I’ve been wondering about the timing of the offensive lately. If Ukraine thinks their relative position is strengthening, then why attack?
Only issue I can really see with this is that they can’t feel confident in continued US support past 2024
To end the war? To liberate their people? To stop missiles from killing them?
this is one of those tweets that is perfectly positioned between “this is so stupid it can’t possibly be real” and “jim cramer is so fucking stupid that he easily could have tweeted this”
But their chances of success increase if their relative positions keep improving for them
So what’s going to be the impact of the dam destroyed and flooding?
Read somewhere that crimea has 2 years of reserve reservoirs so crimea water aspect seems a bit of red herring in immediate situation
It will probably mess up the global grain supply.
Crossing the Dnipro will be much harder
this is a technogenic catastrophe, but for the purposes of counteroffensive i think the effect will be a delay in terms of a few weeks. the floodwaters will recede within days and while the bridge is likely gone, i can’t imagine AFU hinged their chances on the bridge to move forward. because of geography i think the flood destroys more of the left bank of Dniepro than of the right, where russian defense positions presumably are.
also this is a reminder that destruction of infrastructure capable of causing mass casualties, like this dam, is yet another war crime spelled out by the rome statues article 8.
2 b
i. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;
ii. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives;
iv. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;
an interesting historical note is that the war crimes designation for destruction like that was in part in response to both retreating Soviets and retreating Germans blowing up the dam in Zaporozh’ye, up the river from this one, in august 1941 (Ukrainian Activists Draw Attention To Little-Known WWII Tragedy) and 1943 respectively.
The Russians have proved now by their destruction of the great dam at Dniepropetrovsk that they mean truly to scorch the earth before Hitler even if it means the destruction of their most precious possessions … Dnieprostroy was an object almost of worship to the Soviet people. Its destruction demonstrates a will to resist which surpasses anything we had imagined. I know what that dam meant to the Bolsheviks … It was the largest, most spectacular, and most popular of all the immense projects of the First Five-Year Plan … The Dnieper Dam when it was built was the biggest on earth and so it occupied a place in the imagination and affection of the Soviet people difficult for us to realize … Stalin’s order to destroy it meant more to the Russians emotionally than it would mean to us for Roosevelt to order the destruction of the Panama Canal.
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Russians really are cartoonishly evil. Now they are shelling the evacuation points in the flood zone.
In other news:
In Russia, Ukraine invades you!
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Looks like Ukraine put a brightly painted $140 000 000 long range air defense system close to the front?!?! What the hell?
Was kinda wondering if they were going to try to do some stuff like that seeing as they don’t have enough Air Force to keep Russia air support away from their counter offensive? Seems terribly economically inefficient but kinda wonder what options they have to try to pull off a large counteroffensive without air support?
Cameo paint, for starters.
Always so hard to tell, but smoke is that Ukraine is doing well
(It’s a thread)
Yeah that’s interesting to read, phenomena among the Twitter posters who tend to post a lot of updates is to make mood feel like the whole thing is doomed after seeing half a dozen western supplied Ukrainian vehicles destroyed. Obviously could be the case that Ukraine ends up not being able to make really significant progress but seems Twitter crowd putting a lot of weight on a couple videos