> destroyed by Russian forces, says Ukraine, sparking evacuations

I thought this dam supplied Crimea with water. Or it's the shifting blame game we've seen throughout the war. Like who blew Nord Stream 2.

It's going to cause mass civilian casualties, Ukraine has tried to avoid that, Russia not so much.

Why would Ukraine do it? It prevents a river crossing for them in their counter-offensive. Russia is the only one here who gains. And they don't really care about the damage they cause. For example, the bombing of their own houses in Belgorod at the moment.

Someone provided confirmed russian defensive positions along Dniepr. Unless the Russians moved out before the Ukrainians would have at least a reason to destroy the dam.

They have, however, avoided civilian casualties, and looking at the map this would have been a deviation from that. It would fit the russian MO better

What are you saying could be a reason for Ukraine to do this? The flooding is probably not fast enough to trap/kill soldiers at those positions. And while those defensive positions will be "destroyed", they are replaced kilometers of marshlands, which is a superior defense, at least in the coming months. It can be held with much fewer people, shortening the effective length of the front, and freeing up soldiers to be used elsewhere. Massive gain for Russia, unfortunately. Likely nothing positive for Ukraine, unless they have something _incredibly_ creative going on.

I agree with you. This is probably a net positive for Russia which will have to defend a smaller stretch of land in the (probably) upcoming offensive.

Crimea has survived without water for years previously. Russia may have determined that the expense of some aquaducts across the Kerch Strait is less than the expense they may incur from a successful Ukrainian crossing of the river.

Or they may have determined they are likely to lose Crimea anyway and are salting the earth behind them.

This is to say, there are plenty of reasons why they may feel motivated to do this. Furthermore they destroyed another smaller dam in Eastern Ukraine only about 2 weeks ago.

They may not “need” the water for drinking, but it looks like it supports a lot of crop irrigation.

It does not seem that Russia ever cared about the wellbeing of the territories they occupy.

The canal was not working until last year. It's questionable how much agriculture has been revived in that time.

That's a detail. Crimea did without that canal from 2014 to 2022.

> shifting blame game

No need for game: if Russia did not invade, this would not happen.

That doesn't give a blank check to do whatever you want without criticism.

And if previous actions justify later actions then the US shouldn't have meddled in 2014.

Thus "no need" to blame Russia, the US is responsible.

In reality, things are much more nuanced than that logic.

> And if previous actions justify later actions then the US shouldn't have meddled in 2014.

Ukrainians chose Europe.

Russian actions back then and now just confirm, that Euromaidan was the right course of action.

Keep eating propaganda for breakfast.

I'm not talking about the 2014 "election" that happened after the Crimea invasion.

I'm talking about before all that. The 2014 coup openly supported by US and Europe that overthrew Ukraine's pro-Russian elected President.

These things aren't propaganda, they are events that happened.

Do you honestly believe that coup was totally organic and the US had no hand in that one (just others)?

"In November 2013, a series of events started that led to his ousting as president.[10][11][12] Amid economic pressure from Russia,[13] Yanukovych retracted plans to sign an association agreement with the EU, instead choosing to accept a Russian trade deal and loan bailout. This sparked large protests by supporters of European integration, who held a wave of protests dubbed the "Euromaidan" and were met with violent reprisals from authorities. Three months later, the escalating civil unrest led to over 100 deaths[14] and culminated with Yanukovych's flight into exile in Russia.[15] Later that day, Ukrainian parliament voted to remove him from his post and schedule early elections on the grounds that he had withdrawn from his constitutional duties"

So, when people don't like what their government is doing it's only because some external powers are to blame for supporting them?

If anything the above quote points the "meddling" being done by russia and not the US/West. So they made it happen and when it went wrong they obv point to others. This is so classic. That some fools still fall for it is the amazing part.

> I'm not talking about the 2014 "election" that happened after the Crimea invasion. I'm talking about before all that. The 2014 coup openly supported by US and Europe that overthrew Ukraine's pro-Russian elected President.

Neither am I, did you even read my comment?

It’s a revolution, not a coup, when will you learn already?

And I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. That without US and Europe Euromaidan would never succeed? Or that Euromaidan was orchestrated by US and Europe?

> These things aren't propaganda, they are events that happened.

Events that happened is Ukrainians CHOSE Europe. Russians CHOSE to invade in 2014 and 2022.

> Do you honestly believe that coup was totally organic and the US had no hand in it?

Yes. How much do you even know about history of Ukraine?

What about Russia trying to kill Yanukovich's opponent (who after the failed poisoning even failed to win, despite confirmed election fraud)? The same Yanukovich that promoted European integration during the 2013-2014 campaign and then reneged on his promises once elected, thus prompting Euromaidan—it was all his doing, no need to involve US and Europe in the supposed "coup".

