51rst state’s recent activity, it seems more credible that the US proxy is at fault, though in all honesty no one really knows including Ian who seems intent on drinking the propaganda kool aid spooned out by the CIA et al.
What do you mean by 51st state, exactly? Ukraine itself?
Rons is a mono-maniac – rationality is wasted on it.
Got it in one (that is intended to be a play on “mono”).
In addition to the matters described, a report on Al Jazeera came up with a rough financial guesstimate for the loss of revenue due to reduced export of agricultural products, e.g. wheat. Can’t remember the numbers exactly, but it was in $billions.
Ian Rons is single handedly making subscribers question their continued payments to The Daily Sceptic.
I am forced to assume that he pays for the column inches.
I now look upon it as humorous relief in the fiction department.
Yes I said to my husband this morning I would be out if another pro Ukraine piece appeared. Maybe they did blow it up, maybe Russia did, but the point of DS is to be sceptical not to present a one sided view of a foreign war.
We’re here on The Daily Sceptic to get away from all the lies, propaganda and omissions in the main stream media NOT to have them reinforced by the establishment leaning articles by Ian Rons.
I like to read a range of views, not just those that I already agree with. I don’t want to pay to be in an echo chamber.
I don’t want to pay to read Ian Rons ridiculous establishment views that I can read in the main stream media for free.
I want The Daily Sceptic to inform us with different versions to government and their vested interests mantras.
There is nothing wrong with The Daily Sceptic being an “echo chamber” of dissent.
I cannot understand the criticisms of this post. It is detailed well argued case. That should be enough by itself to justify taking it seriously.
It is also very convincing. It is incredibly far fetched to suppose Ukraine had a motive but the clincher is that they didn’t have the kit to do it and Ian has shown this in detail. What Ian might have explored more is whether it was approved at the highest level by Russia, whether whoever did it anticipated how awful it would be, or whether it was an accident based on the explosives Russia had in place.
Perhaps you ought to consider why the Ukrainians left the taps turned on full upstream so that the reservoir filled, literally, to overflowing, ensuring maximum pressure on a dam already weakened by previous Uke artillery and missile attacks, and then turned them off once the dam was breached to ensure the reservoir drained as quickly as possible. The Russians certainly had no hand in either action.
I don’t understand – what “taps” are these? In any case the water level was under Russian control as all they had to was open the floodgates a bit more to lower it.
The “taps” are the flow controls on the dam by the Dieper power station in Ukrainian controlled Dnieperpetrovsk. Normally the water flows through the generation turbines, but the Ukrainians gave up making electricity in return for opening their sluice gates to achieve maximum water flow for the first time in living memory. Most normal people would wonder why
I have scoured the internet but cannot find an reference to this story. Do you have one?
Opinion is not evidence. It argues opinion – not the evidence which the author said was abundant but doesn’t mention.
But the article is packed with evidence! You can dispute it but it is certainly there.
No evidence of anything….just opinion and the usual one-sided propaganda and I happily dispute it…..all of this is based on Ukrainian or anti-Russian analysis…there isn’t a single Russian or independent person or publication mentioned throughout…It might convince you but I’d just ask..what do you think the Ukrainians WOULD say LOL!
Really Ian I can’t be bothered with you anymore after you embarrassed yourself commenting on your last work of fiction, and this doesn’t get any closer to engineering sense, despite your reference to an ex RE, who by looking at his Twitter feed is hardly likely to have a balanced view on Ukrainian issues.
Thanks for another interesting post, Ian Rons. I’m a DS subscriber and really appreciate them.
Love the irony.
PS I am sceptical about the Welsh too, after 3 years at a Welsh uni.
I don’t even know why people try to use their judgment in regard to analysis of such events. There are no standards to assess anything by in a rapidly moving situation and to pretend that you can understand it from an armchair is absurd. As long as you are aware of the the Anglo-American schtick and all that follows from it then you don’t really need to ask any further questions.
