Nova Kahkovka Dam: Four Frontline Floodgates

Part 3 of What Caused the Collapse of the Nova Kakhovka Dam?

June 29, 2023

(slightly rough, incomplete)

(adds/edits June 30, July 1, 4, 18...) add 7/29

My part 1 considered hydrologic erosion vs. damage - from onetime Russian bombing and repeated Ukrainian rocket shelling - in the June 6 collapse of Nova Kakhovka dam. Initially I took erosion as unlikely to matter and some kind of attack - by either side, and I'd suspect Ukraine - as "at least 50% likely." That's been greatly downgraded since, but not ruled out ... may be some smaller explosions were involved to start or just worsen a collapse that might well have occurred - and more than likely did occur - without explosives, 

My last post is part 2 and explained the hydrologic overload that may have caused, or at least worsened, the Nova Kakhovka dam catastrophe, and how it might have been deliberately engineered by Ukraine.  It was their dams and reservoirs - five of them - that came out low as they made it so far too much water came in to Lake Kakhovka, filling the reservoir from record lows to 100% full in a matter of weeks, and keeping it ~100% full for a month, for a massive and high-centered volume. This came as the reservoir had some of its emptying tools disabled months earlier, and it used the rest to drain water at such a rate it flooded the river downstream past safe levels in May and June, flooding Russian trenches and reportedly killing one soldier, and probably, somehow, causing or worsening erosion that finally undermined the dam. 

What I'm looking at now, in my amateur effort, is how that initial collapse came to be at just that time. Neither post has tried to really explain just how water alone (almost alone) could do this. Erosion details will come in part 4. First, we'll consider some mysterious attack(s) on the dam and its sluice gates, or floodgates, and how and why these gates were so poorly-managed during the spring flood season or Ukrainian river offensive.

November: Attack the Floodgates

We'll start with Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, head of Ukraine's 2022 offensive in the Kherson area, as cited in a December, 2022 Washington Post article on The Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war (archive.org). "

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.

This "test" sounds like an actual strike on the dam, not on some test model, causing real damage to this important piece of civilian infrastructure. The article specifies no date and no gate, but that seemed worth establishing if possible.

First, it seems the attack happened sometime between satellite images of October 18 and November 12, and it damaged floodgate 1. We can get this specific just comparing two images. Water flowing through a floodgate will usually be visible from above as a frothy streak on the surface. The top view shows regular flow from several open gates, and none from the closed gates at the dam's far ends. By the next view, even with all 28 floodgates closed, a light, uneven flows appear in 2 new areas at the far ends, both suggesting recent damage. 

At gates 26-28 on the right, the flow begins where the roadway above has been blasted away. Other views show this water mainly flows under the closed gates now that they're misaligned. (November 13 video). That roadway was demolished the night of November 11, by the Russians, after they retreated from the north bank, to prevent Ukrainians following them or getting vehicles on the bridge at all. What seem to be explosive-filled vehicles were later set on the road nearby, probably to deter any Ukrainians from trying to cross on foot. No car bombs or erosion here mattered in the collapse; this section alone remains, with those 2 vehicles still parked. 

But as marked in red above, there's a similar flow at the dam's other end, from gate 1, also appearing since the last image, perhaps also from damage that's not as clear. At this point, damage-related leakage comes from just 2 spots, and no others appear later. And so only gate 1 pops out as having otherwise unexplained damage, and is thus probably the one proudly hit in that "test strike." 

A photo published months later "on social networks" (still to track down) was passed on by Ukrainian FLASH news, among others, showing the sorry state of an unspecified floodgate at the dam. "It is physically impossible to stop the discharge of water at the moment."  (FLASH on Twitter March 6) From that gate, indeed. It would run about like that until collapse in June. 

Rossiya 1 filed a report (details...), with some screenshot shared by OSINTJOURNO on Twitter. The frame below gives a better view. There might be "3 holes," but mainly I see one big hole torn out on the right, below that loose walkway, allowing a serious geyser, along with the nearby edge tearing and overall massive buckling that pulled the gate from its securing rails, letting water also spray around the sides. The damage is worse than it sounded. 

Again, unexplained foamy discharge appears only at gate 1, starting by November 12. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel also decided this is gate 1 from details in the damage photo - a gantry crane is seen parked above gate 3 to the left, and gate 1 has a missing rail or trestle that sets it apart (on Twitter). Both details seen close up at the rocket impact point. We see the blue legs of gantry crane 2 above sluice gate 3, then the inflows to gate 2, above which  the damage starts, and gate 1 where it mainly is. The top of bent gate 1 is just off frame at bottom left. (photo provided to OSINTJOURNO)

Here is that damage mapped, along with 3 other damage points, boxed in red. First, they're absent on September 2, as the hits from at least 2 attacks in August have perforated the curved roadway (gold box). Next, on November 12, damage appears in the red boxes: 2 of them just clearly enough to say, one less clear and one hidden. Gate 1 and roadway near gate 3 seem to have happened. (An October 18 view isn't very clear, but seems to hold from September.) So I'm calling these - roughly - August and November attacks on the dam - with some reported others in between being even less clear.

Russia's mission to the UN published a letter listing dozens of Ukrainian attacks on the dam and its environs. "Overall, during the summer and fall of 2022," it says, "the total of more than 300 missiles were launched from MLRS HIMARS alone against the Kakhovka HPP," and some other rocket models were also used. Some basic details are given, with just one case mentioning the floodgates, and check the date: "On 6 November 2022, the HPP was shelled with 6 HIMARS missiles. One of them hit and damaged the flood-gate of the dam."

Reuters, November 6: "State-owned news agency TASS quoted a representative of the emergency services as saying that a rocket launched by a U.S.-made HIMARS missile system had hit the dam's lock and caused damaged. The official quoted said it was an "attempt to create the conditions for a humanitarian catastrophe" by breaching the dam. The reports provided no evidence to support the allegation, which could not be immediately verified by Reuters." "Lock" sounds more like the lock than a floodgate or sluice gate, but maybe it's in how the word usually translates from Russian.

Readovka News reported at the time: 

“Today at 10 am, 6 HIMARS missiles hit. Air defense units shot down 5 missiles, one hit the lock of the Kakhovka dam, which was destroyed." That's 11 HIMARS sent, as reported.

The lock/flood-gate hit Nov. 6 is almost certainly the same gate 1 we've seen damaged, and that was leaking by November 12. Since the September view, two other visible impacts appear on either side of gate 3, and what might be 2 close impacts, patched-over, appear on the roadway near gate 5 or 6. All likely relate, maybe from the same attack, with 1-2 other impacts being less visible.

Comparing the impact point at gate 1 to the gate's off-center bend - and assuming that's all from one impact - I found this rocket came from the northeast, roughly from the Nikopol direction, at a distance I won't even venture. But noting the underwater blast suggested at the gate, this might be 2 impacts. But these rockets all came from somewhere Ukrainian; they say it was a US-supplied HIMARS, and thanks. They found they COULD damage the dam and maybe flood the Dnipro downstream, to effect crossings and such. 

No other floodgates I've seen are clearly damaged, but two rockets fell on either side of gate 3, quite likely in the same attack on the 6th. Signs discussed below suggest this gate was at least partially opened before it apparently lost power, sometime after November 15, so at least nine days after the attack in question. If the damage is from November 6, neither the gate nor the cranes were damaged enough to prevent their moving around and opening this one.   

OSINTJOURNALIST has some close-up views on the SE side of gate 3. 

https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1672332173704085504 - https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1672332946437464064 - https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1672889668973502467 

I'm still not sure how the scene and all these views correlate in time and space - some views show some rubble and a toppled fence further over, near gate 5 or 6, where a roadway impact is evident. No closeups of gate 5, but 3 has a ledge demolished just a few meters from the gate, and some walkway with lip that it keeps looking different. The spot always looked complex even from above. A less clear photo (to me, when I looked) was said to show how "the foundation immediately west of gate 3 is giving way. " It looks like a "before" photo but it seems like a complex couple of views. I suffered minutes of headache before giving up on making full sense of it. Here, the most dramatic view with the best context: 

Coming from the north-northeast, the damage we see is from the direct rocket impact and low-angled, "back" side of the blast wave. Fragments on this side would mainly go down into the water ramp and the wall on the left, and maybe the lower gate, if it were closed then (as it was on Nov. 6). The higher-angled forward blast wave and fragments spread would be to the right, towards the hydro plant's powerhouse nearby.

One more view, looking down, we see the likely reason for unclear flow at gate 3: the water is probably passing through a screen of reinforcing bar and concrete that dangles way down.  

Add July 18: I made some sense of the scene, but it includes some before-and-after scenes and with unclear dates - maybe mostly from December, except the "before views" that should be, per known attacks, sometime prior to November 6. 

Gate 3 seems mostly open but perhaps not entirely, and it's still held by the crane, as if it stopped in mid-opening, never releasing the gate like it would probably do after it was locked open. But this shelling didn't cause that; this damage and the apparent impact to the roadway on the other side of it seem to predate November 12, after which the cranes were seen moving around. 

While dangerous erosion appears later near damaged gate 1 and stuck-open gate 3, the connection may be indirect. The constant and uneven flow could wreak havoc on a mud-lined riverbed, but considering the protective concrete basin - and even its being damaged in the same rocket attacks - it remains uncertain enough to cover in detail in my next post.

