Well I'll Be Dammed...
So, by now everyone has heard the news about the explosion of the Khakovka Dam. Homes across an entire oblast(1) are flooded, 100,000 people are displaced, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions has become a patchwork of deserts and swamps, a zoo has been exterminated wholesale (and I have to wonder what it says about Western society when that fact generated more outrage than the droves of children Russia has slaughtered and the droves more that they have abducted under the pretext of “evacuations” since the war began), and Human death tolls have yet to be counted. The act is a flagrant violation of Article 56 of Protocol I and Article 15 of Protocol II of the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly prohibit the destruction of dams in wartime (Gleick). That's what's called a “War Crime,” for those who didn't know.
So, that's the end of the discussion, right? Russia can no longer hide that their entire military is composed of war criminals and the civilized world is ready to roll into helpless little Russia and bring these cretins in for a fair trial by a jury of their victims and a swift execution by radiation exposure, right? Well... no. Because there is (for reasons that are not fit to print here) apparently some uncertainty among the world's impressive population of brainless drooling neanderthals “certain circles” as to which of the two sides in the war actually blew the dam. Ergo, I feel the need to take the time to cut through some of the misinformation and lay out the glaringly fucking obvious perhaps overlooked reality of the incident. So, without further ado, let me start by addressing, with all the politeness I can muster, those who are still of the opinion that there is a question of who is responsible.
(presses fingertips together in front of my face, leans across the desk with a smile, and speaks slowly, in the manner of one addressing a small child with a learning disability)
Yes, you slobbering, knuckle-dragging, paint-sniffing, crayon-munching, cum-drooling, piss-puking, rock-banging, parasitic Precambrian throwback. It was Russia.
Here's why that is obvious to everyone whose family reunions are attended by more mammals than reptiles.
Quis Prodest?
To begin with, who had the most to gain by blowing the dam? Tucker Carlson of course added his two cents, stating it was "obvious" that it was Ukraine (though he offered precious little in the way of actual evidence).
Well, let's do what Tucker Carlson was incapable of doing.
...No, I don't mean "actually satisfying a woman." I mean "employing a bit of logic."
Who benefits from flooding half of Kherson Oblast: the Ukrainians, who are now looking at an entire swath of their own country rendered so useless that it will be a century before they'd gain anything from getting it back, or the Russians who have already demonstrated a habit of laying waste to entire cities?
Who benefits from having the Dnieper River basin flooded: the Ukrainians, who would have to ford that river for their upcoming counteroffensive (which mostly everyone agrees was aimed at Kherson so they could split Crimea from the rest of the Russian Occupation Zone) (Seibt), or the Russians who now have a nigh-uncrossable floodplain as a wall between them and the Ukrainians they've been having nightmares about for months (Leonhardt)?
In addition to being an act of unabashed genocide (and yes, deliberately causing an ecological and humanitarian crisis by blowing a dam is one of the literal examples of that term given in the Geneva Accords), but it delays Ukraine's counteroffensive (at least in Kherson) by weeks. All Russia lost was electric power to Crimea and considering that most of Russia's population don't have running water or electricity anyway, I don't think they counted that as much of a loss. Russia has always been willing, and BRAGGED about being willing, to throw away thousands of their own lives in order to achieve the state's aims. Chernobyl, anyone?
Speaking of which, the blast also has put Zaporizhya Nuclear Power Plant's cooling capacity at risk, raising the risk of a meltdown - something Russia has been trying to cause since the beginning of the war (Faulconbridge & Davis).
There's no ambiguity here. This was an act geared toward a great many of Russia's strategic goals. A Russian-installed member of the collaborator regime even admitted that.
Shelling Isn't Enough
Bottom line: there's no artillery in the Ukrainian arsenal capable of blowing this dam (Bartetzko). Think back to WW2. When British troops tried to bomb dams in Nazi Germany, they had to use 750 pound bombs on multiple bombing runs, and that still wasn't enough. And this dam was built to withstand more, given that it was built in 1956 when the USSR was paranoid about atomic war.
So the "UkRaInIaN sHeLlInG" explanation is as plausible as China's "it came from Fort Dietrich, circulated unseen for two years before being brought to Wuhan by US military athletes, and then was finally miraculously diagnosed by brilliant Chinese scientists" drivel regarding Chinavirus-19.
The only way this dam would be able to collapse would be internal explosives, and those explosives would have to be custom made, and LARGE (Bartetzko). So, is there evidence that the Russians mined the dam? Absolutely. Ukraine sounded the alarm as far back as October 20 that Russian personnel were planning to mine the dam and frame Ukraine for it (Jankowicz & Epstein).
"Russia is consciously laying the groundwork for a large-scale disaster in Ukraine’s south. We have information that Russian terrorists have mined the dam and units of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant.
This is one of the largest energy facilities. Its dam contains approximately 18,000,000 cubic metres of water. If Russian terrorists blow up this dam, more than 80 settlements, including Kherson, will be in the zone of rapid flooding. Hundreds of thousands of people could suffer.
It could destroy the water supply for a large part of Ukraine’s south. This Russian terrorist attack could leave the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) without water for cooling; the ZNPP takes water from the Kakhovka reservoir. Even the functioning of the channel, constructed for providing Crimea with water, which Moscow sometimes "expresses concern" about, will be completely destroyed. This is Russia’s real attitude towards our Ukrainian Crimea...
...The Ukrainian employees have been kicked out of the Kakhovka plant; only Russian citizens are there now. They have full control over the plant.
