Big dam mess

Nobody knows the trouble it’s seen

Who blew up the Kakhovka Dam?

It fits Soviet m.o.—and Putin’s War was started by an ex-Soviet. Engineers with the USSR slowed down advancing Germans in 1941 by blowing up the Dnieper Dam, killing maybe 100,000 civilians in the process. And does anybody think Vladimir the Impaler wouldn’t blow up another dam to slow a Ukrainian counteroffensive?

Today’s Soviets, er, Russians, call the recent dam break a false flag operation by the Ukrainians. Moscow says the Ukrainians hit the dam—in Russian-controlled territory—with missiles.

The Hill newspaper makes another case for neither: There is a school of thought, The Hill says, that neglect during the war helped weaken the dam, and bombardments of bridges and overpasses might have damaged the dam in certain places. (Which is the most unlikely scenario, since reports that the U.S. has satellite images of an explosion at the dam before it fell apart.)

There is a lot of mystery surrounding the dam’s collapse, but one thing is certain: If it was purposely done, this is a war crime.

The dam held back a reservoir about the size of The Great Salt Lake. No telling how many civilians, livestock and homes were swept away. The damage is being measured by millions of hectares.

The reservoir was the water source for all kinds of agriculture in Ukraine. But with the water rushing away, “The fields of southern Ukraine may turn to deserts as early as next year,” says the Kyiv government.

Ukraine’s annual grain harvest, so important to the world’s food supply, is at risk. So are shipping businesses and steel plants around the reservoir.

The Associated Press reports that the flood water has uprooted landmines, sending them flowing into neighborhoods downstream.

Just to put too fine a point on it, there is a nuclear power plant in the region that uses the reservoir for cooling. “By Thursday evening,” a report in this paper said, “the reservoir’s waters had fallen below the lowest point for pumps to operate normally to supply the plant … .” As of last report, the plant was still getting water. But how long it can pump from the reservoir is unclear.

The human and ecological costs of the dam break won’t be known for years. If the world can find those responsible, they should be held to account.

Who was it?

Well, we all know who’s usually the first casualty in any war.