For now, consider this constant flow was due to the same 4 floodgates being open for months on end, with no change. And that's because the cranes that would move around opening them sat still for that whole time. I wondered when they stopped moving and why this happened. 

When did the cranes stop moving?

David Helms posted the following slide, showing the positions of the 2 cranes (blue) and open sluice gates (green), noting: "Russian occupiers stopped active water management after 1 DEC 2022 for no apparent reason"  

The night of Nov. 11 - the cranes were pulled back to the SE end prior to the roadway blast, and seen there the next day, parked over gates 5 and 6. So they weren't shut down by any shelling on the 6th.  As Helms notes, the cranes moved again after the 11th and 12th, by twilight on the 13th (probably evening, but maybe morning?), and moved again sometime after that (between Nov. 15 and January 2) or as he says, after December 1, but I'm not sure why he's that specific. 

I believe Helms is incorrect on gate 3 closed the whole time, and he's clearly wrong on gate 1 open later on, but otherwise ... Some of these images I haven't seen - notably Nov. 13 & 15. But I assume he read those as well as the others. It all makes sense. They're opening gates in sequence, 5 & 6, then at some point gates 3 and 7 were opened and the cranes were in their final positions, one over and maybe just opening gate 3, stopping perhaps mid-gate and never resuming ... complications arising, mainly because of Ukrainian meddling, was absolutely the norm here.

Helms re-posted the images I hadn't seen. November 13 has a video of the dam at twilight. As Helms called it, this shows the cranes moved to gates 3 and 6. Gate 6 is still closed, the hoist dangling high, unlike at 3, where it seems hanging low but still disconnected from the gate. Neither has been opened yet.  ҐРУНТ on Twitter

The November 15 view is at Sentinel Hub - blurry, but it seems to show the same configuration. Sentinel Hub EO Browser (sentinel-hub.com. I checked for any later views; they were pretty regular to this date, but it's all just clouds or blank from here until a decent view on January 1, a good view on January 19 and then more in February.

The next clear view Helms or I know of is from January 2, with a February NPR report by Geoff Brumfiel, complaining how Russia is draining a massive Ukrainian reservoir, endangering a nuclear plant. This shows a new crane position, reached sometime since the last image. As called, crane 2 is over gate 8, but hasn't gotten it open. Since the last view, it had moved, opening gate 7. At this point, gates 3, 5, 6 & 7 have been pouring non-stop anywhere from a day to a month and a half, and gate 1 has been half-pouring for nearly 2 months.

And finally, the photo of gate 1 damage seems to show the final crane positions; crane 2 is still at gate 3, but unlike on November 13, it seems frozen in mid-hoist. Crane 2 seems to be farther off, around gate 8. The photo surfaced in March, but as some noted, it must have been much older. The water level appears about a meter below splashing-over full, so around 16m or higher, while Hydroweb recorded levels in March were still below 15m. The best time for this level after the damage but before March is in or around early December - 16.07m reported December 2, after a quick rise and before a slow fall, and with some unclear days after. Hydroweb (theia-land.fr)  David Helms on Twitter probably consulted the same to guess the photo was from late November. It's probably from that time and meant to show recent (weeks-old) damage plus new, dangerously high, water levels. So it seems both cranes are immobile, possibly inoperable, by late November or early December, when the level passed 16 meters. That alone seems interesting.

The cited Hydroweb records show an unusual rise to 16.5m - the normal maximum allowed - in September, peaking on October 4. That was corrected over the following weeks with some emptying, to 15.5m - the normal low - and then down to 15.33. Then another sharp rise begins after November 13, with sharpest rise at first, between the 14th and 17th. A week after the floodgates were damaged, was Ukraine pouring in extra water? Maybe as part of its "test" to "see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages?" The level climbs steadily at least to December 2, rising at least 0.74m (from 15.33m to 16.07m). For a reservoir this size in 19 days, that's substantial. It might have gotten even higher just before that or just after, but before a net decline that appears by December 10, then a rise back to 15.95 on the 12th, but down from there.

This buildup might have been alarming, coming as it did atop a newly-damaged dam. As of November 13th, floodgates were being opened, perhaps to slow this rise. Crane 2 moved first, opening gate 5 where it had been parked, maybe skipping gate 4, and parking over the damage-flanked gate 3, not opening it yet. Helms suggests gate 4 was first opened, then closed in between stays at gate 3. but that's less logical, the swerving foam in the 11/13 video is unclear on its origin, and in that video, gate 4 doesn't appear raised like gate 5 is. I think just one gate is opened there. 

This was apparently good enough, at least until midday on the 15th, when the same configuration is seen. The discharge then appears wider than just one gate - maybe 6 and/or 3 has been opened? If not, then it was later that Crane 1 moved, opening gate 6 where it was, then opening gate 7, and getting parked over gate 8 but not opening it yet. It was perhaps just then that crane 2 finally set to opening gate 3 when - perhaps all at once - they stopped. 

My best single guess as to when they stopped is shortly after that last view - later on November 15 or sometime the next day, when the water rise was fastest. Logically, the operators were trying to slow that by opening more gates. They got 3 others open, but their sudden halt might explain the levels rising unabated to the 17th and maybe past (next entry with a milder rise is 11/23). If so, then any such flooding relented on its own - by just a bit - over the following 2 weeks, before it stopped sometime in December (there's a gap from 12/2 to 12/10 during which the level falls overall). Kovalchuk reportedly "held off" on this "last resort." From then to February 2 the trend totally reverses and levels drop to that startling low of 14.06m. 

All of that quite likely happened with no change in the Russian-managed floodgates after mid-November. 

Add July 18: revised thinking on this: the opening of 2-3 gates would have a bigger effect than I thought - the same was done in early October (by satellite views), reversing a serious buildup (per Hydroweb records). It was probably the same in December, as the final 2-3 floodgates were opened - probably after December 2 - to reverse the buildup and turn it to a decline by Dec. 10. Assuming the cranes were stopped in mid-process, they likely stopped sometime around Dec. 3 Dec. 7 or 8, or shortly before the December image of gate 1 showing the final crane position and high water levels only seen at this time. 

Why did the cranes stop moving?

OSINTJOURNO on Twitter is my source for some valuable photos already cited above, and some detailed research into dam construction, etc. that plays into my next post. This also comes with details from dam insiders that might shed light, but are dubious on balance. OSINTJOURNO is staunchly pro-Ukraine, but really seems to put the "open" back in "OSINT" anyway. That might prove an odd balance. Anyway, a valuable Twitter thread started June 21 started off badly:

"I have spoken to several people who were employed at the Kakhovka HPP. Independently, they confirmed that the shelling with HIMARS rockets in 2022 did not cause visible damage the sluice gates." A September 2 image was shown. We also hear that "Crane 1 malfunctioned somewhere in February" and "The lifting mechanism of the sluice gates 2 to 28 is different from that of gate 1. Since crane 2 only contained the lifting beam for gate 1, only gate 1 could be operated." 

These claims were shown wrong, as OSINTJOURNO seems to accept. There was definite visible damage at the first gate most people would see, gate 1, probably from November 6. That's late in the year, but still 2022. So gate 1 couldn't be operated. It wasn't the only one that could be. And crane 2 is seen parked over gate 3 & seems to have it open with whatever attachment it has. It should have been able open other gates, if it could keep running.

So the rest has to come with some grains of salt, and some pepper to get through this part. Let's consider OSINTJOURNO may hear from several people and just one tells fibs or makes up nonsense - sources seem to have too many stories, but maybe it all fits together somehow:

Version 1) One crane alone suffers a malfunction, in January or February, and the other was useless past (undamaged) gate 1, and hence no more gates can be opened. "Crane 1 malfunctioned somewhere in February 2022. It was situated between gates 7 and 8 at that time and has remained there since then." I got agreement that should be 2023 (typo/error), and she added it could have been in January. This is what I panned above. Version 1 is rubbish.  https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1671466274415603714

Version 2) A power source on the Ukrainian side was severed by the Russians in their demolition of the roadway on November 11. "According to the former employees I have spoken to, the electricity for crane 1 and 2 (intended for operating gates 1 to 28) came from this transformer station on the Ukrainian-occupied side." https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1672923284130746369

This suggests the cranes ran on external electric power supplied via the bridge, perhaps by the rails the cranes moved on. David Helms had assumed they were run by diesel powered engines - which would make this story bogus - but he wasn't sure (Tweet). Neither he nor I can tell how they ran, but external power seems plausible and it's what the insiders say. Someone else can probably just look and tell. If so, please let me know.

An off switch on the Ukrainian side sounds interesting, but as OSINTJOURNO heard, "Due to the destruction of the road surface, rails, and maintenance road adjacent to the rails (all above gates 28, 27, and 26), the electricity supply to crane 1 and 2 from the northern transformer station was interrupted." So as it sounded, the cranes were powerless, and gates 1-28 - all of them - would be left unchanged from November 12 forward. No malfunction in January or February seems likely.

David Helms refuted this along with me, noting the cranes moving around after that date. He was already on record about it. Helms is cited in a February NPR report: Russia is draining a massive Ukrainian reservoir, endangering a nuclear plant. "Then on Nov. 11, 2022, as Ukrainian forces advanced, Russian troops blew up a road over the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam" and "immediately after the detonation, it appears that Russian forces deliberately used two gantry cranes on the Russian-controlled side of the dam to open additional sluice gates, allowing water to rush out of the reservoir." 

