Interestingly, #Russia state media now seem to be pushing a story about a structural collapse of the #Dnipro Novaya Kakhovka dam. A masked soldier presented as commander of the Russian unit guarding the dam says "first one gate was torn, which was already damaged, then third, fourth, fifth... In 15 minutes cracks appeared in the walls". What he says directly contradicts the version voiced by Russian officials, that the dam was destroyed by a massive strike of Ukrainian rockets (that nobody saw).

It's rather pointless to try to find any factual information in a staged interview, but it's interesting to see Russian propaganda apply the same set of techniques they applied in case of #MH17: throw a dozen of contradictory and mutually exclusive versions, until nothing makes sense for their goodwill audience.

As there's lots of evidence to support the narrative that incriminates them, the most successful tactics is to flood the public space in Russia with so much chaff that the only thought that remains in the heads of loyal population is "we will never know all truth"...

In Russian: https://theins.ru/news/262500

P.S. meanwhile Russian forces have blown up another dam on Mokrye Yaly river south from Blagodatne, recently liberated by Ukraine...

@kravietz

Maybe the Kremlin has done some audience research and found that even their domestic audience isn’t naive enough to believe that Ukraine destroyed its own dam!

But Russia will still let the “Ukrainians destroyed the dam” theory circulate. After all, they are fine with people believing anything, so long as it doesn’t incriminate Russia.

The one thing that they won’t allow is discussion of the irrefutable evidence that Russia caused a massive explosion at the dam.

@chowderman
occupation-caused mismanagement of the dam's facilities leading to a catastrophic structural collapse does incriminate russia, though.
@kravietz

@osma

Mismanagement is a completely different moral category than intentionally blowing it up, and it kind of places blame on both sides “because everyone shelled the dam”. At the same time I don’t think the mismanagement theory withstands the check against all available evidence. Mismanagement and excessive accumulation of water could lead to gate failures or breaking through the ground barriers at the bank sides of the dam, but here it happened at the sturdiest point of the dam, and in two separate places at the same time!

@chowderman