Flooding in Kakhovka as a cover-up for the disastrous first days of the Ukrainian “counteroffensive”
No doubt some readers of my essay yesterday were wondering how I could know that it was the Ukrainians who were responsible for destroying the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant and consequent flooding of the adjacent settlements on both banks of the Dnepr and further downstream. Where is the proof someone wrote to me in the Comments sectionof my website. Where is the photo showing how the breach was made?
Sticklers like these are the same folks who always argue that we simple people never can know what is really going on. Only the “big boys” have all the facts.
I never have accepted such argumentation in favor of total passivity of the population and blind obedience to authorities who, as we so often discover, are neither as intelligent nor as well-meaning as what you were told in kindergarten. I am quite satisfied that application of normal reasoning processes like cui bono and identification of flagrant contradictions in the narratives of one or another side, of flagrant contradictions within mainstream reporting are sufficient to arrive at the truth independently and without reliance on insider information or wild speculation.
In the given instance it was quite sufficient to rely on the Marxist thinking processes differentiating between “subjective” and “objective” causality. And the “subjective” approach leaves no doubt about what happened on 5 June at the Kakhovka dam.
Why do I say that? Because even today as I watched the BBC morning news there was extensive video coverage of the flooding along the lower reaches of the Dnepr river, but not a peep about the military fiasco of the Ukrainian army in the previous three days of its long awaited counter-offensive. Indeed, other news channels even made reference to a new commitment by Joe Biden to provide assistance to Ukraine in light of the destruction of the reservoir at Kakhovka.
Meanwhile, yesterday all Russian news outlets gave primary attention to a speech by Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu in which he set out in detail the results on the battlefield over the previous three days of fierce engagement of Russian and Ukrainian military forces along several points of the line of confrontation, in particular in southern Donetsk. This is a summary of his report in today’s Fontanka.ru :
In the words of the minister, on 4 June the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine undertook an attempted attack in five areas but did not achieve success in any of them. On 5 June, the Ukrainian army attempted an attack in seven areas deploying the forces of five brigades. Shoigu stated that the attempted attacks were stopped, ‘and the enemy did not achieve his objectives while bearing considerable and incomparable losses.’
As Shoigu reported, over the course of three days of military action in all areas Ukraine lost up to 3715 soldiers, 52 tanks, 207 armored vehicles, 134 automobiles, 5 airplanes, 2 helicopters, 48 field artillery pieces and 53 drones.
The minister also named the losses of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation: in the course of repelling the attack 71 soldiers died and 210 were wounded. They lost 15 tanks, 9 troop carriers, 2 automobiles and 9 artillery pieces.
As the host of the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show remarked last night, this is the first time in the armed conflict that the Russians have officially reported the losses of both sides. Comparing directly the 71 Russian soldiers who died with the 3715 Ukrainians said to have lost their lives tells the whole story of the way the Ukrainian “counter-offensive” is playing out. This is a massacre that in a just world would justify immediate cessation of all further arms deliveries to Ukraine and insistent demand for capitulation to end the senseless bloodshed.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023