A photo of a white car bomb is another piece of evidence that Russia blew up the Kakhovka Dam. That car had to provide extra fireworks, because more than enough explosives had already been installed.
Just after the June 6 explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka dam across the Dnieper, Ukraine and Russia blamed each other. Both camps seemed convinced that this was a deliberate attack by the other side. Meanwhile, more and more pieces of the puzzle indicate that Kiev was right. The latest new evidence is a drone image taken by the Ukrainian military.
Press agency AP will release the images on Monday. The photo was taken a few days before the explosion and shows a white car with its roof cut away. Inside are large barrels with a landmine on top, and a cable runs from the wagon to the bank occupied by the Russians. Where the car stood on the dam, a gigantic hole now yawns.
According to military analysts, the car bomb had two purposes: to block a possible attack by the Ukrainian army on the dam and to damage the top of the dam. So do not destroy it, because the car bomb was certainly not strong enough for that. It was extra fireworks, just to be sure.
Explosion
It has been clear for some time that the dam was blown up and did not collapse due to previous damage. Experts believe that only a powerful explosion inside the dam could have caused the disaster. Judging by the shock recorded – two on the Richter scale – at least 300 kilograms of explosives would have been used. It is impossible that Ukrainian sabotage units could have just smuggle them in. They also did not drive the car bomb onto the bridge.
Earlier, an intercepted conversation between Russian soldiers also surfaced. “Our sabotage groups were there,” says one of them. “They wanted to scare Ukraine with the dam. It didn’t quite go according to plan.” The intention would have been to destroy the bridge and cause minor flooding. Ukrainian bridgeheads installed on the Dnieper islets for the counter-offensive would be washed away. But the destruction was so great that the Russian defense lines were also flooded. According to experts, the dam was further torn open by the force of the water.
Gallery
The water has receded considerably in the meantime, but the damaged foundations are still not visible. It means that the explosion must have occurred at the foot of the structure. And research has pinpointed a possible location. According to The New York Times the dam had a passage, a kind of gallery that almost runs on the bed of the Dnieper. It doesn’t take a lot of explosives to hit that gallery with walls up to 40 meters thick. And cracks at the base of the dam are enough to let the water mass do the demolition work. It was the construction’s Achilles’ heel, and the Kremlin must have known it. The Soviets built the dam themselves in the 1950s and the construction drawings are in the archives in Moscow.
Russia, meanwhile, maintains that Ukraine is behind the catastrophe. But that a rocket attack caused the collapse is, according to experts, virtually impossible. To destroy a similar dam in Germany during World War II, the British developed so-called ‘dambusters’. Five 4.5 ton bombs were needed. With the missiles that Ukraine has today, 45 pieces with the heaviest payload should have been hit.
The new puzzle piece will not make the Kremlin confess. Nor does an investigation. It is even forbidden. A few weeks before the dam burst, a law was passed that “prohibits investigation of incidents in hydrotechnical installations in occupied territory.”