a Kind of Refugee / 25.06.2023
Less than three weeks have passed since russia blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam in the part of Ukraine’s Kherson region it has occupied. Villages throughout the region lack clean water for drinking and washing. Water levels in the Dnipro upstream from the dam have dropped dramatically. The damage to Southern Ukraine’s natural and mandmade environment cannot be undone.
This letter is composed of fragments of text I posted to FB this month and comments from friends in the US. I’ve included links to the original source articles / podcasts (and friends’ blogs) — all interesting and worth reading in their own right! — in each fragment.
*What follows is long… If you want to *help immediately* please scroll down to the PS!*
June 6
this is what russian occupation does.
Help Khersonshchyna! Links in post
“Last night russian terrorists blew up the Kakhovka dam.
There are only a few pictures, since it’s still situated on the temporarily occupied territory of the Left bank of Dnipro river.
This is a war crime, a humanitarian disaster and an act of unimaginable ecocide. The magnitude of the damage will be unraveling within next hours, days and years. Long-term consequences of this catastrophe might affect the whole planet - the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, which is located North of the dam, is likely to lose a lot of water in its own reservoir. As a result, the cooling system of Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant might be disturbed, leading to the risk of nuclear disaster.
Thousands of people in Kherson region and my native town of Kherson whose homes and whole life is sinking behind their own eyes. Huge risk of the nuclear disaster that could likely affect neighbouring European countries. And the very realistic perspective of the whole South of Ukraine, where a large amount of the world’s share of grain were produced, to turn into the dead zone, rotting wasteland.
Below are a few trustworthy initiatives that you could support.”
Justin Doughty: I fear that the world won't hold Russia accountable to a level commensurate with its inhumanity. I fear that the citizens of Russia will remain deprived of the truth and oblivious to the heinous atrocities committed by their comrades and their leadership. This scares me because it creates an atmosphere capable of breeding the same delusional outlook that already plagues the Kremlin and its people.
Larissa Babij: Why won't the world hold the rf accountable for its inhuman crimes? What is stopping the world (and the individual thinking humans who make the world) from seeing russia's inhumanity and responding to what they see?
Justin Doughty: Many members of Western leadership are still afraid of Russia because of their nuclear capabilities. They have banged that drum ad nauseum since the early days of the war. This is all tyrannical theater in an attempt to save face and remind everyone that Putin still has the big red button and Russia is still scary and shouldn't be taken lightly. Look at all the backpedaling and side-switching that took place in regards to Ukraine's allies deciding what to supply to Ukraine, who would supply it and when. But Russia's bellowing is all rhetoric and there are no teeth behind their bark. Putin is a joke. His Kremlin cronies are empty suits brainwashed by some magic spell Putin has them under. They are a disgrace to humanity and I would spit on them given the chance. Why, then, do we still fear the monster under the bed that's been exposed as an overblown myth?
There are concerns as to what a Russian loss will do to their country. Destabilization, revolution, assassinations, changes in power that could be potentially more insidious than Putin's regime. Russia will be forced to pay for the rebuilding of Ukraine. What will happen to their economy and their currency when this happens? The country, as we know it, could cease to be. The Russian people will not be viewed favorably. They will carry the guilt and shame their leader lumbered them with. They are culpable by way of inaction against their criminal government. Who would dare come to their assistance after all of this?
Ukraine's allies are all at the same ball but they dance so much differently from one another. The fear of treading on toes or cutting in at an inappropriate time make it difficult to enjoy the dancing at all. There's a lot of pussyfooting and eggshell walking among Ukraine's allied countries in terms of crafting appropriate reciprocity for Russia's crimes. Too few are on the same page at the same moment which hinders deliberate and efficient progress. Although I'm sure they all agree that Russia is the bad guy in this war, I wouldn't expect them to arrive at a unanimous solution for holding Russia accountable for its actions.
There's a reason visitors to Ukraine, from all corners of the globe, leave there with a steadfast insistence that we do as much as we can to help and then some. They dare to see, smell and hear the atmosphere of death and aggression that overlies daily life in Ukraine. I feel that's the exposure so many people would need in order to find a deeper compassion toward Ukraine.