I don’t mean to criticise anyone but I do feel that is in a sense unseemly to talk about overseas wars and more than that it is the opposite of what we are fighting for. Believe me in the next six months western support among the general populace will collapse. But unfortunately the Yanks have opened up their big storage sites in the desert and they are taking everything out of storage, thousands of aircraft. This is a huge operaton costing about $1 million dollars per plane and several weeks work. Just be aware that the next stage, an aerial war, won’t be as abstract and faraway as it has been.
Let me know if I have summarised your article correctly, Ian:
‘Destroying the dam with missiles is difficult for Ukraine, therefore somehow Russia destroyed it.’
Could the downvoters please explain where I have gone wrong with my attempt to summarise Ian’s article?
They´re paid 77th.
You know who did it cut the crap we all know who did it. If youj want me to lay it out in triplivate I can give you details of Ukrainan threats on this site and previous reports of missile strikes on this site.This isn’t rocket science we know who did it.
Just atacking sites and destroying people’s lives for the sake of some dead political battle. And then to be used by the West as some sort of last ditch attempt to keep things going. Avoid these forces. A time is coming where a man’s word will be his bond.
Biden owes Ukraine a lot, the funding isn’t going to stop.
All this report needed to say was:
1
the power of explosive device(s) needed for an outside attack was not available to Ukraine and possibly not even the Wedt
2
Russia benefits at least in the short term from the damage. At no stage does it benefit Ukraine.
enough said.
(OT)
To be fair Ian (re. James Delingpole “mad” over satanists controlling global weather theory) I actually took issue with a Delingpole theory in the comments of the recent London Calling episode (Town v. Country living), namely that an all meat diet (and certainly an all cooked meat diet) is a good idea as salad and fruit and raw food is genuinely beneficial (together with a proportion of meat/fish/eggs) as part of a balanced diet (see Phillip Day).
I love the sheer comical irony and bathos of the “We don’t come to this explicitly free-speech orientated site to hear views we don’t agree with. Shut up or we’re going to take our money elsewhere’ type comments (and their upticks) on this and similar threads.
Mind you it would be astonishing if those who support the neo-fascist invasion of an independent country for daring to try and maintain multi-party liberal-democratic institutions and values would feel any genuine affinity with the free-speech principles of The Daily Sceptic – as opposed to simply seeing it as a relatively undefended platform to be captured for propagandist purposes.
And again it’s quite funny watching tyranny trying to impose itself over freedom when it doesn’t have any of the usual intimidatory mechanisms (eg gun-totting police and troops) to back it up, just verbal tantrums and attempts at financial blackmail based on tiny amounts of cash.
Anybody who believes the USA and its lackey states are supporting Ukraine because of their commitment to national independence and multi-party liberal-democratic institutions is, at best, desperately naive.
I’m going with ‘simple-minded’..it’s about the kindest….
let’s face it..to get to that conclusion you have to ignore years of history and politics and precedent…..
Just like a child, boil it down to only good v evil..where you know which is which..and everyone else is wrong and tainted by association..it’s the same argument with the climate..LGB+ etc…as it was with Convid…..if you don’t follow the ‘official propaganda’ you are the enemy..and there is no room for neutrality….
Luckily I truly believe the vast majority of the people in the World see the Western hypocrisy for what it is..along with a good amount of people who actually live in the West.
They have to keep this manufactured good/bad thing going because it’s all they have got..and even they know it’s rubbish….
Lies and pretence take too much time and effort..eventually people see through it…this will be no different…..
The very knowledgeable and entertaining (and definitely not simple minded) Jeffrey Sachs on The Duran…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkrQokUYMmY
Biden is in deep shit when Ukraine loses and his corruption is exposed, hence the funding will continue.
“neo-fascist invasion of an independent country for daring to try and maintain multi-party liberal-democratic institutions and values”
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Your so funny.
1.The neo-fascist have run Ukraine since at least 2014
2.”independent” with Blackrock owning at least 30% of it.
3.”multi-party liberal-democratic institutions and values” that Zelensky has band.
