Part 5 of What Caused the Collapse of the Nova Kakhovka Dam?
Just a few days after UHE joined the IHA, both parties had a chance to lament the irreparable collapse of the occupied Nova Kakhovka dam and HPP. The IHA issued a statement decrying the "tragedy," citing some details from "our members Ukrhydroenergo, who operate the plant" (at least formally). To their credit, IHA passed on no premature propaganda about the Russians having blown it up. UHE, in contrast, seemed better-informed and was clear on this point, having it built into their very first comments, early June 6 on Telegram, citing military sources: "[Operational Command] "South" confirmed the detonation by the occupiers of Kakhovskaya HPP."
On June 6, UHE's General Director Ihor Syrota declared: "We strongly condemn the terrorist act of the Russian Federation - the blowing up of the Kakhovskaya HPP. ... The hydropower industry is experiencing the most difficult times since the Second World War," he added. The dam could not be restored, but he promised in time "the Kakhovskaya station will definitely be re-built in the same place." Of course, the new dam could only be built once the area was de-occupied. Perhaps ironically, the old dam's destruction seemed to be assisting Ukraine's military in that very cause (see here for example).
From there, UHE would post daily on their website and Telegram channels, documenting the flooding and other effects of Russia's crime, maximizing its scale and importance, and demanding payback. They were on the frontlines of history, to hear them talk, but were sadly unable to stop this Russian plot. They would do their part by calling it out and to toss in some foreshadowing of the supposed plot to destroy the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which the Russians also occupied. UHE would state "By blowing up the Kakhovskaya HPP, the Russian occupiers caused the biggest man-made disaster on our continent since the Chernobyl tragedy."
Within hours, UHE knew where the Russians had set their bomb. They announced June 6 on their website the dam collapsed following on "the explosion of the engine room from the inside." The area of the HPP engine room marked red below, on a mid-collapse drone video, would be somehow destroyed soon after this view. But this story gives no explanation for it remaining intact after the dam's partial collapse (between the white lines) some 20 minutes earlier.
A later New York Times report would propose that the Russian bombs were set in a tunnel inside the dam where the first collapse happened. This would be reflected in later UHE explanations. June 30: "the Russians were already importing explosives and loading them into the lower tiers of the station." The engine room thing might have been secondary. Maybe they just didn't want to talk about that section of the dam, the one with the initial collapse, and where massive erosion took the deepest hold, near all those known and likely rocket impacts (blue oval above), dating from August to November 2022.
As my last post explained, it was probably not any explosives that collapsed the dam but pre-existing erosion, worsened by the Ukrainian rocket attacks UHE denies, and by overflooding that was directly engineered by UHE. Only increased input from the 5 upstream dams can rapidly rise the levels as happened. As such, Ukrhydoenergo played a key part in this, with major flooding from their dams running April to June. Part 2 related the data end of this, as recorded somewhat by HydroWeb virtual stations, but with quite a few suspicious gaps in the data. See below for some further details and when and how, and how UHE aided the cause with some timely misinformation about the floodgates.
Much evidence suggests that Ukraine consciously weaponized the Dnieper River against the Russians, with Ukrhydroenergo acting as willing conspirators. The Russsian-affiliated dam managers may have been powerless to stop the assault, thanks to all their equipment being wrecked with the 2022 rocket attacks and likely sabotage. The central question of why the same 4 floodgates were left open for 6 months, feeding the intense erosion, remains open. The gantry cranes that open the gates may have been stopped by Russian design as widely assumed, or by malfunction or from attack damage, or quite likely they just lost power. Some claims from dam employees mention a power switch that was located on the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainians might have simply switched it off - presumably by UHE or with their knowledge. If so, the Russians probably could not change that situation, as widely assumed. (see part 3 - Four Frontline Floodgates - and see below for how UHE dismissed the possibility of the cranes being disabled.
The heavy and narrowed flow was pulled into the erosion centers and worsened them, already causing a new, swerving flow pattern by January, 2023 as an existing erosion center seems to migrate to join with new damage. It seemingly collapsed an attached roadway on June 1 or 2 before it spread under the dam itself in the final days. UHE helped maintain that flow and made sure the dam was holding a maximum and high-centered water load when it was undermined.
