WORLD : Let’s begin with the tragic event that has eclipsed everything else: a large terrorist attack on a packed Friday night shopping center at the outskirts of Moscow. But while there are many dead, and the event is clearly momentous, there is actually not much of substance to be said on it yet, without rehashing the same baseless gun-jumping discussions from Twitter and elsewhere.
There’s simply too little solid verifiable information, so we’ll only gloss it over for now, and tie it into events on the ground in Ukraine at the end.
The more directly salient events occurred last night, when Russia launched one of the larger and more impactful strikes of the war, hitting numerous Ukrainian hydro-electric power plants, including the big one in Dnipro—one of the largest in Europe—Zaporozhye, and a plant in Kharkov, as well as dozens of other military production sites in Kiev and west Ukraine.
The important question revolves around why these sudden attacks?
There are a few possibilities:
1. It’s merely part of the pre-planned campaign to degrade Ukraine’s infrastructure, particularly in advance of a planned larger Spring military campaign. The attacks’ association with Ukraine’s recent provocations, i.e. terror strikes on Belgorod, are merely coincidental.
2. The strikes are a direct response to Ukraine’s recent provocations, including targeting of Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure, terrorist actions against Belgorod region, etc. This is Putin’s way of signaling to Ukraine that they’ve crossed a red line.
3. Or a combination of the two.
One of the reasons for the third option being most likely is that it’s very plausible that Russia was forced by political necessities to make at least some kind of show of repaying all the recent criminal actions of the Kiev regime.
However, at the same time, there are increasing reports about various Russian mass buildups and preparations for a large offensive later this year. One of the interesting little mentioned aspects is that—if you’ll recall—both before and after Kakhovka dam was destroyed, Ukraine played water level games with the Dnipro dam, by opening the sluices to further exacerbate the flooding and destroy Russian positions all along the Dnieper River.
Note Shoigu’s statement at the time about the Dnipro dam:
What is my point? That even without the functioning Kakhovka Dam to control Dnieper River water levels, Ukraine still retained an ability to do that with the other dams upriver, like this Dnipro one. That means, we can surmise that Russia’s disabling of the Dnipro dam could potentially have something to do with taking away Kiev’s abilities to mess with the Dnieper River water levels.
Why would Russia want to do that?
Logic would suggest one possibility being that Russia intends to cross the river, and doesn’t want Kiev to have any further abilities to ‘flood them out’ and destroy supply lines.
Recall that the current locus of the conflict revolves around Odessa: there is a race to the city, with NATO now licking its chops to capture it. Macron has even reportedly made a new statement that Ukraine could “collapse very quickly”, which answers one of the questions I posed in the last report about why the sudden urgency:
And Ukrainian Rada Deputy Goncharenko made the most official admission of potential NATO involvement when he posted that, while in Paris, he had meetings specifically about a French military contingent potentially being sent to Ukraine:
He even specified what the purpose of the troops could be, which is exactly what we projected last time:
This was followed by Orban indicating the possibility that France/NATO could send troops in 2-3 months’ time:
Though I must say the above is somewhat taken out of context and sensationalized, because Orban was merely rhetorically remarking that it “wouldn’t surprise him” if that happened rather than implying some confirmed information. Similarly, anything told to Goncharenko will have been morale-boosting wishful thinking meant to convey ‘European strength’ and ‘solidarity’.
But to get back to the point at hand: Given that there’s even a potential for NATO involvement in the semi-near future, Russia could be poised to attempt an assault toward Odessa via the river, as outlined earlier.
I have vehemently called this impossible before—and I stand by my earlier assessments. The likelihood of a cross-river assault is very low, but I’m merely posing the possibilities for why Russia felt the need to hit the dam. You may say: well, they hit other plants so the strikes were likely aimed at degrading the electric grid. But a wrinkle: Russia hit both the engine room of the DniproHES and the cranes which open and lower the sluice gates. If they wanted to merely knock out its power generation, the turbines would presumably suffice. But why hit the cranes that open the sluice gates to control water levels too? True, they could merely have been ‘thorough’.
But recall: the Soviets did manage to successfully cross the Dnieper in WWII, in 1943’s ‘Battle of Dnieper’.
So it is possible, or was once—but under modern conditions of enemy ISR and long range precision strikes, like those of HIMARs, etc., it’s not likely.
However:
- Ukraine’s precision strike systems are being heavily attritioned now, HIMARS have been recently struck multiple times as Russia’s own ISR capabilities are said to be massively ramping up with new satellites, mass use of drones and UMPK glide-bombs, streamlined/optimized kill chains, etc.
- I’m not sure what the water level is currently, but if the levels are still low or nonexistent in places due to the Kakhovka dam destruction, then it could make such crossings more plausible.
- Historic depletion of Ukraine’s artillery munitions could allow acceptable counterfire levels for such a foray.
Like I said, I still view it as highly unlikely—for now—but it’s a possibility worth enumerating for the sake of discussion. We already know Russian command is adverse to losses and retreated from Kherson-side entirely just owing to the remote possibility of being stranded there with pontoon and logistics lines taken out. However, the fact that NATO’s intentions to take the city have now become crystalized could result in Russian command taking the chance to accelerate Odessa’s capture, rather than waiting for the full surrender of the AFU as I had expected would be the case.
Recall that the French military officials themselves showed a map with French troops guarding the Dnieper specifically, as one of the possibilities for their usage. And Goncharenko confirmed this above, stating the Dnieper is one of the considered placements for French troops. Why would that be?
Further recall Macron’s earlier words: the AFU may face a rapid or sudden ‘collapse’. Maybe Russia is laying the ground for a potential lightning offensive across the Dnieper.
RUSSIA TAKES CHARGE OF DNIEPER RIVER (which divides Ukraine into East and West) – Defense Minister Shoigu.
Russian forces have created a Dnieper River Flotilla, an army corps, a motorized rifle division and a brigade of river boats – Shoigu in top vid.
So, Russia is creating special river crossing divisions in the marine corps, as well as a new Dnepr Flotilla, all before blowing the largest dam on the river. It could all be merely perfunctory strengthening of forces and a campaign of methodical infrastructure degradation, or the precursor for some kind of planned escalation across the river.
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Now, the second biggest matter.
BY SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER
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