Ukraine's Major New Offensive Begins

Destruction of Critical Ukraine Dam May be Counteroffensive

Ukraine and Russia are both blaming each other for destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam. Hal Turner blames the destruction on Ukraine in one story below. Russia also claims Ukraine is responsible for blowing up the dam, which it says Ukraine did as a diversion from its new offensive around Bakhmut. I think that is an absurd twist in logic. Ukraine has been doing nothing but bragging about its coming offensive and is bragging about it again today as it begins. So, it hardly appears to want to divert public attention away from its offensive. If anyone wants to distract people from that news, it is clearly Russia because even Russia’s own people are saying in the news this morning that the damages being taken from the offensive in the Donetsk region around Bakhmut do not look good for Russia.

Why would Ukraine blow up its own dam that so effectively now blocks off all access to Crimea with a massive flood when it has clearly stated it plans to take that area back? This is the very scenario I described back in November as being likely to come from Russia with Putin’s clear track record of using scorched-earth policies in other invasions of other countries as a way to wall off Crimea from any new offensive by Ukraine. So, while Russia and some others blame Ukraine for this devastation because it is mostly flooding areas Russia holds, the Financial Times points out the many reasons Russia stands to benefit most from this desperate act of destruction (but that article requires a subscription, so it is not included in the headlines below, as I try to stay with listing articles that are freely available to all).

You can still get the reasoning, though: I explained last year, in detail, how Russia could be expected to blow up the dam and why it would serve Russia’s interest to flood the area Russia occupies in an article titled, “Are “Mad Vlad” and “General Armageddon” Plotting to Nuke the Dam above Kherson?” I also explained how they would blame it on Ukraine. Well, no one used a small nuke, as was being talked about a lot back then, but the dam was just wiped out. It may be that the spillway section burst solely due to water pressure during flood season because this is the section that was possibly weakened last fall by Ukraine when it tried to surgically make the bridge over the top of the spillways unusable for Russia. Russia, on the other hand, planted explosives in the very section of the dam that some say blew up this morning; i.e., did not just burst due to pressure on a weakened structure.

Taking out the dam does not just cut off passage into Crimea to keep the new offensive from happening where many Russians thought it would right on the day the offensive is being said by both sides to have begun, but it also puts at grave risk the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that Russia occupies because that reactor gets its cooling water from the now-draining reservoir. The reactor has a backup pool capable of supplying adequate cooling for the stored nuclear rods for about two months, which must always be cooled even if the reactor is shut down; but, that is a massive ticking time bomb that will create even worse scorched earth and a major distraction for Ukraine, as Ukraine will be harmed severely by a meltdown. That time bomb started ticking exactly as Russia now appears to be getting pressed back out of the region.

You would never guess it was such a big news day from all the stupid news that also came out. I’ve included the stupid news and highlighted it because I intend to lampoon it in my satire publications, The Malarky Musket (which takes critical aim at Biden) and The Trumpette Gazette (which takes magnum-loaded MAGA potshots at Trump & Co. because I’m an equal-opportunity pot-shot — not hot-shot — critic.) If you don’t want to miss where I take the stupid news later today, you may want to subscribe for free to whichever one of those publications tilts the most your way because I write them for my own comic relief, which means they rarely get added to, but joining the free email list will make sure you don’t miss the fun when it happens. (At least, you’ll know I amused myself, even if not you. Warning: Pick the slant you like because there is no sense running away mad when your favorite politician gets lanced with my lampoon harpoon.)

Let me give you one fun example: One of the first stories I read today was titled “Highly Intelligent and Possibly Invincible Super Pigs Are Invading America.” My first thought — as it would be anyone’s — was that this was an article about the US congress. Then I read that the pigs were invading from Canada, and I thought, Why would Canada be sending its politicians to us? Surely they can’t be worse than the ones we already have. That is when I smartened up and noticed that the article title led off with “highly intelligent.” Well, heck then, clearly it was not about politicians at all! These must be real pigs if they are smarter than US or Canadian politicians. In which case, it’s probably a fake-news story. Why would Canada be invading us with pigs? We already had the Pig War with Canada in the San Juan Islands and settled this matter long ago.

You’ll see there are several stories like that in the Offbeat section of the headlines below to give me plenty to run with later today. You’d also think it was a low-news day based on stories about Donald Trump’s pool flooding and his attorneys going out of their way to meet with the DOJ. Yes, that is all the latter story was about: they just entered the building to meet. Call me wrong, but I thought going into buildings was something all attorneys do every day. And the big story in the news pool was that Trump’s pool flooding could have taken out critical Mar-a-Lago digital surveillance records … except that it didn’t! Plenty for both The Malarky Musket and The Trumpette Gazette today!