You’re not going to have a reasonable discussion on this topic here. The last time I brought up my personal history living and working in Donetsk and the views of my neighbors and friends, I was emailed and texted multiple times by users here to “kill myself”.

Sorry to hear that, but I'm not surprised.

The level of discourse here for certain topics is disheartening, but it's worse to have an echo chamber of them self-validating themselves.

If you could "vouch" my top comment that was flagged, it would help.

Your comment isn’t adding anything to discussion.

If you have anything to say about the topic - you should say it.

Your comment isn’t adding anything to discussion AT ALL.

GP added more than you did; a meta discussion about the politics of HN and their handling of GP's life experiences related to this topic.

> a meta discussion about the politics of HN and their handling of GP's life experiences related to this topic.

No, they didn’t? They discounted the discussion because of some (possibly) made up situation of being harassed.

They didn’t even link original comment about their experience of living in Donetsk.

It's really easy to find: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33285734

GP probably didn't want to expand because of their previous experience.

Either way, you derailed the discussion more than anyone else and contributed the least, don't you think?

Imagine seriously thinking that a society that had financed one of the largest militaries in the world on a partially ground-up/volunteer basis for the last nine years couldn't finance an internal revolution against a corrupt twice convicted criminal who infringed on his own campaign promises, the rights of businessmen, and human rights, and who fled to the country that had been threatening Ukraine ever since the 2003 Tuzla incident, while also keeping the Parliament running throughout the events and preserving a Constitutional majority of representatives.

Nah, it's all the US, of course. Ukrainians can't do shit in their own country, except breaking the back of the second largest army in the world purely out of spite towards those who want to take away their freedoms.

> In reality, things are much more nuanced than that logic.

I hear this a lot, but living just a few hour drive from the conflict and sharing a border with Russia, my take is that the west is overthinking this.

This is Russian politics which spilled over to another country. You can see it in e.g. how Prigozhin is positioning himself politically.

They're trying to figure out who will lead Russia in the coming years and this invasion is used to further this goal.

Of course there are other objectives, but this is the main one.

No it's very simple.

If Russia didn't invade, Russia wouldn't be killing people and blowing up their stuff.

Russia's actions are Russia's responsibility, not America's.

Constant surprise how many pro Russian views there are from a mainly American audience on a tech website. I'm anti war, anti the US going into Iraq for example. Therefore I'm on the side of Ukraine here and we should give any support necessary for them to defend themselves. No "provocation" that happened or has been made up or imagined by Russia excuses what they're doing. There are plenty of political reasons I don't necessarily like for the west to support Ukraine, but reasons aside, outcome is aligned.

You’d think everyone in the US can align with Ukraine on this.

Peaceful orientation: Russia started it

Warlike orientation: Ukraine winning this thing would defeat a major US rival

Budget conscious: sending $1 to Ukraine does more to cement US hegemony than sending it to the DoD

Social justice types: Russia has a horrific record on the human rights of anyone who isn’t Putin

Conservatives: Ukraine, formerly part of the USSR, is trying to align itself more with the Western way of doing things and Russia is violently trying to stop them

Yeah, spot on. It's incredible how many people here think they see the big truth while the "herd of sheep" is obviously way less enlightened than them. How anybody can orchestrate a pro-russian view point within this conflict is mind boggling to me.

>Conservatives: Ukraine, formerly part of the USSR, is trying to align itself more with the Western way of doing things and Russia is violently trying to stop them

The biggest meme amongst conservatives now is how west all sucks. Amazing how quickly that spread. Reagan would be disgusted with traitors that calls themselves Republicans nowadays.

Wonder where that meme came from. And the conservatives further up the thread are accusing me of falling for pro-Ukraine propaganda.

Thanks, great wording

Don't confuse "pro-Russian" with "anti-bullshit" stance.

Finding Russia to be the aggressor and Ukraine to be the victim doesn't automatically imply you have to throw away all your mental faculties and gobble up wartime propaganda without questioning, reducing yourself to a binary classifier - "it says Ukraine good == it's good; otherwise, it's pro-Russian trolling".

War time is literally the last moment you want to take what anyone involved says at face value. The eagerness with which people in tech circles - including on this very website too - are jumping in to loudly signal their allegiance with a side (be it Ukraine in this conflict, or US in US vs. China threads, or...), whether or not it even makes sense, much less follows any kind of sensible reasoning - this is what keeps baffling me. As a teenager/young adult, I had the impression that STEM circles are better than this. The last decade has proven me wrong.