If anyone did set off some bombs just then, it would be quite a coincidence, precluding any blame on UHE for the fact that the dam was already set to collapse. Otherwise, they collapsed the dam.
If this had happened on accident or through no effort of theirs, UHE might have noted the situation emerging and done something to correct it. But they seem unaware or willfully ignorant of the danger as they kept adding to it, with a late and rather massive "spring irrigation." They gave a lot of reasons for this in advance, but then carried it way too far in the final 9 weeks with as little comment as possible, as if they hoped no one would notice until well after it was too late.
UHE and the Fall River Offensive, Winter Interlude
The history of this collapse plot may go back at least 9 months before its culmination. Hydroweb (theia-land.fr) shows water level at Lake Kakhovka back to 2016. The historic trend has the reservoir filled to a minimum of 15.5m and a maximum of 16.5m, with only slight and brief exceptions. Even after the Russians took over management in February, 2022, water levels were maintained within norms until the middle of September. But from then to the end, the level started fluctuating on an ominous scale, just passing the normal range between rapid spikes well below and well above it.
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Here's the first part of that erratic span in detail, with two surges and then the record lows. (with notes, as explained below - normal range in pink).
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First, between readings from September 11 and October 4, the water level rose 0.5m, to just past normal, and rather quickly. A satellite photo of the 18th shows steady discharge from, I think, six floodgates across the middle, being 5, 7, and 9 and 13, 15 and 17. Sentinel Hub's less clear views show no flow on October 3, then heavy flow from the middle in all available views, including Oct. 8, 11, 16, 18, 28, and 31, before the gates are all closed by November 2. As shown above, that's when the level was down to the bottom of normal.
I'm not sure of the weather then, if heavy rainfall alone might explain this. It might be an early flooding effort, but not a very good one if so. This came after the dam's bypass lock was plugged in early September, but all 28 floodgates on the dam, all 6 at the HPP, and 2 canal pumping stations were functional in September.
The possible second try would be clearer. Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, head of Ukraine's 2022 Fall offensive in the Kherson area was famously cited in a December, 2022 Washington Post article on The Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war (archive.org) Kovalchuk spoke of a Ukrainian "test strike" on the Nova Kakhovka dam to "see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages." Kovalchuk's "test" attack was undated, but said to put three holes in the metal of a floodgate, and to be deemed success. A floodgate was damaged in a November 6 attack, per Russian sources. Floodgate 1 was seen badly damaged by early December, and gate 1 shows otherwise unexplained irregular flow, as if from that damage, by views of November 10 and 12. And so that was Ukraine's "test strike" - floodgate 1 was damaged, probably as said on November 6.
For some reason, there was new "concern" in Kyiv for the dam's wellbeing just then; it was feared that the Russians might try to destroy it soon. UNIAN, Nov. 7: The expert told why it is not profitable for the Russians to blow up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station "If the Kakhovskaya HPP is blown up, Crimea and the positions of the Russians will suffer, a military expert said - Military expert Serhii Grabskyi believes that the Russians should not do this "in view of the healthy sense"..... "But, understanding who we are dealing with," (probably Ukraine in a thin disguise) "such a version cannot be completely ruled out," he clarified." The article adds "Grabski is more inclined to think that statements about the undermining of the hydroelectric power station are a "horror story", an information and psychological attack." It's never clarified who had first made these statements.
These comments were shared on Telegram by SPRAVDI (Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security). It's as if they were trying to talk the Russians out of blowing up the dam, but the same thoughts might have already talked Ukraine into doing it for them.
Between November 13 and December 2, Hydroweb records show the water level on the Kakhovka reservoir rising even more rapidly than it did in September, at least 0.74m by December 2. For a reservoir this size in 19 days, that's substantial. It might have gotten even higher just before that or just after that reading, but before a net decline that appears by December 10. Starting a week after the floodgates were damaged in a "test" about raising water levels, Ukraine was raising the water level. This came after the lock was plugged, and after the HPP and its 6 gates were disabled by a disputed attack probably on October 24, but before the Khakovsky main canal pumping station was wrecked in disputed shelling on November 30. The Russians had both pumping station and now 27 24 floodgates on the dam (gate 1 could not be opened after the damage, and - Add Aug. 3: then at least gates 26-28 were made inaccessible on the 11th, under the roadway and rails the Russians blew up). It might be a better time to expand on that "test" by raising the water input.