Larissa Babij: You point out the widespread fear in the West (govts, citizens etc.) around not knowing what could happen were russia to lose the war, lose face, lose the support of a functional economy, fall apart, etc. Legit fears, of course, one really cannot know what will happen. But to put it succinctly: from the point of the view of the West helping Ukraine it's a fear of the consequences to russia IF WE WIN.
Well what about the flipside: how does the West feel (or think?!) about the potential scenario of what if Ukraine loses? In other words: what if WE -- the West helping Ukraine -- FAIL TO WIN and Ukraine is decimated and its economy tanks (already has); even more of its people are killed or end up essentially captive on russian occupied territory; the country's land is destroyed / made unlivable (already happening), etc.? Do the people and govts of the West -- who have already sided with Ukraine through their actions and words of the past nearly 16 mos. -- fear living with the consequences of Ukraine losing? Or is it a more comfortable option because it's easier to imagine what that might look like (we've been getting used to it for over a year now)? Is it actually preferable to keep the war going indefinitely (as change is always scary)? Would it not weigh on their conscience at all to give up Ukraine for the sake of not having to face the WHAT IF of "what if russia loses"?
Justin Doughty: It IS literally about us being afraid of the good guys winning and the bad guys losing. Russia SHOULD lose and in an epic fashion. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and spent 10 extremely costly years there, but when the Soviet economy started taking serious casualties, they pulled out. It was the loss of money, not the loss of lives, that forced Gorbachev's hand. In simple terms, the only thing different now is the players and the venue. Same dismal game. That war was on TV regularly and it lives in historic annals. It's right there for us to see.
"what if Ukraine loses?" Too many people over here don't give a damn because they don't have to. If we give support today, we don't have to give lives tomorrow. I don't believe enough people truly grasp that. Americans are too concerned with boycotting beer over the spokesperson than they are recognizing a very real atrocity.
June 8
"The pursuit of objectivity does not mean treating every event as a coin flip, a fifty-fifty chance between two different public statements. Objectivity demands thinking about all the objects -- physical objects, physical placement of people -- that must be in the story, as well as all of the settings -- contemporary and historical -- that a reader would need in order to come away from the story with greater understanding."
"When a story begins with bothsidesing, readers are being implicitly instructed that an object in the physical world (like a dam) is really just an element of narrative. They are being guided into the wrong genre (literature) right at the moment when analysis is needed. This does their minds a disservice."
THIS, Western numbskulls, is what allows you to entertain the thought that you don't know who blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam. This is why you cannot see that the war russia is waging is bent on obliterating life and the possibility of living -- starting with Ukraine (and russia) but aimed at the entire world.
READ Timothy Snyder's succinct guidelines for how to see and report on the "humanitarian disaster that, had it not taken place within a war zone, would already have drawn enormous international assistance."
Your fear of condemning russia's rampage of wholesale destruction—because that would require you to fight—is helping russia destroy Ukraine. Your fear is destroying your own capacity to think and act and take responsibility for your own world.
June 8
The Guardian reports: About 230 square miles (600 sq km) of the Kherson region was under water on Thursday, the regional governor said. Oleksandr Prokudin said 68% of the flooded territory was on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River. The average level of flooding in the Kherson region on Thursday morning was 5.61m (18.41ft), he said.
My friends in Mykolaiv write: "The main problem is with Ukrainians on the occupied territories, as the left bank [of the Dnipro] is lower elevation, so there are many more in need of help.
Nobody can help those on the occupied territories, as the russians don't even help their own soldiers."
June 8
Stas Kozljuk (June 7):
“This is Kherson right now. The water keeps rising. We saw people from the islands and left bank (I can’t imagine how they got out) and they say that the situation is much worse there than on the right bank. Because the water is rising to roof level. And it’s not clear what to do next. The russians are not even trying to organize a rescue operation. Neither the occupiers nor their emergency services. They just left people to the elements. To die.