Anyone who values STEM and the legacy of enlightenment that has made STEM possible should definitely pledge allegiance to the Western side in a conflict with Russia or China, even if that includes repeating wartime propaganda at times. I find it perfectly rational.

Broadly supporting the Western side? Perhaps. Siding with and supporting Ukraine in this conflict? Yes. Repeating war propaganda? I strongly think this is just sawing off the branch you're sitting on.

We can debate the merit of the idea of sacrificing the thing you value the most in order to protect it - but it's neither here, nor there. People on the ground, fighting to defend their homes, are going to do whatever they feel necessary, including plenty of nasty, ugly, underhanded things - as it has always been in the history of war. But people far away, safe from any ongoing conflict, have no excuse - they're not sacrificing anything but intellectual integrity, and they're not doing it for survival, but rather for internet points or a leg up in some domestic political games.

Funding this war (which we're losing) is gutting funding for further education and scientific research.

It's possible there's a secret plan which will turn things around, but it seems more likely that the only thing which benefits from our inevitable defeat is the arms industry.

> It's possible there's a secret plan which will turn things around, but it seems more likely that the only thing which benefits from our inevitable defeat is the arms industry.

The benefit of a Russia that is incapable of committing more or any forces to there numerous wars of conquest is a net benefit for the entirety of the Europe as it increases stability in the region.

It could still mean a Vietnam type situation which wasn't fun for the Vietnamese. But I doubt Ukrainian citizens would choose the other option just to end it early.

Might be worth asking again in a year from now when this war will likely still be deadlocked.

How are we losing? Ukraine was supposed to fall in days. For them, even holding the line isn't losing, and they've pushed the line back.

I talked about politics that I don't like here it is: the west is not losing, it's winning substantially. Even if Ukraine doesn't win back territory, the west sees Russia bash itself against a wall losing men and equipment, and showing its hand operationally. And the amount spent is a pittance to western governments. We could, and imo we should, give Ukraine to means to win. But I would say there is a calculation going on the US about stringing out the war longer to weaken Russia even further and perhaps even pull out its alliances, see what happens.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine are going to "win" in the sense of coming out of things better than they went in. Ukraine obviously. But Russia has probably fallen further from higher. The war has essentially solidified Ukraine identity and politics, but it's starting to unravel Russian politics. Nobody can know what the future holds, but I cannot see a future now where Russia is not considerably weakened - it's turned it's western neighbours/customers into enemies, shown weakness to its vassal states, and gone begging to China for material and trade.

Also what outcome do you want? We surely don't want Russia to win this and think its great and start more wars and repress more people. I think we should care at least.

> And the amount spent is a pittance to western governments

I don't consider well north of $100billion and climbing to be a pittance.

> We could, and imo we should, give Ukraine to means to win.

And yet we haven't. The Ukrainians are still rationing artillery fire, appear to have lost most of their air defence cover and long ago lost air cover.

If we were serious about winning the US government would have switched to a planned economy (as we did in WW2), taken control of munitions production and gotten a handle on our out of control military contract padding.

> But I would say there is a calculation going on the US about stringing out the war longer

That's certainly one way to spin trying to lose more slowly.

> Also what outcome do you want? We surely don't want Russia to win this and think its great and start more wars and repress more people. I think we should care at least.

a negotiated peace. Tricky given all of the times the US has betrayed Russian trust over the last ten years. The only plausible route feels like a massive neutral DMZ (probably everything east of the Dnipro) administered by a BRICS led UN peace keeping force.

Hugely embarrassing for the West and NATO, but would end the killing and devastation and allow us to concentrate on the real threat of climate change.

> The only plausible route feels like a massive neutral DMZ

How is that even remotely plausible? It would be absolutely unprecedented in scale, Ukraine would have to cede protection of massive amounts of its territory in exchange for Russia doing what? Stop trying to unsuccessfully advance frontlines and be saved from counteroffensive?

It makes no sense to me.

> I don't consider well north of $100billion and climbing to be a pittance.

You may not but the west does, the US is spending less then 10% of its yearly military budget and is mostly giving Ukraine stuff that was going go be replaced soon anyway.

> a negotiated peace. Tricky given all of the times the US has betrayed Russian trust over the last ten years. The only plausible route feels like a massive neutral DMZ (probably everything east of the Dnipro) administered by a BRICS led UN peace keeping force.

Why should Ukraine trust a negotiated peace with a country who already has multiple international agreements to not invade them?.

Ukraine already has a negotiated peace agreement with Russia it’s called the Budapest memorandum it didn’t stop them invading in 2014 or 2022.

All a negotiated peace does is allow Russia to rearm itself and try and grab more land.

We have tried appeasing Putin in the past when the west did nothing about what happened in Georgia, Chechnya and in Ukraine in 2014.