Version 3) Inverting the above, OSINTJOURNO also heard a power source on the Russian side was disrupted by Ukrainian shelling: "According to the former employees I have spoken to, the electricity needed to operate the cranes was supplied from here to 6 different points where the cranes could tap into that electricity. The HIMARS bombardment caused an interruption in that electricity supply." https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1672906920615886848 The indicated spot is on the Russian side, on the shoreward end of the HPP powerhouse. No damage to that spot has been seen, but a second photo of the impact at gate 1 is shown, perhaps suggesting the power was sent by rail and the missing rail disrupted that. But this was at gate 1, probably hit November 6. "The cranes" would both be de-powered in this scenario, but they moved well after that. And for goodness sake ... how many stories do these people have? Just one more ...

Version 4) Crane power came from the north and south, and it's not clear what happened when. Only later did another detail appear, though it might have been there quietly all along. She referred back to the "statement made by ex employees to me stating that electricity for crane 1 and 2 for operating northern gates came from this substation." It said power for all 28 gates, north and south, but OK. With the road demolition, "that nord [north] powerfeed was cut." https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1673458203143680000 

After I missed that, she also added "electricity for south operation gates 1 till 14 came from electricity housing south of turbine building. electricity for gates 15 till 28 came from north side." ("crane 3 operated on power rail mounted on wall" and seems only used for opening gates of the power plant) https://twitter.com/osintjourno/status/1673653721778077698

Such details could easily get lost in the shuffle of translation and re-transmission. Versions 2 & 3 merge into version 4, where the north power cut - if that ever happened - was irrelevant to cranes that never tried moving north of gate 8. (Also, any closer might put them in too much sniper danger, if it was even physically possible). 

Finally: "In the weeks leading up to the collapse of the dam, they constantly warned that the water level was reaching catastrophically high levels and repeatedly advocated for the repair of crane 1 to enable the opening of multiple gates again. However, their pleas went unheard."

This suggests not just power supply but physical damage was at issue - or perhaps the "repairs" were to reconnect them to an alternate power source.

No stories yet told explain a power outage in mid-November or December. Maybe the sources were right about the switch on the Ukrainian side, but wrong about its being severed, or its only powering the north half - maybe it ran the whole length, even after November 11, until it was just switched off at some point. If  the cranes were diesel powered, something else needs to explain it - some kind of sabotage from inside or outside, or it could even be a separate event that shut down each crane. And it's possible the Russians could operate the cranes just fine and simply refused to do it. In short, we have no clear answer as to why the cranes stopped moving.

Add 7/29: To clarify why seems so compelling: the sources seem intent on blaming Russia or sowing distractions, but using some insider knowledge to do that. They alone have suggested a power interruption as the cause (others considered only damage to the cranes and, seeing that was unlikely, assumed full functioning), and they're also the only ones to suggest a linked power source on the Ukrainian side. This was useful to blame the Russians for disrupting that link, but that story fell apart. And yet the mentioned links remain possible clues, insider knowledge providing a unique and logical answer, in my opinion - that the cranes stopped moving because the power source on the Ukrainian side was simply switched off. 

Conclusion A Russian Attack?

Geoff Brumfiel's February NPR report said the dam operators opened the floodgates "immediately" after the Russian military's retreat-based detonation of the roadway on November 11, "deliberately ... allowing water to rush out of the reservoir." The reader gathers this was a bit of malicious vandalism against a place they were giving up on, presaging Russia's imminent defeat. It doesn't mention the Ukrainian attacks or rising water levels that preceded this drainage. "[David] Helms believes the deliberate discharge is another way for Russia to hurt Ukraine. Now that Crimea's reservoirs are full, he says, this could be a way for Russia to hamper Ukraine's economy, which depends heavily on agricultural exports." "Ukrhydroenergo, Ukraine's hydro electric company" - who might have done that flooding, and the fatal flooding next spring - "believes the discharge is being done deliberately by the Russians," Brumfiel also wrote. Was that because the Russians wanted to maximize the "success" of Kovalchuk's "test strike" by raising the Dnipro? 

Brumfiel: "The result has been startling ... the reservoir's water level has plummeted to its lowest level in 30 years of satellite observation."

It could be the floodgates were frozen at 4 open and a few leaking - maybe from mid-November - cranes apparently immobilized so that it could do nothing but drain at just that rate, barring refills, which Ukraine of course controlled. They might have two reasons to let it drain low in February: 1) to complain how Russia drained it so low, and 2) to save up for spring water offensive that I might have described accurately in part 2, re-shaping the river to Ukraine's advantage better and more deniably than any barrage of HIMARS rockets could do.

Over the spring, David Helms and his sort would complain the Russians were again draining too much from the reservoir, and also not draining enough, letting it gow dangerously full. I've suggested the Russians increased their output in December to February to make room for anticipated spring flooding, once the dam and some related "safety valves" were deactivated, mostly in November,. And I've suggested they worked to increase the flow even more in March to June, trying to stave off the disaster. But it might be they did and could do nothing either way but let Ukraine pour in what it did and let those 4 floodgates keep pouring out what they could. 

revisiting what was plugged: In the last post I considered safety water release valves at the dam that were wrecked, jammed up, or otherwise deactivated in the months before the spring flood season / Ukrainian river offensive. In general, these are caused by violence that is "contested." Ukraine blames Russia for wrecking its own water-management capabilities with false-flag rocket attacks, as the Russian managers blame Ukrainian rocket attacks - just as alleged! 

Shipping lock: Several proudly admitted Ukrainian HIMARS rockets hit the bridge over the lock in late August, killing and wounding Russian soldiers as they crossed it. The bridge was so damaged it had to be replaced, in haste, with a new bridge supported by rubble that filled the lock, preventing water from escaping, by mid-late September at the latest.  

HPP: Sometime prior to a report of November 12: "numerous attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine" somehow made it so the hydroelectric plant was disabled, and would only be operable again "within a year." Water discharge from the plant is visible on Oct. 28, unclear on November 2 and seemingly absent from November 5 forward. 

Add July 1: By May 5, there were already fears the dam could collapse from overloading, that were just then mitigated by a floodgate of the power plant being opened.  

Reuters, May 5: "Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the general director of energy engineering firm Rosenergoatom, said specialists had begun discharging water from the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, according to TASS. "A gate of the Kakhovka hydropower plant has been opened and repair works have begun at the Kakhovka canal. Pumps and pipes are being repaired. Water is being discharged. The risks of flooding have reduced considerably." The risk would be eliminated once water levels returned to normal, Karchaa said." That never happened, of course.

"He had earlier told TASS that a possible breach of the dam owing to high water levels could flood the cable line for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant further east and cause nuclear safety risks. Nearby towns could also be affected."

Checking satellite views, planet Labs May 3 seems to show muted discharge from the NW gates, but not jetting out, and maybe rolling towards the divider. Sentinel Hub may show the same on 4/24, 5/4, 5/6, but not on 5/19 or after. Sporadic lighter flow may appear back at least to March, but it changes in late April, and on 5/6 there seems to be a longer trail of proper flow, perhaps confirming Karchaa. Drone videos seem to show medium flow on 4/28, but weak to absent on 5/11. Was that floodagte closed again? Even when something went right, it somehow couldn't last.

Pumping stations that feed into the canal system. A short video on Twitter shows four of them, as did something else I saw. In my last post, I had the pumping stations mixed up. It's the further one at Liubymivka that was damaged in shelling during November, with a related Nov. 30 disaster that left the basement flooded and the plant inoperable. This fed canals to areas to the southeast - Melitopol, etc. (https://www.ukrinform. - https://investigator.org.ua) Where the shelling came from is the Russians, as these sources report, but the Russians occupying the site prevent an investigation, so it may be hard to tell the weapon and firing direction and such. The Russians occupying the plant blame Ukrainian shelling for all the damage, but I haven't seen their evidence. Visual: hard to say from the few photos shared in the links above. Some main pipes appear hit on the west side, so not from the east. Some windows blown out on the south side, I guess, could be from nearby shells arriving any direction. Anyway, this plant was unable to help relieve the pressure Ukraine would later pour on the reservoir.

There's a northern "Zaporizhzhia canal" I didn't see much about and that seems minor. And there's one also on the Ukrainian side - "Kryvyi Rih, water lift no. 1." On September 15 and November 3 last year, Russia was accused of shelling a dam and a "water infrastructure facility" in or near Kryvyi Rih. It's not clear if either means the relevant pumping station, or what it did or could do to help lessen the burden on the reservoir in the spring. (9/15 CNN - 11/3 CNN)

Finally, the southern station closest to the dam at Tavri'isk is apparently the main canal to Crimea, and was maybe operating the whole time. Possibly related claims: Feb 23: in #Tavriisk, a water pumping station was damaged by a mortar strike." March 3 - shelling of the city of Tavriisk and a "pumping station" or "a city water intake" suffered unspecified damage. (https://ria.ru/20230302/obstrel-1855477276.html - https://t.me/VGA_NovayaKahovka/10400 - https://t.me/newkaxovka/2429) March 7: Water supply restored in Tavriysk  April 21: March 3 damage still being repaired. 