No floodgates at Kakhovka were open on November 12, but likely in response to the rising water, floodgate no. 5 was opened by a video dated the 13th, seemingly in the evening. Then the gantry cranes that open and close gates were moved, opening perhaps gate 3 as well by a satellite view of the 15th and finally 2 or 3 more were opened at some point, for 4 floodgates (3,5,6 & 7) pouring water. That last change might have been in early December, when the rise is suddenly reversed into a decline, about 2/3 as steep as in October (when 6 gates were opened). The north crane was positioned just above gate 8, but never got it opened before the cranes froze. It seems they never moved again until they fell into the river in June. Again, the Ukrainians might have simply switched off power to the cranes and, if so, the Russians probably could not change that situation, as widely assumed.
Whatever the cause of it, with the constant outflow of those 4 gates, the water level fell much like it did in October, but this time without stopping. Besides high output, there was low input as UHE's dams seemed to hold water back, for whatever reason, storing it through the winter. In April, there were warnings of flooding around the Kyiv HPP that, as Flash News would report April 13, was "a result of the skipping of spring irrigation through the Kyiv HPP." They decided to hold back their usual spring flow, risking local flooding of areas north of the capitol, maybe for some reason, like saving it up for some project. We'll come back to that.
UHE and Pressure Plans in February
On February 8 UHE informed its followers on Telegram that "International influence is needed to eliminate threats on the Dnieper cascade. " This related an interesting meeting on the theme that occurred two days earlier.
On February 6, an extraordinary meeting of the State Commission on Technogenic and Environmental Safety and Emergencies was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal.
The Commission considered a number of important issues, including the state of filling the cascade of the Dnieper reservoirs and possible risks to the water supply of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The participants heard information from the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, as well as the First Deputy Head of the ZOVA Hennadii Timchenko, other officials on the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir and possible negative consequences in case of its further reduction."
According to the observations of Ukrhydroenergo experts, the large volume of water discharged through the Kakhovskaya HPP is not due to its damage, but to the deliberate actions of the Russian occupiers, who opened the plant's sluices, fearing that the Ukrainian military would forge the Dnieper.
It was UHE that promised the PM, the president, and the world that the occupiers could close the floodgates or open more, even though they likely could not. The UHE experts claim the gates weren't damaged, which was mostly true. But they didn't mention whether they had power, which they apparently did not have. If Kyiv's answer based on this advice was to send enough water it could withstand more floodgates opening, and then any disaster followed on their failing to do so, UHE assured them it would be the Russians' own fault. From a "Technogenic and Environmental Safety and Emergencies" perspective, it could not be blamed on Ukraine.
In this regard, the Prime Minister ordered the preparation of informational materials for the President of Ukraine regarding the real situation around the Kakhovskaya HPP and reservoir in order to give it public international publicity. In the current situation, the only real way out of the situation is international pressure on the occupier to force it to close its doors and prevent humanitarian, environmental and nuclear catastrophes from unfolding.'
In the following days, that NPR article for one (Feb. 10), told the outside world about "the real situation," aided by Ukraine/NAFO meteorology ally David Helms. Everyone was worried about the falling water level at Lake Kakhovka, due to the Russians willfully keeping so many floodgates wide open. Kyiv had raised international public pressure on the occupiers.
With this public backing and those assurances, Kyiv also pursued a more direct, national, and secret policy of water pressure to go with that. They had extra water stored up behind the 5 Ukrainian-controlled dams in the "Dnieper Cascade" and, as part 2 outlined, they had these send all the water they could into Lake Kakhovka, along with extra-heavy rain in April. This would be overseen by UHE, and all of the water had to pass in shifts through at least the final dam at the Dnipro HPP, next to Zaporizhzhia, which would handle the direct injections all the way.
The direction of fire is unclear to me, but the damage suggests it's from the left/north (Ukraine) or the right/south (Russia) - not from east or west. I think from the north is better suggested, but that's not certain, and the logic of either side doing this raises questions. In brief:
The February attack could give a quiet impression that Russia wanted low water so badly they attacked the one dam that might slake their thirst. The proper response would be to spite the Russians by finally sending more water, as they may have already planned to do. Maybe the Russians sensed the flooding plot to come, and this was their way of warning that off, but it sadly backfired. Did they provoke a counterattack here?
