The Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed using tactics the West has taught ISIS, the pro-Kremlin media writes, invoking other false narratives promoted in the past, for instance referring to Ukraine’s plans to trigger a genocide of Russian speakers or about the “terrorist” character of the Ukrainian state. On the other hand, propaganda media launched narratives that contradict each other – Ukrainians destroyed the dam so they can launch their offensive vs. Ukrainians destroyed the dam to prevent a Russian offensive.
Ukraine is taking revenge on Russian speakers who obtained the Russian citizenship
Widespread floods in Kherson caused by the Ukrainian Armed Forces shelling the Nova Kakhovka dam, headlines Ukraina.ru, a publication that is part of the Russia Today government-owned media corporation. According to Moscow-based journalists, the aftermath of Kyiv’s attack on a non-military objective is catastrophic, while the Federal Investigation Committee has launched an official inquiry.
The Russian state media described the destruction of the dam as “a terrorist attack”, a “crime” committed by the Western-led Ukrainian authorities. Russia Today quotes the Russian Defense Ministry, Sergei Shoigu, who said Ukraine’s attack on the dam confirms its inability to advance southwards as part of its counteroffensive. “Without attaining any military goal, the Ukrainian army wants to relieve its defensive forces from the Kherson region and redeploy them on the offensive”, Shoigu stated.
The Russian political analyst Andrey Suzdaltsev suggested a different story, according to which Ukraine bombed the dam for fear of a Russian offensive targeting Kherson. Fearing a massive attack from Russia, which could help it take control of these territories, Kyiv resorted to blowing up the dam, the Russian political theorist argues. The narrative is a blatant defiance of factual reality, given that the Russians themselves were forced to retreat in Kherson, beyond the Dnieper, following last autumn’s Ukrainian counteroffensive. Moreover, in recent weeks, Moscow has fortified its positions alongside the frontline in order to be able to push back Ukraine’s announced counter-offensive. Furthermore, following the failure of its winter campaign in Donbas, Russia seems incapable of launching large-scale attacks, much less a complex scenario that would entail crossing a wide river such as the Dnieper.
Andrey Suzdaltsev also accused Ukraine of being utterly indifferent towards the fate of the inhabitants of southern territories, describing the flooding of the settlements controlled by the Russian Federation as a genocide. The Russian political analyst said Kyiv “will drown without mercy” the Russian-speaking population of these regions simply because they accepted the Russian citizenship. “When water levels start to drop, there is a risk Ukrainian Armed Forces could cross the Dnieper. Our military will then be forced to retreat further inland”, Andrei Suzdaltsev told Ukraina.ru.
The justification the Russian government media provides for the destruction of the dam is based on an older narrative, according to which Ukraine and the West want to stage a genocide against the Russian-speaking population. In March, the Russian state media misquoted the statement of an adviser to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, writing that Ukrainian authorities will organize a large-scale genocide of the Russian people and are planning to kill 5,000 people every day.
Ukraine takes its orders from the West and is using ISIS tactics
The bombing of the dam by the Ukrainian army was an operation coordinated by British and American special forces, the national news agency RIA Novosti writes.
Russian journalists compared the war in Ukraine to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. “Western special services were teaching the same tactics to ISIS terrorists – blowing up dams, bridges, destroying cultural monuments, wiping whole cities off the face of the earth”, the Russian media writes.
The narratives about a secret alliance between the West / the United States (or Israel) and Jihadist organizations, including the Islamic State, are not at all new. They have been circulated for many years, particularly in the Middle East and the Muslim world, but also elsewhere, including in the West. According to one popular conspiracy theory, the former Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, had actually been a CIA agent. After the outbreak of the war in Iraq, the media was flooded by rumors that claimed the Americans were actually responsible for various terrorist attacks committed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s cell, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which years later would become the Islamic State. With the advent of the latter, Iran, Syria and their proxies, but also Russian sources, started spreading disinformation narratives about alleged connections the West entertained with this terrorist group.
RIA Novosti says that Ukraine has become “a terrorist state”, recalling the drone attack in Moscow, the bombing of Belgorod, the explosions on the Crimean Bridge and talks regarding Kyiv’s use of a dirty bomb. “No military planning, no strategy, everything is done to destroy, transgress and break”, Russian journalists explain.
In May, the Russian government media called on the Kremlin to designate Ukraine a terrorist state. Russian journalists recalled a series of events in the Russian-Ukrainian war, including the sinking of the “Moskva” flagship in the Black Sea, which they deemed terrorist despite being legitimate military actions. Other inconvenient topics, such as the war crimes committed by Russian servicemen in Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka, Izium, Kherson and elsewhere, were deliberately left out.
Another disinformation campaign run by Moscow in the present war, which in turn refers to the meta-narrative about terrorism, concerns Ukraine’s plans to use weapons of mass destruction, from biological (a whole series of articles was devoted to purported biological laboratories that produced viruses, including COVID) to nuclear weapons. In that respect, Ukraine was accused of wanting to procure nuclear weapons and planning to use a so-called dirty bomb, or trigger a nuclear catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The latter narrative was quickly reiterated after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
The infodemic – a favorite instrument of Russian propaganda
Russian narratives were launched as the two camps accuse each other of blowing up the dam. To this date, it is unclear what caused the dam to collapse – whether it was blown up from inside, as Kyiv claims, or whether it was destroyed by a missile attack, as Moscow claims. The West leans towards Kyiv’s side of the story, and an increasing number of officials say Moscow is to blame anyway, because it triggered the war and occupied the territory right of the Dnieper, including Nova Kakhovka.
The fact that the area downstream was flooded could actually benefit Russia, allowing it to better fight off a Russian offensive here. On the other hand, however, Ukraine used a similar tactics in the battle for Kyiv, when it opened the dams on three rivers in order to flood the fields and thus stop the Russian advance. The damages caused by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam are however significantly higher than those in the Kyiv region. Nevertheless, this is an entirely different situation, as Ukraine does not face an imminent threat in the Kherson region. On the contrary, Kyiv’s forces seem to have the upper hand. A Ukrainian operation that should cause such large-scale destruction on its own territory is thus hard to justify and explain to the Ukrainian population.
Finally, the plethora of narratives launched by Russia and their reference to previously promoted disinformation themes raise serious questions. Flooding the public sphere with false narratives, some of which are conflicting, has always been used by Moscow in the disinformation campaigns of the last few years. Another strategy of Russian propaganda was to shift responsibility for Moscow’s own actions to the opposite camp, as Veridica has proved in the case of the massacres of Bucha and Izium, committed by Russian servicemen, yet attributed to Ukrainian troops.