More shelling of Tavriisk was reported in May and June, but with no clear word I saw, even in the above, about the canal pumping station. So maybe it worked and the operators could drain the reservoir this way, but according to Helms, the reservoirs to the south were all "topped off" by early February (NPR, tweet), If so, they couldn't be of much help anyways in the terrible rise came entirely after this.  They could be overflooded to help some. As far as I know, they were. I might check if Helms noticed that and complained about the boundless Russian greed this showed...

A graphic for all this doesn't seem urgent. I'll finish it later. 

Otherwise, what the dam operators ("the Russians" or "occupiers") had left to mitigate the coming disaster was those four frontline floodgates, that perhaps could not be adjusted. They would let water run constantly from just a few spots, as the remaining, closed floodgates - on top of everything else that was made to fail - ensured that was all that could escape, that the filling rate would reach 100% full by May 8 and maintain it for one month. And this was the scene already by April 28 (from combined frames in this video): 

Gates 3, 5, 6 and 7 are still visibly sucking in water (5 perhaps less than the others) and mindlessly pouring it out the other side. The frothy discharge angles strangely towards the concrete flow guide or divider between the outflows for the floodgates and the power plant. On the right, an end piece of this divider has come loose at an angle, sometime since March 3, and the whole thing appears to tilt a bit towards the camera, as it has lost supports on this side. Then on June 1 or 2 supports for the curved roadway also collapsed, so they vanished into the river along with the road. This seems like severe erosion dangerously close to the dam - but erosion in what and how - is an important compound question best put in another post.

Important add 7/29: by the October 18 image and common sense, the usual practice was to use alternating floodgates, not adjacent ones, probably to minimize erosion: then six gates were used, being 5,7,9 and 13,15,17 - skipping the even ones. The frozen position of 2023 with 3 adjacent gates used  (5,6,7) was especially problematic once it was frozen in place for months on end.

Did Ukraine Break the Dnipro River and the Nova Kakhovka Dam?

June 21, 2023

(rough, incomplete, updates likely)

(a lot of minor edits June 22, adds 6/24, 6/25, 7/10)

Introduction

My last post - What Caused the Collapse of the Nova Kakhovka Dam? - noted how, in its final weeks, the dam was dealing with far more water than it should have been. I wondered if the Ukrainians had deliberately tried to destroy the dam by flooding it with insane output from the dams they controlled upstream. Having looked into this, I'm now far more inclined to suspect over-release and erosion were key factors in the disaster, and that it was the result of such a plot, and not from anyone's attack with a bomb or missile. 

This detailed infographic shows much of what I'll explain below with some data put in some context. Six hydroelectric dams control the flow of the River Dnieper (Dnipro), and with this control could even weaponize it, as Russia has been accused of doing and as it seems Ukraine just did. 

Put another way but more basic, on a slide David Helms used in his Twitter thread:

My analysis will start with Lake Kakhovka and then go downstream to prove the overload at the south end. Then we'll move on to where all that water came from - the Ukrainian-operated dams upstream. Just which dams held, accepted, or passed on what amounts of water is not all clear, partly due to widespread missing entries at the most crucial times. But the available data generally suggests they all passed on any new excess they took in April-May, along with a bit off the top (generally about 0.2m) from what they had in late March, all of which accumulated at Lake Kakhovka, filling it up even as it flooded the downstream trying to prevent that. 

The sequence of events I propose COULD hypothetically result from natural mistakes in flood management culminating in tragedy. And it COULD just get passed off that way if the issue is ever acknowledged. But I doubt that this all came about by accident or, as the Ukrainians claim with the UTMOST CLEVERNESS, did it result from the Russians' own mindless and self-destructive brutality.

Reference:

Dams in the "Dnipro Cascade" system (Wikipedia), all hydroelectric power plants (HPP) listed north to south: Kyiv HPP - Kaniv HPP - Kremenchuk HPP - Kamianske HPP - Dnipro HPP (at Zaporizhzhia) - Nova Kakhovka HPP. The last was of course operated by the Russians, and the others are all Ukrainian-operated. As I gather, the two big lakes at Kremenchuk and Nova Kakhovka each - usually - contain close to half the water in the system, while the other three just carry a minor portion divided. 

Data source: Hydroweb (theia-land.fr) - the same one everyone's been citing as the definitive measure of water levels at Lake Kakhovka. There are Hydroweb virtual stations on the Kremenchuk & Kakhovka reservoirs, some on the river upstream from them, and others at or near the mouths of rivers opening into the reservoirs, which should read at about the same level. You don't get a straightforward reading of how much water comes in or goes out, other than by comparing levels; one gallon less than before can mean nothing came in and a gallon was sent out, or it could be that 100 gallons came in and 101 were passed on. And the times in between readings are broad - at best every ten days, most of them every 28 days, and in most cases under study, again, whole months worth of data is missing at the key times, complicating my task here.

NAFO "fella" and professional meteorologist David Helms authored a Twitter thread refuting Mikael Valtersson (or "Vatnikersson") with some useful info and misleading interpretation. He did this, as all NAFO "fellas" do everything, to maximize the return on his donations to a Georgian mercenary death squad (NAFO dues go - when they go where they're SUPPOSED TO - to the Georgian Legion. Last I heard, they were sworn to illegally execute every Russian POW they take). I'll cite "Helms" below and reply occasionally. If it's not otherwise cited, it's from this thread.

The River's Heavy Load

One bit I learned from David Helm's thread: heavy rains in April. "Past two weeks accumulated precipitation (11-23 April) indicates 20-30 mm of rainfall" There were indeed widespread flood warnings and some flooding in parts of Ukraine in those days. It was expected to peak on April 22 and perhaps did. Some reports are below, and note there were also heavy rains at least in late May, leading to May 28 flooding in Dnipro city. All of this would flow into the Dnieper River, the last fairly close to the Kahkovka reservoir in the last, fateful days before it drained away.

But here's another bit few know about, and that I don't know enough about. April 10 reports: "In Belarus near Gomel, near the border with Ukraine, due to heavy rains and rivers overflowing their banks, a dam broke through: several settlements are under water." (Dmitry Solenko on Twitter - photo source) "A dam has "failed" near Zhlobin, Gomel Region, Belarus. The impacts of the flood will eventually reach the Dnipro River entering Ukraine near Chornobyl moving southward towards Kyiv and eventually through to the Black Sea." (OSINT Uri on Twitter) Eventually - if it even existed - this flood would reach the Black Sea, but there were some twists on the way, and it would carry houses, pets and debris in the end. What a convenient turn for anyone's potential flooding plan. 

Follow-up discussion notes a lack of sources, info, or dams near Zhlobin. Žlobin on Google Maps - some 200km north of the Kyiv HPP reservoir. I only found an April 7 report with likely a different episode of flooding in some other town(s) somewhere on the Sozh River - a Dnieper tributary - where a poorly-managed "dam made of sand" had collapsed. "By April 7, the water in Sozhe had risen above the dangerous level by 108 centimeters." Only minor, shoe-deep flooding is shown in some streets and yards. 

The cause and effect is also unclear in this case, or these cases - did a sizeable reservoir drain into the river, or did the river just swell with rain and actually drain some of it into these areas, lessening the burden bound for Ukraine? Whatever sized starter flood "impact" ... it would over the following days come down the Dnieper across the Ukrainian border near Chernihiv. (FWIW It doesn't pass the Chernobyl plant - that's a different river merging with the Dnieper further south.) This and heavy rainfall on Ukraine would combine to seriously raise levels all along the river. 

It's probably wise and normal to spread the load evenly in such a case, to keep any one dam from being maxxed out or any one area from flooding. But as we'll see, the rise was artificially concentrated southward to bear on the Russian-occupied Nova Kakhovka dam. Probably with full and criminal intent, but possibly by some terrible series of mistakes, it seems the Ukrainians broke the river and the dam just had to follow suit. 

Nova Kakhovka Reservoir/Lake Kakhovka

As I gather, this expansive but not terribly deep lake normally holds close to half the water in the Dnipro reservoir system. At the end, I'd say it held ... way over half, anyway. 

Lake Kakhovka page on Hydroweb: water level normal range: 15.5-16.5m year-round, max. allowed 17m once, briefly. In 2023, levels fell to a bizarre 14.06m on Feb. 10  - then at an alarming speed, levels rose to 14.84m March 31, 15.5 by 4/11, and passing the normal range to 16.8m by April 25, then to a dreaded 17.5m by May 8. Here it's 100% full and stays about the same until the end, one month later. A slightly lower level of 17.36m is maintained, aside from a spike 17.54 on May 20, and it's even lowered to 17.26 at the end, on June 4.  (The sharp drop after the dam collapsed is considered below. It got weird later)

That's increased output at the end, but mainly - by dipping BELOW the max so we can see some small changes - this shows a rough parity between input and output for that whole month. And as I'll show, output was very high. That means input was very high, and we really should ask WHY, considering how disastrous that was getting. This situation didn't develop suddenly; people - notably at Dnipro HPP - had time to realize the danger and to keep adding to it anyway. 

KM0320: R. Kins-ka: this station is about 8km from the reservoir (Coord: 35.384, 47.7004 (lon, lat) ), not the visibly swollen stretch but still levels should be similar to the reservoir. Normal range: 16-19m. It rises to 16.6m between March 9 and April 5, then a missing entry in early May, and then 17.36 on May 29 = ^0.76m 4/5-5/29. That's still within norms here, but the trend clearly reflects the swelling reservoir, which was never a secret anyway.  