Appeasement doesn’t work, the only thing Russia understands is force so the only way this works out well for the rest of world is if they suffer a huge defeat.

I don’t see this working unless the DMZ starts on Russias side of the pre 2014 border.

> Hugely embarrassing for the West and NATO, but would end the killing and devastation and allow us to concentrate on the real threat of climate change.

If you want to really end these threats then get Russia to leave Ukraine. But I have a feeling you don’t want that to happen.

There’s a lot of pro Russia / pro CCP people on HN. Even dang is pro CCP.

Would be nice to live in a world where there was no border conflicts or vile threats from governments.

Ah, the world without humans!

Interesting question. How badly does someone have to behave before you feel you have a moral blank cheque in stopping them. I think starting a war counts.

> How badly does someone have to behave before you feel you have a moral blank cheque in stopping them.

No such point? I don't think you processed what a "moral blank cheque" means.

MrOwnPut: >That doesn't give a blank check to do whatever you want without criticism.

FredPret >moral blank cheque

Read more

It's sad how people still believe Russian propaganda, and these claims have been constant throughout the war:

- We didn't bomb the civilians, that was Ukraine.

- The torture chambers weren't ours, they were found in Ukraine.

- Ukraine are nazis (no comments on the Russian white supremacists in the military).

- We did not blow up Nord Stream 2, that was Ukraine (or the US).

- We did not blow up the dam, that was Ukraine.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Fool me once, you invade a country and lie about everything.

Ukraine exaggerates their victories to get weapons.

Russia lies about war crimes, murdering civilians, rape, etc.

It's called "fog of war". If you believe everything Ukraine/US/EU says you are just as much as a fool as if you did believing Russia.

Of course you shouldn't blindly believe everything one side says, but saying that Russia is as trustworthy as the rest of the world (barring a dozen countries at the bottom of the democracy ranking) is just wrong.

One said Ukrainians are nazis and satanists and that NATO wants to invade Russia. And that Russia won't invade in 2022.

The other side said Russia wants to invade and that it will invade in 2022.

Believing that when there's 2 sides the truth is always in the middle is foolishness.

russia invaded, end of story. keep your pedestrian whataboutism to yourself, please.

This "whataboutism" is perfectly valid, because it highlights double standards. Whataboutism isn't a blanket logical fallacy, it's applicable in certain scenarios.

Russia is the invader, Ukraine is the victim: there is no common standard that is applicable to both of them. Be better.

Since you seemed to appreciate logical fallacies, your argument starts with an appeal to emotion [0], then ends with ad hominem [1]. There's no point in your argument, nor in your personal attack, since nobody denied the war or mentioned anything about it in this thread of ours. Siding with the victim doesn't suddenly make your logic perfectly sound, and it doesn't make your peers side with the aggressors, either. Let's keep discussions civil, shall we?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Defend slavery and the poor cotton farmers next using freshman college terms and Wikipedia links.

What are you trying to say? To hell with facts and reason, if they're opposing my politics or emotions?

I guess critics of enlightenment were right: humans ain't improving shit. We're only pretending to, and it works only as long as the culture allows it.

Pearl-clutching alone is not a valid justification to end a discussion.

It’s not pearl-clutching when you have seen missiles and drones flying towards your house like I have.

I agree with the intention of this comment. However, "fog of war" usually refers to the situation the fighting soldiers and commanders are in, not to the situation the ordinary population. It refers to the fact, that the soldiers and commanders themselves need to fight. Where they need to base their decisions on an understanding of the situation high uncertainty.

The OP "believes" that the Russians bombed out their own pipeline, a thing not even mentioned by the Western press anymore (it's all a "blob" for them at this point).

The flooding affects the left side of the river, the side that the Russians control. This also leaves the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in danger of having no cooling left, the same Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that had been shelled by Ukrainians in the lest six to eight months with not even a slap on the wrist from the Westerners.

>This also leaves the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in danger of having no cooling left, the same Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that

It does not work like that, the plant is in cold shutdown and has all the water it needs. Also, the water is taken from the bottom of the reservoir/river.

>had been shelled by Ukrainians in the lest six to eight months with not even a slap on the wrist from the Westerners.

You forgot to add that it was shelled with magical shells that flip always flip when hitting the ground, making it look like russians did it! The same with donetsk buildings getting hit from southeastern side! Satanic technology.

It’s clear that we live in totally two separate worlds. Time will tell.

This recent event also made me aware that the Ukrainian men that I see daily here in the streets of Bucharest have not run away from the Russians, but from some of their fellow Ukrainians.

> the same Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that had been shelled by Ukrainians in the lest six to eight months with not even a slap on the wrist from the Westerners.

I'm glad you brought up another item to my list.