By Otis Grotewohl
June 14, 2023

The Nova Kakhovka Dam, a hydroelectric dam located in southern Ukraine, was destroyed on June 7. Evidence suggests the dam was intentionally attacked. Its demolition led to mass flooding and ecological destruction. Many fear the toxins and debris that have been released will cause harm for years to come.

The damage particularly affects thousands of people residing in 35 settlements located in the region around Kherson. Most of these residents have been displaced from their homes. Despite this fact, Western media and political leaders have been quick to point their finger at Russia, citing baseless claims from Ukrainian officials.

Another area that is affected from the dam destruction is Crimea. On this peninsula, millions of residents primarily receive their water from the North Crimean Canal, which is fed from the reservoir above the Kakhovka Dam. (RT, June 6)

It makes little sense that Russia would intentionally sabotage the water supply of Crimea, as the imperialist powers suggest. Shortly after the U.S./NATO-sponsored coup in Ukraine in 2014, roughly 95% of Crimeans voted overwhelmingly on a referendum to independently separate from Ukraine and reunite with Russia.

Under the directive of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Crimea was transferred from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1954, a fact deliberately omitted from any corporate media coverage.

According to Russian environmental activist and engineer-physicist Ilya Rybalchenko, the Ukrainian regime had been conducting mysterious operations around the Kakhovka Dam just two weeks prior to its unexpected destruction. Among Rybalchenko’s strongest claims is that the Kiev government had purposely raised water levels around the dam. (sputnikglobe.com, June 7)

Rybalchenko has publicly posed the following questions and comment to the Ukrainian government: “What then were you preparing for these two weeks? Why did you make the maximum water level?” “And now it’s all pouring out.”

Two days prior to the Kakhovka Dam destruction, the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline was mysteriously destroyed in the Kharkiv region, far from Crimea. This will also have negative implications for both Ukrainian and Russian people in the area. Russian leaders say they have strong evidence this was carried out by Ukraine, and it is a story that has received barely any coverage in the Western press. (The Print, June 8)

The U.S. and its NATO allies had clear motives to destroy the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, the Nova Kakhovka Dam and earlier, the Nord Stream pipelines.

Similarities to Nord Stream Pipeline

A series of clandestine bombings led to the annihilation of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines 1 and 2 in September 2022. Much like the Kakhovka Dam, U.S. politicians of both capitalist parties, along with bourgeois media pundits, immediately accused Russia of blowing up the pipelines.

Substantial evidence now suggests that Washington and Kiev collaborated in destroying Nord Stream. In February 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden threatened Russia in an interview with a reporter by stating the U.S. would “bring an end” to the Nord Stream project if Russia “invaded” Ukraine. (sputnik.globe.com, April 10)

Biden was not the only member of his administration to make threats against Nord Stream. In January 2022, Victoria Nuland — who serves as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs — infamously made similar threats against Nord Stream stating, “We will work with Germany to ensure it does not move forward.” (MRonline, Feb. 7)

In January 2023, exactly one year after that comment, Nuland testified in a Senate hearing and said, “I think the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

Nuland is a longtime board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, an outfit known for promoting pro-capitalist “color revolutions,” and she played a key role in the violent 2014 coup. She was recorded as saying “F— the EU,” in response to the European Union’s request to overthrow former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych “peacefully” and “legally,” as opposed to the illegitimate way the U.S. and NATO had encouraged.

As the proxy war against Russia drags on, the imperialist powers will continue to stoop to new lows in an attempt to weaken and destabilize Moscow. Recent battles, such as the one in Bakhmut, show Russian military advances. As a result, the U.S. and Ukraine have declared combative counteroffenses, which will continue to ruin the lives of Ukrainian and Russian citizens alike.

One of the best ways for anti-imperialists to fight the proxy war is to question the U.S. State Department narrative and expose the truth. It is crucial for antiwar forces to counter the Russophobic and Pentagon-influenced propaganda heavily prevalent in many mainstream and so-called “progressive” spaces.