"Missed Opportunities" to Drain the Lake Kakhovka

So that was a sorely overfilled reservoir, as some astute people noticed at the time. David Helms noticed it. As he would later complain in his post-collapse thread, the Russians could have released more of that water, lessening the danger, but they blew every chance in a criminally negligent manner. "RF missed opportunities to divert water from Kakhovka Reservoir through: Kherson & Zaporizhzhia Irrigation Canals - K-HPP Lock - K-HPP Turbines - K-HPP Sluice Gates." Let's consider each of these in chronological order.

"Russian occupiers could have discharged water through the K-HPP lock, especially after the RF 11 NOV 2022 retreat, but they didn't." Why they could do this "especially" after November 11 is unclear. They built a new bridge over the lock in or by October because the Ukrainians blew up the old bridge. Made in haste, this was supported with fill that blocked the lock. (see photo: File:LockCanalBlocked.jpeg - A Closer Look On Syria (shoutwiki.com)) I didn't get all the details, but the Russians could NOT use it for emergency release afterwards, thanks to Ukrainian aggression and the questionable "Russian" response that blocked one drain. Having seen that blocked drain, someone set to blocking others.

"Russian occupiers could have discharged water through Kakhovsky Main Canal," Helms complained. But they didn't do that, he thinks, because they wanted the maximum possible volume of water there. But they didn't just refuse to pump the water or switch the station off. No, "in November 2022, the Russian occupiers bombed and flooded the KMC main pumping station creating "a disaster". Dec. 1: Base pump station within Kakhovka Main Canal flooded due to enemy shelling – Khlan (ukrinform.net) 

Obviously, they would blame Ukraine. Nov 12: after "numerous attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine" the hydroelectric plant was disabled and "other large facilities were also damaged, for example, the North Crimean Canal and the Kakhovka Main Canal." https://t.me/readovkanews/46721 Helms was able to dismiss these claims somehow. He didn't mention if the Russians had also bombed the Crimean canal pumping station, and he didn't mention it as a "missed opportunity" either. That too would have been a useful safety valve. It's upstream a ways, here on Google Maps, and I recently saw images of it, from Helms or whoever, damaged in another attack that's obviously disputed. 

Previously Oct 24, following UAF strike w/HIMARS, "an active discharge of water is currently going on through the canal system to protect Kherson in case of flooding when the locks of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station are blown up." (https://t.me/readovkanews/45201) All other methods of release would go into the river, which was overtaxed that spring. Having these alternate drains to assist, one of them helping supply Crimea, might have really helped avoid disaster. It's probably thanks to Ukraine these two release valves were deactivated - at least one of them AFTER the lock was plugged up and just about as the dam got deactivated. 

As for the power plant's turbines, Helms says "Russian occupiers destroyed K-HPP's ability to generate electricity." Well if so, they don't admit to it. Nov 15 "Head of the occupation “administration” of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo has told Rossiya 24 TV ... “the turbines don’t produce energy and there’s no need for it.”" He doesn't say why, but "the occupation “administration” of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region had fled the city due to shelling." Probably Russian shelling, huh? Russia’s occupation ‘authorities’ report that Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station’s electricity production halted — Novaya Gazeta Europe Nov 12 "The head of the Novokakhovka urban district, Vladimir Leontiev, said that the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station had received serious damage after numerous attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to Leontiev, it can be restored within a year." https://t.me/readovkanews/46721

I'm not sure, but if the turbine is not operating, maybe it can't turn, and thus can't let water pass? Not a good design if so. And I'm not sure how any known attack could disable them, but I imagine there are a few direct and indirect ways the war criminals in Kyiv could, would, and did do this. This too is likely thanks to Ukraine. 

Floodgates were used, and heavily, to drain the reservoir all Spring. This was because the Russians wanted ... NOT QUITE the maximum possible volume of water? It's a good idea in that case to rotate the drainage to minimize localized erosion (or so I gather). But as Helms complains "Russian occupiers stopped active water management after 1 DEC 2022 for no apparent reason," using just the same few gates constantly. 

Helms thinks they were using just the same 2, or maybe 2-3 floodgates (favoring 2, based on 2 cranes?). Geoff Brumfiel thinks it's 3 - gates 5, 6, 7. It could be 8 is closed even with a crane parked above it - maybe opened at time, but not that I've seen. Gate 1 is leaking after an apparent, direct impact from a HIMARS missile, helping to wash out the nearby supports for the roadway that collapsed on June 1 - gate 3 seems open under the other crane in some views, including this one at right. (and BTW a Russian witness to the collapse says it started at damaged gate 1 and progressed from there. Mark Krutov on Twitter Initial damage is totally consistent with that.) 

Still, as noted, that's probably too few gates for safe operation, likely causing localized erosion that - along with a heavy and high-centered water load - led to the collapse. (other, relatively minor damage from attacks maybe played a small role as well,) But noting the role of the always-half-running gate 1, it's thanks to Ukraine, and to the US government and to ME, and every US taxpayer who helped pay for that particular HIMARS rocket. 

To the extent the operators shunned gate 2 and started at 3, they didn't add to that problem as much as they might have. As for why other gates weren't used: some on the far end couldn't be opened after November 11 because the Russians blew the top off the dam there. But many in the middle presumably worked (there were 28 in total). As noted in my part 1, snipers targeted the dam, perhaps the civilian plant staff, and the cranes probably required exposed workers to move and set them up. They were left in place, as it happens, the furthest they could get from the Ukrainian side. Ukrainian shelling might also play in, damaging the rails the cranes move on or otherwise complicating the process. (the HIMARS strike at gate 1 did also destroy the rails there, FWIW). Again, this is mainly thanks to Ukraine and their enablers. 

Overview, aside from Crimean canal pumping station also allegedly damaged by the Russians (and "2-3 gates" is incorrect, FWIW - it seems to be 4):

TAKEN opportunities: Russian Occupiers Flooding Themselves (and Don't Ask Why)

All of that might be moot anyway. In fact, the few gates used were doing fine as far as moving volume, and they were releasing about the maximum amount they safely could. Whatever exits the dam operators used, there are still limits to the amount the river can deal with, and this might have been the real choke point that prevented the dam from lessening its terrible load. It's possible to pass on too much water and flood those downstream, and it seems the dam operators avoided this just barely, and maybe not at all by the end. 

In the first post, I noted exceptionally high water level on the immediate downstream side of the dam. Here's a better view from June 2, cropped on the area of interest: (full image: File:Kakhovkabefore1.jpg - A Closer Look On Syria (shoutwiki.com)

The three little islands I noted and even most of their trees are submerged - the last few trees are visible just right of center. The higher coastlines with houses we see, on the higher north bank, are just threatened here. Parts of the south bank (Russian-held) here or downstream might already be flooded. New water is piling on top of this, spreading out, still raising the level moment-by-moment. And the reservoir is still splashing over 100% full. 

What, are the Russians trying to flood out Kherson here? The vicious war criminals! And reckless! Releasing this much water, and so narrowly, they might have eventually washed out supports for the dam. The occupying "orcs" released way too much water for their own and everyone's good! 

Ukraine's version of "vatniks" seriously said just about this. Investigator.org.ua, May 16: "Despite the statements of Gauleiter Vladimir Saldo, an uncontrolled discharge of water continues at the station, as a result of which the coast of Nova Kakhovka is flooded and the military positions of the occupiers are flooded. ...The video filmed on May 11, 2023, shows that powerful streams of water flow uncontrollably through the open and partially destroyed by the invaders of the [floodgates] of the Kakhovka HPP. You can also see the elevated water level in the Dnieper and the flooded coast in Nova Kakhovka." (emphasis mine) They say video supports Ukrainian media reports "of flooding on the left bank of the Dnieper," which had been denied by Russian-aligned officials. It probably does. Now what does the highlighted part show? Add 6/24: They also report how one Russian soldier died, drowned in a swiftly flooded dugout, and also note "At the same time, the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir decreased slightly. ... "

CIT May 17: "In the lower reaches of the Dnipro, a flood caused by a damage to a hydroelectric dam flooded Russian trenches." lol.

David helms noted these rising levels and was only concerned with military opportunities for Ukraine. May 19: "The lower Dnipro downstream of the #KakhovkaHPP is running at peak water level (about 1 meter above average). Landing spots ordinarily accessible will be flooded while other locations usually unreachable may be accessible."

So the Russians released way too much water and were flooding stuff. Also, as Helms was just fuming, the Russians didn't release nearly enough water. 4/28: "2-3 K-HPP sluice gates are open, releasing too much water in fall dry season, not enough in spring wet season." Everybody knew the reservoir was dangerously overfilled, and this was why. Those dastardly villains! How could they manage to release way too much water AND not enough water? That's just the depth of their evil, I guess? And how could they even acquire so much water with which to wreak this mindless havoc? We'll come back to that.

Hydroweb: downstream station in excess

Here, the river is usually no deeper than 0.5m or 0.6m, but we can see essentially flood levels reached well before the final dam collapse on June 6, in line with the boastful pro-Ukrainian reports at the time.

