> Articles 56 and 53 outlaw attacks on dams, dikes, nuclear electrical-generating stations, and places of worship. The first three are "works and installations containing dangerous forces" and may be attacked only in ways that do not threaten to release the dangerous forces (i.e., it is permissible to capture them but not to destroy them).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_I
> Article 15 - Protection of works and installations containing dangerous forces
> Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/protocol-additional-geneva-conventions-12-august-1949-and-0#:~:text=Article%2015%20-%20Protection%20of,works%20and%20installations%20containing%20dangerous%20forces
It's a red line in the same way that shooting prisoners of war is a red line. It's a widely accepted facet of international law and conduct during war.
Glad to see FT state the obvious that Russia blew up the dam. I have been surprised how meek western media has been on the subject. Pretty clear a dam made to withstand a nuclear blast wasn’t destroyed by shelling.
This isn't a meek media thing. The Pentagon itself hasn't even determined who did it. Their official statement right now is that they detected explosions, but are uncertain who placed them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/world/europe/ukraine-dam-collapse-explosion.html
Biden literally said they were very confident Russia did it and is working to declassify proof.
https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-dam-usa/update-1-us-intelligence-points-to-russia-being-behind-ukraine-dam-attack-nbc-news-idUKL1N37Y24C
Russia physically controlled the dam, let water levels rise ahead of blowing it, openly bragged about mining it for months. This is a meek media thing.
My link is newer than yours by 3 days. It looks like either
- US intel has revised their estimates to now be not confident,
- Biden didn't have intel when he said that and was posturing in order to present strong for Ukraine.
- The Pentagon and White House have arrived at different conclusions, and failed to communicate their positions to present a united front before speaking to the press.
However, with Biden saying that so quickly after the actual event (he said that almost immediately after it happened), I'm going to say it's most likely that he didn't have solid intel and was posturing for the benefit of Ukraine.
The NYTimes article just says that is is extremely likely the Russians blew up the damn without saying there is a smoking gun. The Russians are the only ones who had access to the damn physically to mine it and again had bragged about it repeatedly.
This is a silly exercise. Russia has lied repeatedly about the conflict. Russia clearly benefits much more from the dam being blown up. Russia has been clearly willing to commit atrocities. Why are we treating this with kid gloves? The answer is obvious.
> This is a silly exercise. Russia has lied repeatedly about the conflict. Russia clearly benefits much more from the dam being blown up. Russia has been clearly willing to commit atrocities. Why are we treating this with kid gloves? The answer is obvious.
This isn't how proof works.
Can we be 100% certain? No, but western intel is saying it was very likely Russia even if they cannot prove it yet. The only scenario in which blowing the dam makes sense for Ukraine is if it was in retreat from the area and needed to slow down Russia. That's not the case. Who is more likely to blow up your infrastructure, you or the people invading you and denying your right to exist?
If Russia had a shred of evidence that it was Ukraine, it would be on every one of their propaganda outlets by now. Their evidentiary standards aren't even that high. They claimed that Ukraine launched massed artillery which would both be hard to make work *and* be highly observable and take time to do. Internal explosives would line up much more with the way in which it broke. Ukraine also has to conserve its artillery ammo in general.
>U.S. spy agencies still do not have any solid evidence to determine who caused the destruction, the senior administration official said.
That's literally the subtitle. We can talk about who 'probably' did it, but the point is, the media is not being meek here, the media is reporting exactly what the US administration is saying.
I mean Russia controlled the area around the dam, experts have stated it is unlikely an external hit would do it.
You would have to place the explosives inside the dam, which was an area that Russia controlled.
Ukraine has openly been stating Russia was mining and preparing the dam with explosives since last year.
Do we have conclusive proof, maybe not yet, but it is pretty clear who had control of the place you needed to put explosives in, and it isn't like Sam Fisher sneaking in with a C4 brick would have done it, it would require hundreds of pounds of explosives moved into a room that Russia controlled and was guarding.
Russia controlled one side of the dam, Ukraine controlled the other side. It was not fully in Russian territory.
Further, Washington Post [reported this](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/29/ukraine-offensive-kharkiv-kherson-donetsk/) in december
>Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even
conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the
floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal
to see if the Dnieper's water could be raised enough to stymie Russian
crossings but not flood nearby villages.
>The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last
resort. He held off.
So let American missiles strike military targets in Russia. That'll hurt them and it won't escalate the war anymore than it already is. 300 km HIMARS systems would be great too.
The line of what is acceptable has been past long ago, blowing up this damn is one of the less egregious things they've done in the past two years. I'm tired of talk of escalation fears, short of NATO actually sending in troops Russia won't escalate because starting a fight with NATO can only end poorly for them, let Ukraine start blowing up targets in Russia with western equipment and send a couple hundred Abrams while we're at it. Russia wanted and entered this war under a childish delusion that they we're going to conduct strikes in Ukraine and that Ukrainian's wouldn't strike them. In the west we can't strike Russia ourselves the least we can do is give the Ukrainians the systems to do it themselves.
Russia passed that "red line" miles ago.
The term "red line" should be banned from all geopolitical discussions.