Or did Kyiv provoke their own plan on Russia's behalf? They might have adequate motive in December or February, and more so in late March. It might sound bizarre, but consider if they were engaged in a plot to destroy a dam, they might risk some repairable damage to another dam, if that served some purpose as a trigger. You would think they'd make more public noise about a false-flag attack, or about a real attack, for that matter. But maybe the revenge was too secret to draw attention to by even addressing this provocation openly. It might be for "internal consumption." For example, dam operators might be angry, and willing to play along with a flooding plot as some kind of revenge. And that might apply especially if this worst attack were in late March, to "justify" the reckless flooding of April and May (see below).
Dnipro HPP outflow as seen in satellite views from Sentinel Hub EO Browser (sentinel-hub.com): outflow from the two power stations here, HES-1 and HES-2, is often hard to make out or easy to make up. But it seems several gates on the east end of HES-1 show a high output rarely seen last year. It starts early, by first views in January, continues on 2/5, and the same width but seemingly stronger on 2/20, and continuing 3/2 and forward. But on the receiving end, Lake Kakhovka clearly starts rising after Feb. 10, or right after that alleged attack at Dnipro, so their output probably increased around then.
It's not clear why, but two days later, on February 12, video was posted of Ukrainian drone attacks destroying cameras at Kakhovka HPP, Everyone there could see the new attack anyway, as the water started pouring in. At first, it would look like a good thing in the parched circumstances, but that would change.
UHE and the Spring River Offensive
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This state would continue a few days, then rapidly subside, with a 10cm drop reported by Flash News in one day (4/20 vs. 4/19). Sentinel Hub views show a new heavy flow from open floodgates at Kyiv HPP on April 22 and 25, new since an April 7 view, and quiet again by May 2. (see below) This was sent to the Kaniv reservoir and then passed (4/17 view below with several gates open) into Lake Kremenchutska. There it would replace the excess water just sent on, and this new excess would be sent on in the same way.
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Wider flood situations at other reservoirs on the Dnieper were reported in April and May, largely by pro-Russian sources and generally denied by UHE and Ukrainian ones. At several points, it seems disaster was invited, briefly accepted, and then sent downstream in shifts to correct and then drastically over-correct the engineered shortage at Kakhovka. It all seemed to make complete sense, up to a point.
In part 2 - Did Ukraine Break the Dnipro River and the Nova Kakhovka Dam? - , I documented the overall decline on the upper Dnieper as Kakhovka was forcibly filled, via Hydroweb virtual stations that recorded a net drop at several points, usually around 20cm, between late March and late May. Widespread missing entries make it unusually hard to track in detail, but the big picture is clear enough - water was stored up and then rapidly shed to flood Kakhovka all spring. The rest of this post adds some to that picture.
After Kyiv, Kaniv, and Kremenchutska, water was sent to Kamianske HPP and then Dnipro HPP (see reference map below), There it would replace a new outpour that began by early April, in turn answering the suction of a dried-up Lake Kakhovka. And so excess water was on Kyiv's streets in mid-April, then shunted down probably to Kakhovka in time to assist in the dam collapse there 6 weeks later.
As the water level there remained low but steady in late March, UHE and its general director Ihor Syrota kept playing up the danger of a new Russian drawdown, sowing public reasons why increasing the flow to Kakhovka might be a good idea. On March 24, uhe.gov.ua and UHE on Telegram announced: "Since the middle of February, the issue of the threat of the Russians draining the Kakhovsky Reservoir has become acute." This sounds like it's gotten worse, but the levels were improving exactly since mid-February. Syrota is again quoted: "The manipulations of the Russians with the gates of the Kakhovskaya HPP have no logical explanation." Again, my best guess is Ukraine turned off the power to the cranes, hoping to maximize the ensuing erosion. I doubt they have any better reason to suspect the Russians were intentionally - and illogically - keeping the same 4 gates open for months on end, when their final plan was to blow the thing up with bombs.