“There are some crazy individuals who are risking their lives to get people out by boat. We saw people today who spent 7+ months under occupation without seeing their loved ones. And now they’re jumping into boats with their documents and cats, crying and hugging.
“I have something to say to those people who are saying that Ukraine blew up the dam: I will organize a tour for you. I’ll even find a boat.”
June 10
seismic data, infrared satellite images, yes, evidence is good. but the world we live in is more complex than a whodunnit. it's worth listening to people who've lived through something beyond the realm of my imagination (like the USSR). cuz if you don't hear them you'll have to live through it yourself.
“Buildings, furniture, household appliances, cars are floating in the Black Sea. When I was a child (and even later) I treated this sea like a living creature; I talked to it, I asked forgiveness for the sewage that people dump into it. It’s been two years since I last saw it, and now I will have to ask forgiveness for the russians and for Sovok* — this absolute evil to which the world paid no mind for a hundred years and even now does not really understand.”
*Sovok — a derogatory term encompassing all aspects of the totalitarian USSR, from the homo Sovieticus mindset to Soviet culture and customs to the political regime
June 10
Claire Berlinski (June 8):
"The destruction of the dam was, among other things, a way for Putin to test how the West would react to the detonation of a nuclear weapon. But I don’t see the reaction we should be seeing. We’re not sending the signal that he will never be allowed to get away with it. It isn’t even on the front page of the news anymore. A significant minority of our gullible, hypnotized public is perfectly happy to believe what the Kremlin tells them.
“The disruption to global food and energy supplies and the impact on the world economy has cost magnitudes more than deterrence would have had we taken this seriously between 2014 and 22. We keep making the same mistake. Now our equivocation is costing lives, not just billions, and it will cost so many more— likely including many of our own—unless we react, now, in a way that says, “Don’t even fucking dream about it again.” . . . Russia is a global threat to humanity."
June 10
Noah Rothman (June 6):
"But why, some asked? What does Russia have to gain by compromising its own defensive positions, choking off the supply of water the dam diverts to occupied Crimea, and flooding thousands of hectares of arable land Moscow had only recently annexed into the Russian federation proper? The questions are based on a false premise, one that presupposes Russia has any interest in preserving land it is attempting to seize or safeguarding the people it seeks to subjugate."
"By denying its involvement in this event, despite all evidence to the contrary, the Kremlin is tacitly admitting that the dam’s destruction is a great crime. The deniability Moscow is cultivating will complicate the message it likely hopes to send: Russia reserves the right to escalate its war, and it is not afraid to decimate population centers in the process."
Bill Brown: There’s also the possibility, if we can believe the alleged recorded telephone conversation between Russian soldiers, that the Russian sabotage team screwed up, creating a bigger explosion and more irreparable damage than intended.
Larissa Babij: So you are still "presupposing that Russia has any interest in preserving land it is attempting to seize or safeguarding the people it seeks to subjugate"?
Bill Brown: No, my point is that Russia screwed up and was heedless of the human cost. Which is what they tend to do.
Larissa Babij: Exactly. Isn't there a fundamental difference between "screwing up" (everybody makes mistakes) and blowing up a dam as a tactical move in war? What moves you to insist on entertaining the possibility that this was an accident (i.e. forgivable as an unfortunate consequence of human error)?
Bill Brown: You're reading much into what I said. The Russians have screwed up a whole lot: they screwed up their attempted seizure of Kyiv, they screwed up by digging trenches in Chernobyl, they screwed up the design of their tanks, they screwed up their defense of Kherson, and they (according to the SBU) screwed up blowing the dam. Never once did the word "forgivable" cross my mind in relation to all these Russian screw-ups. "Unforgivable" has - many times.
Larissa Babij: So you are claiming they are too stupid to be genuinely evil?
My point is that Western people & politicians continue to not see -- despite continuous overwhelming evidence -- russia's murderous campaign against humanity and life.