KM089 - about 4-5 km from the dam. usual high 0.5m. This level was reached by Jan. 30. With increased output, a deep 0.85m was reached by Feb. 26. About the same was reported March 25, then it was 1.32m on April 21, and finally 1.73m by May 18. That's a rise of 0.88m is less than 2 months - the river here got 3.5 times as deep as usual well before the dam ever gave way. 

KM076 a few kilometers down, the river narrows and gets a little deeper: normal high here is about 1 meter. 0.91m was reached by March 24, and 1m by April 3. (readings every 10 days here) On 4/13 it was 1.18m, on 4/23 1.3m, on 5/3 1.5m, and 5/13 1.59m, Then on 5/23 it was down a bit to 1.54, and back up to 1.6m on June 2. Level rises 0.7m from 3/24 to 6/2. 

An abnormal rises to about the same level was also recorded last May, and in December, with unusually low dips in between - all after the Russians took over, for what it's worth. KM089 has less resolution, but also shows a sustained high level last spring. The reservoir stayed within normal range then, and this might be why. I don't know if anything was up with that, or in December except - isn't December about when the reservoir got all empty? I think the Russians did THAT on purpose, sensing the spring water offensive to come, once all those escape valves were disabled in October-November, and maybe seeing high water input already starting.

KM062 further downstream: normal high 0.7m. On March 24 it was still just 0.5m, but reached 0.7m by April 20, and by May 17 it's 1.11m = 0.61m rise from 3/24 to 5/17 (last pre-collapse reading).

KM046 normal high 0.5m, reached by March 11. On April 7 it was just a bit higher, 0.45m. By May 4 it was nearly double the normal high at to 0.95, then down a bit to 0.9 on 5/31 - median 9.25 at end = ^0.425m from 3/11 to 5/31.

KM053 River Ingulets with its own flow but where it empties into the Dnieper ... normal level: ~0m to 0.58m. The Ingulets would later be flooded backwards from the Dneiper, and we probably see a bit of that already in May. It was at 0.36m on March 11 (a small decrease from February), then way up to 0.62 on 4/7 and 0.95m on May 4. Just as with the above (KM046), April to May rose a bit faster - as with above, early to late May saw a slight decline to 0.88m on the 31st (last pre-collapse reading). May median = 0.92m - rise from March to May: 0.56m.

On balance, it seems this stretch of the river rose at least 0.6m in these 2 months, and likely higher yet in the first days of June (KM098 seems to show this beginning). This is clearly because the Russian dam operators were pumping out an abnormally large amount of water, as all other evidence already suggested. 

This rise is fairly close to levels that debatably require mass evacuation. When dam worries surfaced last October, "Acting Governor of the Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo said "Wherever serious flooding is possible, the water will rise by one meter, according to calculations. We really should help people to leave the region faster." (TASS) There was probably worry over the panic this might cause, and the next day Kherson Region’s deputy governor, Kirill Stremousov (who would later be killed in a likely Ukrainian rocket strike) said: "Even if the Khakhovka dam is hit, the water level will rise by one meter, one and a half meters at the most. .... A critical situation is ruled out," he said on Russia’s TV Channel One. (TASS) Of course things had changed by May and June of this year so that a full collapse seemed possible. The recorded rises were acceptable for weeks on end, reportedly did cause harmful flooding by mid-May, and yet the reservoir remained almost 100% full.   

So this might show the Russians filling the dam until it broke, or just filling it to maximize the damage from their quiet bombing of the dam, and then ... maybe trying to minimize the damage at the last minute. Well, trying to minimize it by quite a bit, over the last 2 months ... Sure, maybe. 

But where did they manage to get all that water in the first place? Upstream, obviously. But Ukraine controls the upstream dams, and surely they wouldn't want to be the water carriers, as they say, for this Russian plot or blunder. Well it seems that, somehow, they were tricked into sending the Russians just the weapon they needed to unleash devastation on Ukraine and on themselves, to Ukraine's ultimate immediate and immense (military) advantage.

Upstream Stations in Decline

I was starting at Kyiv HPP because there's no dam further upstream that isn't in Belarus ... but then, I learned of that reported flood from a dam "failures" in Belarus. Then I didn't pin down any facts there anyway, so ... whatever excess the river held before it hit the Ukraine border, all these stations would handle that plus the rains they gather from tributaries in their stretch, and anything else the dams upstream send their way. And that sounds like it should add up to a significant amount. 

April 15 "In #Kyiv, photos are published from both banks of the #Dnipro River. In total, about 500 households in #Ukraine are flooded. The State Emergency Service reports a seasonal rise in water levels in 6 rivers. The situation is currently under control." https://twitter.com/Geoff_WarNews/status/1647232587906072576

April 18 photos of mild flooding  https://twitter.com/suspilne_news/status/1648348339019063296

April 18 Donetsk, Chernihiv, Kyiv and other regions are suffering from floods this month, which are expected to peak on April 22. SES reported “a seasonal rise” of numerous rivers in 🇺🇦 including the Dnipro, Desna, Seym, and other rivers. https://twitter.com/tvtoront/status/1648352835573018625

We should see every dam pitching in to help contain this, with a clear but safe rise in levels after mid-April. But somewhere near Kyiv: Flash News, April 20: "The water level in the Dnipro River has dropped by 10 centimeters compared to yesterday, KCSA reports. According to the KCSA, the peak of the flood is expected on April 22." They needed to make room for that.

I'm not sure where/what reservoir this refers to, but Kyiv city is at the north end of the Kaniv reservoir. That excess was sent downstream, for the other dams to hold or pass on. More excess would come, and also probably go. No one was worried about buildup here. Flash News followed up with "the expected maximum level of water harvesting on the Dnipro within the city of Kyiv does not pose a threat to the city's industrial facilities and residential areas." 

The danger would be transported south by the Ukrainian-operated dams and concentrated in one spot, possibly by some series of mistakes, or deliberately playing a massive shell game with weaponized water. But it's not such a clear picture as the dire one downstream, largely from about half the relevant reports failing to appear. Whole months pass without even the usual periodic update, where moves in such a criminal game could pass without even the kind of indirect view we have in other spots and other times. 

Kyiv HPP reservoir (north of the city):

KM0995 (on the Dnipro at the north end of Kyiv HPP reservoir): entries every 4 weeks to Jan. 12 at 103.19m (sharp rise from 12/16, 102.47), then I think 4 missing entries (Feb, Mar, Apr, early May) before a May27 entry shows a net gain to 103.49. That's a net rise 0.3m 1/12-5/27 BUT It's not remotely clear how much of the April deluge was retained vs. just passed through even between the reported dates, let alone over the crucial months of data we can't see. Coordinates: 30.5631, 51.2564 (lon, lat)

KM0981 River Teteriv, ~6km from the reservoir, likely to reflect its level somewhat - normal range 102.3-103.5m. Entries came every 10 days up to January, with a sharp rise from December, then between 1/1 and 4/20 there's no data (10 missing entries) but a net rise of 0.66m. 4/20 103.5, 4/30 103.72, 5/10 103.67 and 3 missing entries since (5/20, 5/30, 6/9). 6/19 has a reading of 103.46m - back to nromal range, down 0.26m between peak on April 30 and June 19. Total 13 entries missing (1/10, 1/20, 1/30, 2/9, 2/19, 3/1, 3/11, 3/21, 3/31, 4/10, 5/20, 5/30, 6/9) Coord: 30.2459, 51.0406 (lon, lat) 

KM0986 same river but a bit upstream, less reflective of reservoir levels but with no missing entries. Normal range: 102.5-103.4m - that was reached by 2/21 and it rose from there - 103.48 by 3/20 and 103.51 by May 13 - 2nd highest it's been since 2019. But it falls to 103.3 on 6/9 = down 0.21 5/13-6/9. According to the above, levels stayed high until at least May 27. The drop should be after this.

Kaniv reservoir: 

KM0881 south of Kyiv HPP, - reports every 4 weeks to December 31, then 2 missing for Jan/Feb before 3/22 shows 91.94m - a 0.34 rise since December. Then 2 entries for April and May are missing before June 11 shows 91.88m with abnormally high uncertainty of 0.14. That's likely because the low end is the true one, and 91.74m would make for a 0.2m drop since March. Otherwise, that wide margin means it might be down just 0.06m or even up by 0.14m. Either way, in between these entries should have been the April rains, but these were probably passed on along with that probable bit off the top of what they had before. 

As noted above, a stretch of river near Kyiv that might be part of the Kaniv reservoir shed 0.1m in a single day, April 19-20.

Kremenchuk HPP reservoir (Lake Kremenchutska):

As I gather, this usually holds close to half the water in the Dnipro cascade, with Lake Kakhovka holding most of the other half. Relevant Hydroweb stations include 2 on the Dnipro south of Kaniv HPP, one on the lake itself, and one on a side river where it joins the reservoir. Going north-to-south...

KM0741: water level normal range: 79-82m - that whole range is covered in the dramatic rise from Dec. 12 to March 3, then it goes up to 82.48m on May 6, then down to 82.05m June 2 = 0.43m drop.  Coord: 31.6901, 49.6368 (lon, lat)

KM0735 normal levels: 79.3-81.9m. March 24: 81.71m. April 20: 82.34m. May 17: 82.17m. June 13: 81.65m = 0.69m drop between peak on April 20 and June 13. Coord: 31.7716, 49.6304 (lon, lat)

Note that rivers, even when dammed, are (or can be) more volatile and variable than a reservoir/lake. Its changes can be more rapid and drastic, so a change of 0.47 0.69 at these narrow points, might equate to just 0.2 or 0.3m change across the actual reservoir.