The same message cited a Syrota interview with "BBC journalists" to say that "Ukrhydroenergo hopes that it will be possible to maintain this reservoir level by June."
On March 27 Syrota again spoke to the media. As Reuters reported, he "voiced concern about what would happen if water levels fell further at the Kakhovka reservoir ... The level has fallen because Russian troops ... have let some water out through sluice gates, he said." After speaking as if the levels were still declining, "Syrota said the level had risen since then thanks to the winter thaw" and to UHE's dams passing some of that along, in part to just be wasted out those 4 open floodgates: "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.
"We have raised the levels," he says, and UHE "hopes that it will be possible to maintain this reservoir level by June." They wanted to keep a high input to Kakhovka, hoping to outpace the Russians' floodgates. Those never did vary their pace, but it seems UHE always anticipated they would, and chronically pre-corrected for it. It would be a massive task, but they made it look easy, outpacing the steady outflow and "maintaining" the level all to heck by early June. That "hope" seemingly guided their efforts in between.
UHE never mentioned any danger of OVER-filling the reservoir. It's as if the idea had never occurred to them. And so, perhaps without noticing, through April and May they raised the level at Lake Kakhovka further and further, to the normal range and well past it, until the reservoir was 100% full by early May.
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This is also about when the video appeared of Dnipro HPP pouring water, which some would later say was filmed AFTER the dam's collapse in June. Twitter user Aurora Borealis would post this on 4/19, explaining "For the first time in several decades, 4 floodgates were opened at the #Zaporizhzhia HPP to release water and save the central Ukraine from flooding." The video shows water pouring from at least 4 floodgates and perhaps more. It pans to show the river full of foam, with the outflow from HES-1 visible on the right, also sending water downstream. HES-2 across the way might be doing the same.
This marks a major escalation in the river offensive. It didn't start on the 19th, but earlier. Sentinel Hub EO Browser views show this flood of perhaps more than 4 gates by April 16. That's after no views since March 27, when it seems no gates were open (see below). It's on March 29 that a new level is quickly achieved at Kakhovka, then between April 2 and 9 it increases a bit in speed, holding that pace for about a month. So that's probably when Dnipro was first opened like this - maybe 2 gates around March 28/29, then more in early April. Recall as noted above there may have been a new attack on HES-1 around March 26. Did an attack precede this outpour, like may have happened in February?
The floodgates were pouring some three weeks before that video, and Lake Kakhovka would pass the normal range to a dangerous level a few days after it. This was done "in compliance with safety standards," of course, and "to save the central Ukraine from flooding" but it would prove terribly unsafe and cause severe flooding in the Russian-occupied south a few weeks later.
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On April 20, UHE board member Stephen Laird Walsh visited Dnipro HPP in an army helmet, in light of the recent, little-noted attack(s) in December, February, and/or late March. He posed frowning with a weapon remnant, and smiling in front of the UHE-controlled floodgates pouring away. He's seen bemoaning one attack weapon, and blissfully unaware of the other one raging behind him.
Sentinel Hub views show this flow continuing to at least April 26, but it's done by May 6, and these floodgates seem to stay off thereafter. The Kakhovka reservoir records being 100% full by May 8, but by the speed of rise to the last reading on 4/28, it would be full around May 2, The major flooding lasted about one month. A light output from the two HPPS, HES-1 and HES-2 seems to continue that whole time and remain after, seen running on 5/6, and in all clear views: May 16 and 21, and even on June 5. This smaller input must have roughly matched the outflow from Kakhovka, as the level was maintained that whole month to collapse.
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Extra-Quiet for the Final Stretch
From the Dnipro floodgates opening to the Kakhovka dam bursting is approximately nine weeks of what almost has to be a deliberate flooding effort. This came after the dam's lock was plugged, after the HPP and its 6 gates were disabled, after the Khakovsky main canal pumping station was wrecked, after the North Crimean canal had all its reservoirs filled, limiting its usefulness, after floodgate 1 was damaged, and after the gantry cranes were disabled, allowing no change in the floodgates. They had the four frontline floodgates trying to relieve the pressure and, most likely, little else that could be done. They boasted of getting one HPP floodgate open in early May, and the visual record might suggest increased flow just then, but it somehow stops again within a few days. (see part 3) It was in that badly plugged and unmanageable situation that UHE's input outpaced Kakhovka's output so massively they filled the reservoir to 100% and then kept it close to that for a month.
