Quoting the above Washington Post piece Andrew Korybko points to a possible motive for today's demolishing of the dam:
"[Kovalchuk's] remark about how “the step remained a last resort” is pertinent to recall at present considering that the first phase of Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive completely failed on Monday according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Just like Ukraine launched its proxy invasion of Russia in late May to distract from its loss in the Battle of Artyomovsk, so too might does it seem to have gone through with Kovalchuk’s planned war crime to distract from this most recent embarrassment as well."
The most recent embarrassment was the failure of yesterday's attack near Novodarovka and Levadnoye. As the Russian Ministry of Defense noted in a special statement:
"As a result of active and self-sacrificing actions of the Vostok Group of Forces, which displayed courage and heroism, the enemy has been stopped, and the set tasks haven’t been achieved. The AFU formations and military units suffered significant losses.
Total AFU losses in South Donetsk direction were over 1,500 Ukrainian servicemen, 28 tanks, including FRG-manufactured 8 Leopard tanks, three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, and 109 armoured fighting vehicles."
Was the dam actually demolished?
So far, it has not been. Both sides are accusing each other of laying charges on the dam.
Who controls the land around the dam?
If it is Russia, then there’s’ no way the UA can sneak sappers in to lay charges on the dam without the Russians knowing, or, as a minimum, removing them.
Kazan is the name of a city in RuZZia.
Is that where you live?
Yuppers /s
@visegrad24 4h
“Congratulations to our soon-to-be NATO allies in Sweden on their National Day.”
(Putin did that - Finland and the Ukraine too)