Lake Kremenchutska itself (direct reading) is worth dwelling on. Water level normal range: 77.6-81.53m. Highest previous peaks: ~81.6m in 1993 & 94, 81.66 in 1995 - more recent years it was kept to 81.3 and then 81, then in 2020-2022 more tolerant, rising to 81.5 at several points. So 81.5-81.6 could mean basically flood levels, or undesirable anyway. 

March 22-28 is when level rise past the normal high (to 81.44m) and then tops out 1t 81.57 a few times as it took in water from upstream. But he held level drops a few times, followed by a refill: 0.24m drop on 3/31, refilled by 4/3, 0.27m decline to 4/20, refilled by 4/24 to a top level 81.57m. That's higher than normally allowed, but tolerable; it stayed close to that up to May 27, when 81.57 was again recorded. But then they just had to shed some water: it was lowered to 81.35 by June 9, with a slight refill reported later the same day. That's another 0.22m sent south at the worst possible time. Next update: 6/17 81.23m. Then 6/18 81.12m. That's another 0.23m off the top either during or just after the massive flooding. (there are 2 other dams in line that would have to pass this on for it to count as post-collapse flooding of Lake Kahkovka - otherwise it might be refilling those after they had drained themselves somewhere in between the publicized reports)

3/28-6/9 overall: down just 0.09m for a steady appearance. But with that flood and all those rains moving through, this half of the reservoir probably should have retained some of the load. Instead they passed it all on, with a moderate 0.9m off the very wide top of the huge amount they had built up ahead of the flood season. And why was that? Did they want to force a crisis situation to ensure everyone would send the maximum water down to Dnipro HPP?

Lake water volume variation - something I didn't notice before. 1/31 to 3/22 sees a steady and pretty massive filling from 0.76km3 to 3.69km3, with reports every 10 days at most (sometimes 2 in a day). That makes sense; as it widens at the top, every cm up contains more water. Every 0.22m off the top is way more than 0.22m off the bottom or middle. And that effect grows with every increase in the level.

This inflow was in preparation for the flood season? An adjustment: by March 31 it's dropped to 3.37m. With the possible Belarus flood and April rains, the volume rose just a bit, but with less views: they go monthly now (28-day cycle), and they skip May. Comparing April 20 at 3.53m to June 17 at 3.69km3, it seems they took on some water. But it's hard to say how much they SHOULD have taken on, and how much was passed through. Then a new 6/18 reading shows they're back to regular updates and some more water was just passed downstream (final volume 3.48km3)

KM0667 River Tiasmin: alongside the lake, some lazy kilometers from entering it, likely reflecting its level mixed with the Tiasmin's own rain-swollen flow. It rises from 74.38m on February 18 to 74.65 on 4/13, faster in the 2nd half from 3/17. April 13 is roughly when the heavy rains started and flooding was reported. But the level is pretty steady by May 10 at 74.67m, but with unusually high uncertainty of 0.17m (so maybe 74.84). It was down to 74.4m on June 6 (unc. low - 0.06) = drop of 0.1m, 0.27m, or 0.44m, depending, between April 13 and June 6. This seems more like reservoir levels than a flowing river. And the level falls likely more than 0.27m sometime between May 10 to June 6. According to the above, it should be after May 27. 

Kamianske HPP reservoir: 

No direct readings on the Dnieper on this reservoir nor very close to it - Helms likewise shows no level here in his thread (see image below). The following is kind of a side-note on a smaller dam I found too far up a side river to matter - except it might show additional inflow engineered back in February or March - and another river I checked for comparison.

KM058 Vorskla river - at 49°13'33.2"N 34°16'48.7"E - Google Maps over 20km north, looking a bit uphill, so not likely to reflect the reservoir level. But it's also south of a small dam with a small reservoir (just south of Poltava) - "Nyzhni Mlyny" HPP - Google Maps

Up 0.89m 2/20-3/19 - then 4/15 and 5/12 after the late-April rains, it shows a drop to 66.82 then to 66.01 by June 8. (5/12 66.82m, unc. 0.09 ignored - 6/8 66.01m w/big uncertainty of 0.25 = 65.76-66.26.) That makes a drop of at least 0.56 or perhaps up to 1.06m between May 12 and June 8. It was draining, perhaps, into an abnormally low reservoir. And maybe it was left dry during the rains because the emptied reservoir upstream was refilling.

For comparison: KM0692 River Govtva-gruz-ka: high levels ~76.76 12/20-3/11, with a February entry missing - then falling (with the April rains?) - 76.39m on April 7, 76.37m on May 4, 76.11m on May 31 - down 0.26m during May - draining, perhaps, into an abnormally low reservoir. There is no particular surge in March as seen above - because there was no upstream reservoir emptied into it then? Coord: 33.9591, 49.4795 (lon, lat) 49°28'46.2"N 33°57'32.8"E - Google Maps - it's a pretty sporadic river, seeming to be about 0m deep just meters away from this little reservoir that doesn't look 77m deep or even connected the the river. But by marshes or whatever, it seems to be continuous and flows into the Dnieper (quite a ways from here).

Add June 25: ZAES/(Rus)Energoatom on Telegram, May 10 2023 speaks of water held until then, reaching dangerously high levels, at "Sredneprovskaya hydroelectric power station" - which on Google Maps takes me to Kamiamske HPP. "IMPORTANT! At the Sredneprovskaya hydroelectric power station, the Ukrainian authorities have not discharged water from the Dnieper since April, due to the fact that it rises, flooding the settlements [upstream]. At the moment, local authorities are evacuating the civilian population, which they themselves flooded." There were confused-seeming fears that this dam would fail and then "the flow will sweep up to the Kakhovskaya HPP itself. And since the locks of the Kakhovskaya HPP are in an emergency condition, the discharge will lead to their destruction and the development of flooding events downstream." 

But in that crisis situation, Kamianske presumably sent the built-up excess on to the Dnipro HPP, sometime probably just after May 10. Dnipro may have depleted itself prior to that by getting Lake Kakhovka 100% by May 6. This massive re-charge plus late May runoff would allow them to keep the lake flooded all through May and into June.

Zaporizhzhia HPP (aka Dnipro HPP) reservoir

This is the final dam in the Ukrainian cascade, the one to finally pass on every fatal gallon that had accumulated between later March and late May. It's also the one whose shut floodgates will decide how dry the reservoir crossing will get after the flood. But they don't have much record of water levels in the relevant span.

KM0427 on the river well north of the main reservoir, or just south of Kamianske HPP. Normal level range: 51.2-51.8m. It was low in January and February, then rose 0.25m between Feb. 3 and March 2. but no data since (no readings for late March, April, May or June). Coordinates: 34.9414, 48.5069 (lon, lat) 

Late add: reports are back as of 6/18. It was 51.4m then - 0.3m drop since March 2.

KM0397 River Mokra-sura just 500m from the reservoir and clearly swelled by it/part of it. UP 0.65m 3/9-4/5 (50.98 - 51.63m) before the worst April rains. An entry for May 1 or 2 is missing. By 5/29 it's down from its high to 51.46m. That's a drop of 0.17m since April 5. Coord 48°19'46.6"N+35°07'35.8"E

May 28 rains led to flooding in Dnipro city - that too would flow into this reservoir, probably in time to be sent on and help crack the Russian dam. But it doesn't show at KM0397 on the 29th. 

KM0491 River Samara (east of Dnipro) - rise after 4/15 (rains?) then a steady high level on 5/12 and 6/8.  This could reflect the reservoir level somewhat, but at some 30km upstream, probably not. It's a very winding river that would be slow to drain April rains. That's probably all we see here, as I scrape for clues. Coord: 46.782, 33.1356

Consider this was THE final and direct input to Kahkovka lake, was much more shed after May 29? Kakhovka levels showed heavy output through May, roughly matched by input to maintain a steady near-full level, with surges to all-full notable on/by May 8 and May 20. Those might be extra injections from Dnipro. Last LK entry before collapse was June 4, and I wouldn't be surprised that it missed at least one final and sizeable injection of water.

Conclusion

So it's hard to say how much water passed through all these stations, except we can say it's what wound up downstream, and it added up to a hell of a lot, and more than the Russians could manage. From Zaporizhzhia north, flood season was wrapping up by early June, with levels relaxing and rivers draining to comfortable levels. This seems natural and normal in itself, but just a few kilometers south of there, the worst flood season ever was just about to reach a terrible climax the Russians and the locals were all but powerless to prevent.  

David Helms consider Mikael Valtersson's accusation of Ukraine flooding Lake Kakhovka (after and before the collapse),  and claimed in reply: "If Vatnikersson was correct, the dams would be below normal water level, but all were > storage level!" Based probably on the same data I've cited, he shows no problem at the 5 upstream dams by comparing the few reported levels with some historical norm, for the dates April 17, April 28, and June 19, completely skipping the more relevant details considered above. And as a meteorologist, he probably knows better. 

