Russia, the convenient scapegoatOnce again, the Russians have managed to inflict damage on their own infrastructure. Garland Nixon recently tweeted about how the mainstream media expects us to believe that Russia intentionally destroyed their dam without any valid reason. Unfortunately, some people may buy into this narrative without considering the thorough debunking of previous similar claims. Seymour Hersh, an esteemed journalist who has won a Pulitzer Prize, exposed the US’s involvement in blowing up the Nord Stream 2 pipelines. Additionally, Kit Klarenberg uncovered the precise details of how Ukraine orchestrated the explosion of the Kerch Bridge with assistance from British spies.
It’s a recurring pattern for the mainstream media to acknowledge, several months later, that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for such incidents. By that time, the public has often missed the update entirely. For instance, eight months have passed since the underwater explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines occurred on September 26, 2022, causing massive leaks. On June 6, 2023, The Washington Post disclosed that the United States possessed intelligence about a comprehensive Ukrainian plan to target the Nord Stream pipeline. The article stated, “The individuals involved in the attack were not acting independently but were directly reporting to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the highest-ranking military officer in Ukraine, who oversaw the operation to ensure President Volodymyr Zelensky remained uninformed.” It is likely that this sudden release of new intelligence conveniently coincided with reports of Zaluzhny’s alleged death. Using him as a scapegoat now appears to be a convenient way to absolve responsibility. At least some fresh articles were written and published in this case, unlike the usual approach of simply updating existing articles, counting on nobody to verify the changes when the media admits their errors.
Ukraine’s prior attacks on the Kakhovka damLet us return to the Kakhovka dam. What happened there and who is truly to blame for this unfolding tragedy? This is not the first time the Kakhovka dam has made the news since the Ukraine conflict began. According to the Washington Post, Maj. Gen. Andriy Kovalchuk, who was tasked with leading the Kherson counteroffensive, considered flooding the Dnieper River last November. “The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.”
This was not the only test strike. On the day of the dam’s collapse, Ukrainian Telegram channels including that of Anton Gerashchenko (Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine), were busily deleting old posts about the shelling the Nova Kakhovka. Twitter account “Anatomy of Truth” provided screenshots of now-deleted celebratory posts. There were many previous attempts by Ukrainians trying to destroy the Kakhovka dam to hurt Russia’s side. Screenshots, however, can exist indefinitely, long after original posts have been scrubbed.
The Kakhovka dam sits on the Dnieper River, which divides the city of Kherson. The left bank of Kherson city (as well as the rest of the territories that Russia now controls) is lower than the Ukraine-controlled part. Immediately after the explosion of the dam, the Russian side began to flood. The Kakhovka dam’s destruction poses a risk to Crimea’s water supply. Following the dam’s collapse, Crimea now faces the prospect of decades without water. According to Tetyana Tymochko, an adviser to Kiev’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, “This will have huge negative consequences for agriculture throughout the region. Crimea may be left without water for 10-15 years, and possibly forever.” Why would Russia destroy a dam key to Crimea’s water supply?
Ukraine, on the other hand, has a clear motive to punish Crimeans, whom it regards as citizens loyal to an enemy state. The villainous
billionaire, George Soros, who assisted in fomenting Ukraine’s 2014 coup d’etat, hasn’t taken his eyes away from his investment in the war-ravaged country. In Soros’ latest article in Project Syndicate, he writes that “Ukraine is now ready to launch a counterattack as soon as all of the equipment it has been promised by the West is delivered. Biden has even agreed that Ukraine should be given F-16 fighter planes. I believe the counterattack will be successful. The target will be the Crimean Peninsula, the home base of the Russian Navy. By destroying the already damaged land bridge with Russia, Ukraine could turn a strategic asset into a strategic liability, because Crimea has no water. With the land bridge destroyed, Crimea will depend on Ukraine for water.”
An infantile blame gameJudging by Ukraine’s own Twitter account, they appeared not only to celebrate the Kakhovka’s dam collapse, but at the same time also to threaten to flood the United Nations. How dare the UN tweet about Russian language day? they demanded. Many posts were shared on different social media comparing the destruction of this dam to a similar event in 1941. As Nazi forces stormed Zaporizhzhya during the German invasion of the Soviet Union, retreating Red Army forces blasted a hole in the dam of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station. Since Ukrainians argue that history repeated itself, with Russia again destroying the dam, do they at least admit to playing the role of the Nazis?
In his interview with the German outlet Bild, Zelensky admitted that Ukraine has no evidence that Russia is at fault. The Ukrainians don’t have access to the area where the dam collapsed, which is back under Russian control. It is to be expected that Ukraine would continue to blame everything on Russia. But how can the so-called international community rush to condemn Russia, without considering any evidence?
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