Yes…if Ukraine is a multi party (Elenskyy banned them all..LOL) liberal democracy…I reckon Epstein was a youth outreach worker….
Yeh, right . . .
You underestimate the SBS.
NordStream was incontrovertibly blown up by the Russians, Ukrainians, Swedes, Poles, British and Americans, at the last count.
I will continue to believe nothing that comes out of either side..
It doesn’t sound like Incontrovertible, it sounds like we don’t know but it must have been because we don’t have any evidence. If “it would have been blatantly obvious to the RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft operated by the U.S. and the U.K. which are in constant rotation near Ukraine,” surely these spy planes and satalites could have seen where the planes came from and where they went back to. The USA is not above such actions, having a long history of corruption in starting wars and working in the background fanning the flames.
there are so many uncontrolled assumptions and confounding variables in this assessment, it doesn’t even qualify for the adjective ‘forensic’.
It’s more reminiscent of religion.
‘Over the past week, much evidence has come to light which puts beyond reasonable doubt the conclusion that Russian forces occupying the Kakhovka Dam were responsible for its destruction…’
With so much ‘incontrovertible’ evidence coming to light, I was rather hoping you were going to share some of it with us.
Instead a lot of speculative waffle about how the Ukrainians couldn’t technically do it, whereas the Russians could.
You would have done better to stop at “for defensive purposes – as in this instance”, Ian! The article up to there is an interesting description of why Ukraine probably did not destroy the dam.
After that, though, you descend into suppositions, speculation and opinions. You state, for example, that it would have been “legitimate under the laws of war” for Ukraine to destroy sluice gates to hamper a Russian retreat, but imply that it is not legitimate for Russia to destroy the dam.
You cite without comment a “signal intercept” released by the SBU (Ukrainian intelligence) as evidence that Ukraine was not responsible.
You state that “the scale of the flooding does seem to have taken Russia by surprise”, without noting that this surely is at least some evidence that Russia was not responsible.
You state that Ukraine did not have a motive “given their adherence to the Geneva Conventions” – even if it were true that they are adhering to those conventions, I am not sure why that would affect whether they had a motive for blowing the dam.
You also state that “it would be completely mad for Ukraine to deliberately kill its own civilians by blowing the dam – citizens that they are in the process of liberating” – this is ridiculous since the same would obviously apply to the Russian side, especially as their own troops were among those affected.
And you say that “The loss of agricultural irrigation both in these regions and in Crimea (which was, in any case, without irrigation between 2014–22) is of little significance to Russia – they have almost no regard for the lives of their troops, and none for Ukrainian civilians.” This is a complete non sequitur – even if it were true that the Russians do not care about the lives of their troops (which I find extremely unlikely to be honest), why would that affect whether they cared about loss of irrigation, especially in Crimea?
You have produced a compelling case that the Russians blew the dam – and then wrecked it with a very silly second half of the article.
Increasingly the outflow of water is not the same as destroying a dam, causing a flood affecting civilian areas.
I said that it was “supposedly between Russian soldiers”, not that it was between Russian soldiers, and I also included a lot of other “chatter” – described as such – which goes toward making a circumstantial case.#
I don’t agree that it is evidence of that. There were different forecasts of what would happen if the dam were blown, and it was an inherently uncertain and risky undertaking. “You were only meant to blow the bloody doors off!”, etc.
Ukraine would have to have been crazy not to see the consequences, including from the very self-interested angle of Western support.
Nonsense. Russia is not “liberating” people it calls “kokhols”. You totally misunderstand what’s happening.
I don’t think you non sequitur means what you think it means. Perhaps you missed the phrase “…and none for Ukrainian civilians”. Obviously irrigation affects civilians living in Ukraine (which includes Crimea), but they don’t care about them. There are of course some Russians who’ve moved into Crimea, so perhaps I should have said they don’t care about them either.
One day we’ll all come to recognise Ian Rons as one of the true comedic geniuses of his generation.