What's more helpful is to check what they held before the April deluge vs. after, wonder why it falls, wonder how and when, and why there are so many gaps in the bookkeeping of it all. In fact, his colored ovals show - to some extent - a swelling of the river that's shuffled around and ultimately passed south, as I have proposed. He also skips both of the final reservoirs in his consideration. I didn't find anything close enough to the Kamianske reservoir, but I'm not sure why he didn't consult KM0427 or KM0397 for some idea of the crucial lake at Dnipro HPP.

Helms: "The IG video shows Dnipro HPP discharging water. Why? Because in April the Dnipro River was in flood. That's was responsible dam operators do." He doesn't seem to know the actual levels there, but ... "Responsible dam operators" refuse to carry their share of the flood, and pass it all to the Russians, along with a bit of what they had before, as 4 allied dams upstream all did the same? "Irresponsible" dam operators ... well, they're Russian and all their equipment gets broken, and then their dams burst and - just like they wreck their own pipelines, bridges, cities, and maybe nuclear plants - the cruel, moronic, subhuman "orcs" obviously did it all to themselves. That's all you really need to know. Maybe someday they'll end up wiping themselves out in death camps.

Add 6/24: David Helms isn't just a NAFO guy on Twitter - he was cited by NYT! (Val on Twitter knew that)

"It is unclear exactly how the water level rose so significantly since then. But David Helms, a former U.S. Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist who researches dams, said the Russian forces [their approved dam operators -ed] seem to have kept too few gates open to control the flow of winter snowmelt and spring rains. Likening the effect to a leaky bucket, Mr. Helms said that too much water has been entering the reservoir. "What the river is doing is dumping a lot of water in," Mr. Helms said. "And it's far exceeding the discharge rate."

More gates should have been opened in the circumstances, making downstream flooding not just bad but disastrous. But "Russian forces" didn't, perhaps couldn't. This terrible decision had been forced - and he doesn't note that it would be terrible - by the circumstances. As Helms puts it, that was down to "the river" just dumping it on this one reservoir in particular. He doesn't mention how Ukraine operated that river. But there ate the end of it, like "a leaky bucket" (??) the Russians didn't drain ENOUGH and/or allowed too much come in from the Dnipro HPP gates. There's nothing "Russian forces" could do to stop that inflow except to forcibly take over management at this other dam. Was it negligent of them to to leave Ukrainians in charge? There's a case to be made for that.

P.S. (maybe to move) Flooding After?

... well, even with the dam intact, the downstream towards Kherson was intentionally flooded to about half the level they worried required evacuation. After the dam was destroyed, in a more total way than considered last year, levels rose at least to about 6 meters above normal. 

KM076 June 11 entry: 6.81m (normal ~1m)

KM062 June 13 4.22m (normal 0.7)

KM089 June 14 entry: 4.77m. Normal 0.5. This is 8 days after the collapse. Was it getting worse? KM089 is usually shallower than 062, but it's deeper than it here, and on the next day, when levels are supposed to be receding. Is this indicative of continued flooding past what the reservoir held? 6-7 days estimated for it to drain. That would be by the 12th or 13th. Kakhovka Reservoir Water Levels Shown Before and After Dam Was Blown Up (newsweek.com)

Gerashchenko: "June 11 Water level in it fell down to 10,07 meters (it decreases about 6-7 centimeters per hour). By estimates, this decrease will continue for 6-7 days." (from now? is that an unexpected delay to the 17th or 18th? or does he mean it should be done very soon?) https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1667961642934583296

June 16 view of the dam area 10 days later looks pretty flooded still - but then the far side (bottom) is much lower than it was on the 6th (8m+ above the normal 0.5) - maybe 5-6m deep? - and this is about the same as in the reservoir - and the intact lower part of the dam might be close to surfacing/preventing further outflow ... Uh ... I dunno. Consider all that stuff.:

June 15 photo shows levels greatly receded near Kozats'ke (silos at 46.7798948,33.3205627) - just 4-5km downstream from the dam https://twitter.com/I_P_News/status/1669328429479776258

Hydroweb records LK: June 9 11.86m, bottoming out their chart - with a new re-scaled chart, By June 17 (I think*) it was dropped to 3.91m, then ... refilled greatly to 8.9m on the 18th. 

I'm not sure what that means. How can it fill back up? Is this just a fluke of super-low levels? I imagine a floating sensor might come down in a shallower pool, separated from the main river, and was then refloated by locally rising waters during an inexplicable post-collapse surge. For example. 

* I went back to check that page, and the graph has been reverted to how it was before those entries. I wonder why? (cropped screen-grab above is from June 20, 1:56am Pacific time)

Would it even be helpful to maintain such a flow? The initial flooding was terrible and could hardly be worsened just by keeping the same areas underwater for longer. At a certain point, Ukraine would want to close the gates, stop the flooding, let the reservoir dry up ... and then maybe cross to attack. 

Videos and satellite views show a dried up reservoir to the north around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (its cooling pond is separate and remains full) - a flatter area than here at the dam. (pic forthcoming)  Erik Zimerman on Twitter: June 12 Dnipro HPP (at Zaporizhzhia - the last dam in Ukraine's line) closed up over drying river bed, and we can guess the reservoir behind that dam is not being flooded from upstream any longer.

Mathias Holmgren @HolmgrenTweets · Jun 12 "Just heard from @noclador on @MriyaReport . Ukr have closed all inflow gates upstream of the Nova Kahkovka dam basin. In a few days the basin may be close to fully emptied, and filled with dry sand. So up to 100 km wide area of easilly fordable terrain, w no RU fortifications." Those "lucky" Ukrainians. There were reports on the 15th that they had crossed the river, but further south near the dam, and had laid siege to Nova Kakhovka city, leading to clashes. " Right now, a shooting battle is going on near Nova Kakhovka. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, presumably, repulse an attempted landing by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was reported by the correspondent of "Izvestia" Emil Timashev. Shooting is also heard in Tavriysk and Sosny." (Takriysk anyway is just east of NK) https://t.me/izvestia/134317 

video https://twitter.com/Sprinter99880/status/1669446430279213057 

A drone strike on a hospital was also reported. 

https://twitter.com/Sprinter99880/status/1669676044838748163

And then there's the ZNPP. And other implications. ...

Add July 10: In this post, I didn't name who ran the dams, first from not knowing it, then from it's being awkward. But now, what did Ukrhydroenergo, who operated these 5 dams, have to say about their relentless flooding on the Kakhovka reservoir?

Reuters report, March 27 "Ihor Syrota, director general of the state-run Ukrhydroenergo hydropower generating company ... voiced concern about what would happen if water levels fell further at the Kakhovka reservoir ... The level has fallen because Russian troops who control the reservoir, and also the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station and dam, have let some water out through sluice gates, he said. ... Syrota said the level had risen since then thanks to the winter thaw" and also to Ukrhydroenergo's dams generously passing that all on to the Russians: 

"They (the Russians) are discharging a certain volume and we have raised the level to 14.30 metres from 13.50-13.60 metres. But still the gates (of the dam) are open," Syrota said. Still, with the gates just as open, the Ukrainian dams foiled Russia's possible drainage plot way too well. Through April they raised the level further and further, to and clear past the safe range, until it was 100% full by May 6. 

Along the way, they boasted on April 19 "The flood is subsides. #Ukrhydroenergo hydroelectric power stations on the #Dnipro and #Dniester regulate [water] levels, avoid flooding, and continue controlling discharges in compliance with safety standards." "In compliance with safety standards," as they say, Ukrhydroenergo kept filling the reservoir until it was 100% full, and then kept pouring so it stayed that full for one month until the dam burst. Then Ukrhydroenergo claimed it was a Russian bombing, with strangely specific allegations ready within hours.

ON THE NIGHT OF JUNE 6, RUSSIAN OCCUPATION FORCES BLEW UP THE KAKHOVKA HYDROELECTRIC STATION

"06-06-2023 - As a result of the explosion of the engine room from the inside, the Kakhovka HPP was completely destroyed. The station cannot be restored." No explanation was given for the dam's partial collapse 20 minutes before the final and mysterious event where part of the engine room might have been blown up. 

Ukrhydroenergo were keen to show the results of "Russia's" crime once it was done, but I don't see any sign of them complaining about Ukrainian shelling that damaged the dam and some of the reservoir's other release valves, and act completely unaware of this disastrous situation they engineered, that was probably the main cause of the collapse. In fact, they seem to have deliberately exclude this dam from their considerations as they pretended to manage all this water safely.

May 29 https://t.me/ukrhydroenergo/3569

The decline in water levels continues ... As a result of water harvesting through the reservoirs of the Dnieper Cascade, fluctuations in water levels were observed within the range of 1-10 cm per day, with a predominance of subsidence.

The volume of water in the cascade of the Dnipro reservoirs as of May 28 was equal to 47,616 cubic km, which is 3,768 cubic km higher than the volume of reservoirs at the normal support level (NPR), without taking into account the Kakhovsky reservoir, the volume of water in the cascade is equal to 27,116 cubic km .km (by 1,458 cubic km exceeds the volume of reservoirs at the NPR).

June 2 https://t.me/ukrhydroenergo/3591

"There is a decrease in the flow of water along the rivers. Water levels in the reservoirs of the Dnipro Cascade continue to decrease." Not at the disregard Kakhovka dam. It was nearing the end of a maxxed-out month and about to collapse.