-Ukrainska Pravda
This was further evidenced by the fact that Russia began evacuating their own key personnel from around the reservoir that very week (Kirby). And of course, there is the minor little matter of a drunken Russian soldier admitting on livestream that he and his fellow barbarians had mined Khakovka in December with plans to blow it on New Year's Eve.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1666353801178095618
- i
It's A Standard Kremlin Tactic
Blasting a dam and flooding civilians out in order to save oneself from an attack by a superior force has been one of the Muscovy Regime's favorite tactics for decades. They did it in 1941, (Moroz), and they did it in May of this year to another dam (Al-Jazeera Staff), and by the way, that too was a war crime. Ergo, the "oh, this is not something 'Holy Mother Russia' would do" argument is Dead-On-Arrival.
Look At The Timing
It was another bad week in Ukraine for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his commanding general, Valery Gerasimov — bad enough to launch criminal retaliation strikes against civilian targets in Kyiv, which largely failed anyway.
-(Sweet & Toth)
The past few weeks have been humiliating weeks for Russia. While Ukraine's counteroffensive isn't even underway yet, a diversionary attack on Belgorod by Russia's own citizens has Russia's people living in fear within their own borders, as day 500 of Putin's 3 day operation approaches. An exclusive gated community containing Russia's upper crust was beset by drones in an attack which, though it didn't do much actual damage, proved the ineffectiveness of Russia's air defenses. Russia's defeat in conventional warfare has been so complete that many commentators have stated outright that Putin had nothing left to resort to but nukes (Sweet & Toth), while Russia's state propagandist Slobberov or Slothlove or whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is his name is (2) has been shrieking for the Kremlin to "quit playing nice (Jake Broe)." Because you know, bombing schools and hospitals while mining humanitarian corridors has been too gentle, right?
They were pissed, so they did what all limp-dicked bullies do when they feel threatened by their intended victim: retaliate against someone helpless. And since they have such a dismal track record against Ukraine's military, the only available victims were Ukrainian civilians.
(1) Oblast roughly equates to “province.”
(2) Solovyov. Aleksandr Solovyov
Works Cited
Al-Jazeera Staff. “Russia’s Belgorod, Ukraine’s Dnipro attacked as war escalates.” Al-Jazeera. 26 May 2023. Web. 7 June, 2023. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/26/russias-belgorod-ukraines-dnipro-attacked-as-war-escalates
Bartetzko, Roman. "Ukrainians blew up the Kachovka Dam, blaming it on Russia again. Is this event part of the Ukrainian counter offensive? (Response). Quora. 6 Jun, 2023. Web. 8 June, 2023. https://www.quora.com/Ukrainians-blew-up-the-Kachovka-Dam-blaming-it-on-Russia-again-Is-this-event-part-of-the-Ukrainian-counter-offensive/answer/Roland-Bartetzko
(Special thanks to 
Crux. “Russia-Ukraine War l After Energy & Power, Putin Trying To Weaponise Water By Attacking Kherson Dam?” Youtube. 21 Oct, 2022. Web. 7 June, 2023.
Faulconbridge, Guy & Davis, Caleb. “Ukraine nuclear plant shelled, U.N. warns: 'You're playing with fire!'” Reuters. 20 Nov, 2022. Web. 7 June, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-shells-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-tass-2022-11-20/
Gleick, Peter H. “It's Vital to Protect Water Infrastructure During War.” Time. 7 June, 2023. Web. 7 June, 2023. https://time.com/6285314/ukraine-dam-destruction-water-war-essay/
Jake Broe. “Russia is Losing Kherson and Will Blow the Hydro Dam.” Youtube. 20 Oct, 2022. Web. 7 June, 2023.
Jankowicz, Mia & Epstein, Jake. “Zelenskyy says Russia wired a hydroelectric dam to explode and flood 80 towns in region it may have to abandon.” Business Insider. 21 Oct, 2022. Web. 7 June, 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-mined-a-ukrainian-dam-planned-false-flag-attack-zelenskyy-2022-10
Kirby, Paul. “Ukraine war: Zelensky accuses Russia of plot to blow up dam.” BBC News. 21 Oct, 2022. Web. 7 Oct, 2023. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63341251
Leonhardt, David. “The Counteroffensive Is Coming.” New York Times. 26 May, 2023. Web. 7 June, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/briefing/ukraine-counteroffensive.html
Moroz, Dmytro. “Ukrainian Activists Draw Attention To Little-Known WWII Tragedy.” Radio Free Europe. 23 Aug. 2013/ Web. 7 June, 2023. https://www.rferl.org/a/european-remembrance-day-ukraine-little-known-ww2-tragedy/25083847.html
Seibt, Sebastian. “A small step across the Dnipro River, a giant leap for Ukraine’s counteroffensive?.” France 24. 28 Apr, 2023. Web. 7 Jun, 2023. https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230428-a-small-step-across-the-dnipro-river-a-giant-leap-for-ukraine-s-counteroffensive
Sweet, Jonathan & Toth, Mark. “In Ukraine, Russia is nearly down to its nukes.” The Hill. 1 June, 2023. Web. 7 June, 2023. https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4027714-in-ukraine-russia-is-nearly-down-to-its-nukes/
Ukrainska Pravda. “Russians mine dam of Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and plan historic catastrophe Zelenskyy.” Yahoo! News. 20 Oct, 2022. Web. 7 June, 2023. https://www.yahoo.com/video/russians-mine-dam-kakhovka-hydroelectric-172538600.html
Ukraine Front Lines. “#BREAKING: Drunk russian soldiers on livestream admitted mining the Kakhovoska Hydroelectric Power Plant at the dam, with planned detonation for New Year's. Video from December 10th, 2022 stream by a russian mil blogger who was fundraising for the army. English subtitles:.” Twitter. 2:58 AM, 7 Jun, 2023. Web. 7 June, 2023.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1666353801178095618
- i