Allied sources unwittingly drew attention to some important effects of UHE's unorthodox river management, which the company itself seemed to ignore. Of course they tried to blame it on Russia.
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The high level and heavy output coexisting means the dam was sorely overloaded and unmanageable, especially under the battered circumstances. To the extent the outside world saw this problem, it seemed like something mysterious and probably Russian was to blame. But Ukraine's dam operators were keeping the pressure on, heedlessly or otherwise.
UHE was the agency making this happen, but they had nothing to publicly say about it, to acknowledge or deny it, let alone explain why. They had nothing new to say about this dam, aside from blaming Russia for all the existing damage and hitting them with the bill for it, and nothing about Lake Kakhovka, except to note in late May that it was the one reservoir they had no comment on. All Telegram entries from these days wherein UHE even mentions the endangered dam:
Telegram, 3/28 Ihor Syrota: "We need significant funds to restore our facilities that were destroyed or damaged as a result of enemy air attacks ... The Russian occupiers caused 16.7 billion hryvnias worth of damage to the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station alone." The Russians caused damage not just with theft and negligence but also with "air attacks?" Or is that just tacked on? Is their actual bookkeeping on this any clearer?
Telegram 3/30: "On this day, March 30, 1952, a historic event took place at the construction site of Kakhovskaya HPP - the first cubic meter of concrete was placed in the construction of the hydraulic unit!" On the 71st anniversary of that day, UHE was beginning or about to begin the lethal overflooding of Lake Kakhovka that would tear much of the dam away, but that first cubic meter might have remained.
On April 21 UHE said "We estimated the company's direct losses, including due to the occupation of the Kakhovskaya HPP, at approximately 1 billion dollars." May 17: "special attention is paid to the issue of restoration of the Kakhovskaya HPP after de-occupation." They had raised the water level to 100% full a week or two earlier, and would seemingly add more around May 21, to help keep Lake Kakhovka full until the dam collapsed. In this way they may have destroyed the dam before they could collect the money to restore it.
On May 29 UHE would mention NK and its reservoir one last time before the collapse, announcing "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)."
Why were they not "taking into account the Kakhovsky reservoir," at least when speaking to the public? They had "raised the level" since March, "maintained" and even exceeded that level greatly, here at the cusp of June. Isn't that what they had promised? Don't they want to take credit for all their hard and well-organized work countering the Russian's drawdown plot, and doing it all while balancing upstream needs, as they boasted of rapidly falling levels at all of their reservoirs?
On June 1, as mentioned, UHE joined the International Hydropower Association (IHA), and then the roadway collapsed from UHE's erosion, probably accelerating it greatly. The final days saw more proud statements on their management of the river - aside from its final stretch, which they no longer mentioned. June 2: "There is a decrease in the flow of water along the rivers. Water levels in the reservoirs of the Dnipro Cascade continue to decrease." Well, not at ALL of them. Mid-day on June 5 they would repeat this: "As of June 5, the water level continues to decrease. Hydroelectric power plants carry out the passage of spring irrigation on the Dnieper Cascade through hydro units."
As of June 5, they continued to pour water from reservoirs in no danger on downstream, perhaps right into Lake Kakhovka, where the danger was so real it was about to become actual disaster. Its level hadn't risen in a month because it couldn't - it had been 100% full, despite still pouring from 4 gates AND overtopping. Erosion was taking down structures increasingly attached to the dam. At this point, collapse was all but certain in a matter of hours to days.
Conclusion
If anyone did set off some bombs just then so the dam never did collapse on its own, it would be quite a coincidence. And if it was a Russian plot to store all that water and then blow the dam and cause maximum destruction - primarily of their own defenses and occupied villages and fields - why were UHE's dams still carrying out "passage of spring irrigation," helping that plot by sending them so much water right up to the end?
"Russia's plot" was probably Ukraine's plot and thus UHE's. They were quite likely assisting the Ukrainian military to collapse the dam and re-shape the battlefield to Kyiv's advantage. It's why they knew not to talk about the situation as they helped engineer it.
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