Ukraine screwed up by not being ready for russia's Feb 24 attack. Ukraine screwed up by not spending the 8 years since 2014 ramping up military production and building & training its army. Ukraine screwed up by failing to protect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant from russian occupation.
russia has been clear about its intentions to destroy the Ukrainian state, people, culture and land from the very beginning. that they've had to change their plans along the way does not weaken their aim or will.
Every person who refuses to see this helps them keep going.
Bill Brown: I’m most definitely not claiming they are too stupid to be genuinely evil!
June 13
The inadequacy of the international response to russia blowing up the Kakhovka dam (and the media's taken to calling it a “collapse” or “breach” w/out an agent) reveals how evidence-based (and fact-based or "fact"-based) judgment fails to provide a firm enough basis to support a genuine political position and political action.
To my surprise, in a recent interview a bright, articulate colleague (& dear friend) of mine said that it’s too soon judge the explosion of the Kakhovka dam as a deliberate act of the rf until there’s been enough time to collect definitive evidence.
I was relieved that his interlocutor pushed back.
Her point: “People need to understand… that this was in effect the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction. And that it was a probe to see how we would react to it. And the answer is, we’re not reacting much.”
Politics is about action, about claiming a position publicly, which always involves risk. You cannot be 100% evidence-based sure when you speak from what you sense. Sense is a whole-bodied reading of what’s going on around you. It’s complex and specific to each person and their past experience and knowledge. It cannot be “objective” for it’s between you and your environment.
The widespread convention to "play it safe" as we wait for conclusive evidence is a refusal to use your senses to guide your actions and speech and thought.
But have you noticed that it’s becoming harder and harder to speak or argue with anybody who doesn’t already share your views? Facts these days are so various and contradictory that relying on them is a matter of trust. It’s a matter of trusting the source—a person or institution outside of you.
Sense is what connects you to the world and people around you. It is not the same thing as emotion. Are we so out of practice using our senses and constantly testing their accuracy that we no longer trust them to orient ourselves in the world? What kind of politics awaits people without common sense?
June 13
"I think that it was the very factor of the conscious abandoning of personal, civic freedom that did not allow the Russian national set of artistic statements and beautiful spiritual states, and of the perpetual chaos of half-born social civic structures, to turn into culture. The conscious forfeiting of freedom turned this entire artistic luxury first into a pile of junk, and then into an object called “non-culture.” I am certain that this will be mulled over and written about by philosophers, art historians, linguists, historians, and other educated people. I think that it will be truly interesting to grasp how our northern neighbors, with their beautiful soulfulness and sentimentality, managed not to become humans with a civic consciousness but a slavish one; how they succeeded in giving up on person-centered view of the world and of themselves in it. Instead of weapons of civic resistance, they opted for frying pans; instead of thoughts—stuffed toys in their heads. This is late Soviet aesthetics with its quotidian and eternal infantilism, and the triumph of an animalistic and irresponsible existence."
Kayti Sullivan: It might be on a slower track here, but it is a global thing, I fear
Larissa Babij: You are right! & it's not inevitable... which is why we can't turn away from russia's assault on Ukraine & Ukraine's resistance -- it illuminates the choice before each human -- to be human or not to be?
June 15
Lana Nicole Niland & Ukrainian Patriot are in Kherson.
Help them provide local residents with water filters!
“We are in #Kherson. This photo sums up the current experience. More will come.
If you have the means or ability, Ukrainian Patriot is raising funds for water filters. The hundreds of thousands - millions even - of bottled water being transported across the country is completely unsustainable, not only for NGOs like ours, but for the country, and most certainly for the environment.
Let’s not just be useful, but intelligent in our usefulness.”
PS Lana & the UP team are STILL in the Kherson region, delivering water and other supplies. Here is a glimpse of what they’re doing on the ground: https://www.facebook.com/UkrainianPatriot.org
They are buying water purification systems for Kherson residents to ensure long-term access to drinking water. You can help them meet their fundraising goal (they’re just over $1000 shy): https://ukrainianpatriot.org/donatenow/
Thank you for this reporting on the situation following the destruction of the dam.
What are your thoughts on the events over the last few days with Prigozhin and the Wagner group?