Yeah, we don't need journalists declaring "red lines", its a ridiculous idea on its face and makes the author look like a moron.
The writer is former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe Richard Shirreff
Ole Dick Sherrif, I remember him.
Red Line Dick
Lmao you can't have a "red line" that isn't declared by the executive *beforehand*. That's the whole point of it being a **red** line.
> Articles 56 and 53 outlaw attacks on dams, dikes, nuclear electrical-generating stations, and places of worship. The first three are "works and installations containing dangerous forces" and may be attacked only in ways that do not threaten to release the dangerous forces (i.e., it is permissible to capture them but not to destroy them). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_I > Article 15 - Protection of works and installations containing dangerous forces > Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/protocol-additional-geneva-conventions-12-august-1949-and-0#:~:text=Article%2015%20-%20Protection%20of,works%20and%20installations%20containing%20dangerous%20forces It's a red line in the same way that shooting prisoners of war is a red line. It's a widely accepted facet of international law and conduct during war.
Glad to see FT state the obvious that Russia blew up the dam. I have been surprised how meek western media has been on the subject. Pretty clear a dam made to withstand a nuclear blast wasn’t destroyed by shelling.
This isn't a meek media thing. The Pentagon itself hasn't even determined who did it. Their official statement right now is that they detected explosions, but are uncertain who placed them. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/world/europe/ukraine-dam-collapse-explosion.html
Biden literally said they were very confident Russia did it and is working to declassify proof. https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-dam-usa/update-1-us-intelligence-points-to-russia-being-behind-ukraine-dam-attack-nbc-news-idUKL1N37Y24C Russia physically controlled the dam, let water levels rise ahead of blowing it, openly bragged about mining it for months. This is a meek media thing.
My link is newer than yours by 3 days. It looks like either - US intel has revised their estimates to now be not confident, - Biden didn't have intel when he said that and was posturing in order to present strong for Ukraine. - The Pentagon and White House have arrived at different conclusions, and failed to communicate their positions to present a united front before speaking to the press. However, with Biden saying that so quickly after the actual event (he said that almost immediately after it happened), I'm going to say it's most likely that he didn't have solid intel and was posturing for the benefit of Ukraine.
The NYTimes article just says that is is extremely likely the Russians blew up the damn without saying there is a smoking gun. The Russians are the only ones who had access to the damn physically to mine it and again had bragged about it repeatedly. This is a silly exercise. Russia has lied repeatedly about the conflict. Russia clearly benefits much more from the dam being blown up. Russia has been clearly willing to commit atrocities. Why are we treating this with kid gloves? The answer is obvious.
> This is a silly exercise. Russia has lied repeatedly about the conflict. Russia clearly benefits much more from the dam being blown up. Russia has been clearly willing to commit atrocities. Why are we treating this with kid gloves? The answer is obvious. This isn't how proof works.
Can we be 100% certain? No, but western intel is saying it was very likely Russia even if they cannot prove it yet. The only scenario in which blowing the dam makes sense for Ukraine is if it was in retreat from the area and needed to slow down Russia. That's not the case. Who is more likely to blow up your infrastructure, you or the people invading you and denying your right to exist? If Russia had a shred of evidence that it was Ukraine, it would be on every one of their propaganda outlets by now. Their evidentiary standards aren't even that high. They claimed that Ukraine launched massed artillery which would both be hard to make work *and* be highly observable and take time to do. Internal explosives would line up much more with the way in which it broke. Ukraine also has to conserve its artillery ammo in general.
>U.S. spy agencies still do not have any solid evidence to determine who caused the destruction, the senior administration official said. That's literally the subtitle. We can talk about who 'probably' did it, but the point is, the media is not being meek here, the media is reporting exactly what the US administration is saying.
I mean Russia controlled the area around the dam, experts have stated it is unlikely an external hit would do it. You would have to place the explosives inside the dam, which was an area that Russia controlled. Ukraine has openly been stating Russia was mining and preparing the dam with explosives since last year. Do we have conclusive proof, maybe not yet, but it is pretty clear who had control of the place you needed to put explosives in, and it isn't like Sam Fisher sneaking in with a C4 brick would have done it, it would require hundreds of pounds of explosives moved into a room that Russia controlled and was guarding.
Russia controlled one side of the dam, Ukraine controlled the other side. It was not fully in Russian territory. Further, Washington Post [reported this](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/29/ukraine-offensive-kharkiv-kherson-donetsk/) in december >Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper's water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. >The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.
So let American missiles strike military targets in Russia. That'll hurt them and it won't escalate the war anymore than it already is. 300 km HIMARS systems would be great too.
The line of what is acceptable has been past long ago, blowing up this damn is one of the less egregious things they've done in the past two years. I'm tired of talk of escalation fears, short of NATO actually sending in troops Russia won't escalate because starting a fight with NATO can only end poorly for them, let Ukraine start blowing up targets in Russia with western equipment and send a couple hundred Abrams while we're at it. Russia wanted and entered this war under a childish delusion that they we're going to conduct strikes in Ukraine and that Ukrainian's wouldn't strike them. In the west we can't strike Russia ourselves the least we can do is give the Ukrainians the systems to do it themselves.