What's wrong with the world's reaction to the Kakhovka dam explosion by Russian forces?

On June 6, the European continent woke up to news that was hard to believe – Russian troops blew up the dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. Eerie footage of a raging torrent demolishing everything in its path spread across the world's media in a matter of hours. The largest humanitarian, environmental, and economic disaster in the modern history of Europe was unfolding before people's eyes.

The floodwaters inundated settlements, including cemeteries and toxic waste disposal sites, resulting in the risk of epidemics, damage to businesses and crops, destruction of the region's ecosystem, loss of lives, and ultimately a threat to the cooling of the operating nuclear reactors at ZNPP. The real consequences of the terrorist attack are still hard to predict. However, we are already talking about losses of $4.5-6.5 billion.

The international community's reaction to the Kakhovka dam explosion

The official UN Twitter account disgraced itself by posting a tweet about the celebration of Russian Language Day and then remained silent all day.

It was only in the evening that the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, finally commented on the explosion of the Kakhovka dam, calling the event "another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine." The report also emphasized that the UN does not have access to information to independently verify the cause of the destruction.

The controversial Fox News channel has disseminated a video where American ex-host Tucker Carlson claims that Ukraine blew up the Kakhovka HPP itself, because the cities occupied by Russia suffered the most, not those controlled by Ukraine. This manipulative material was disseminated by Congressman Matt Gates, Russian representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky, and Elon Musk.

Countries of the Global South - Brazil, Gabon, Mozambique - traditionally called for peace and negotiations. China also emphasized the importance of international humanitarian law and stressed that it "will always be on the side of peace."

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that "the destruction of the Kakhovka dam is putting thousands of civilians at risk, leaving many homeless and creating acute humanitarian needs. Civilians and civilian infrastructure are not a target."

The UN Security Council held an extraordinary meeting, but traditionally could not take any decisions due to Russia's veto. Russia still has the veto and is actively using it.

A spokesman for US President Joe Biden's administration said that the United States is "very concerned" about the reported destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled Kherson region and is trying to learn more about the potential consequences.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz noted that "This fits with the way in which Putin wages this war and consistent with many of the crimes in Ukraine. We will support Ukraine as long as necessary," Reutersreported.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emphasized that the dam's destruction "is yet another example of the horrific consequences of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine."

Following the world leaders, the media avoided identifying the exact cause of the dam's destruction and those responsible for it. The statements about "the parties mutually accusing each other" and "the impossibility of verifying any statements made by Ukraine or Russia" were widely circulated. Appealing to classical journalistic standards, which require that both "sides of the conflict" be given the floor, the media spread with viral speed the statements of Russian officials about "deliberate sabotage" by the Ukrainian side.

Timothy Snyder, a professor at Yale University and a widely recognized facilitator of changing traditional perceptions of Eastern Europe, has published tips to help all involved present information more accurately about the fact that "Nova Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, controlled by Russia, has been destroyed." These are:

• Avoid the temptation to begin the story of this manmade humanitarian and ecological catastrophe by bothsidesing it. That's not journalism.
• Russian spokespersons claiming that Ukraine did something (in this case, blow a dam) is not part of a story of an actual event in the real world. It is part of different story: one about all the outrageous claims Russia has made about Ukraine since the first invasion, in 2014. If Russian claims about Ukrainian actions are to be mentioned, it has to be in that context.
• Citing Russian claims next to Ukrainian claims is unfair to the Ukrainians. In this war, what Russian spokespersons have said has almost always been untrue, whereas what Ukrainian spokespersons have said has largely been reliable. The juxtaposition suggests an equality that makes it impossible for the reader to understand that important difference.
• If a Russian spokesman (e.g. Dmitri Peskov) must be cited, it must be mentioned that this specific figure has lied about every aspect of this war since it began. This is context. Readers picking up the story in the middle need to know such background.
• If Russian propaganda for external consumption is cited, it can help to also cite Russian propaganda for internal consumption. It is interesting that Russian propagandists have been long arguing that Ukrainian dams should be blown, and that a Russian parliamentarian takes for granted that Russia blew the dam and rejoices in the death and destruction that followed.
• 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.
• Dams are physical objects. Whether or how they can be destroyed is a subject for people who know what they are talking about. Although this valuable NYT story exhibits the above flaws, it has the great merit of treating dams as physical rather than narrative objects. When this exercise is performed, it seems clear that the dam could only have been destroyed by an explosion from the inside.
• Russia was in control of the relevant part of the dam when it exploded. This is an elemental part of the context. It comes before what anyone says. When a murder is investigated, detectives think about means. Russia had the means. Ukraine did not.
• The story doesn't start at the moment the dam explodes. Readers need to know that for the last fifteen months Russia has been killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, whereas Ukraine has been trying to protect its people and the structures that keep them alive.
• The setting also includes history. Military history offers an elemental point. Armies that are attacking do not blow dams to block their own path of advance. Armies that are retreating do blow dams to slow the advance of the other side. At the relevant moment, Ukraine was advancing, and Russia was retreating.

Striving for objectivity does not mean treating every event as a coin flip, a 50-50 chance between two different claims, but it rather requires thinking about all the objects – physical objects, the placement of people etc. – that need to be in the story in the same way as all the prerequisites that readers need for better story understanding upon reading it.

The world's sluggish reaction to the Kakhovka dam explosion pushes Putin to "even worse crimes," Deputy Foreign Minister Andrii Melnyk wrote on Twitter , emphasizing that with the dam explosion, "the Russians entered a new dimension of war," and the international community has only been able to express concern.

It seems that the world still has Putin's presumption of innocence implying that when Russia commits crimes, it is presumed innocent by default, until the injured party proves otherwise. How many more terrorist attacks does Russia have to commit before this paradigm is shaken?

Eventually, a reasonable question arises: Can the world's reaction to Russian terrorist attack on the Kakhovka HPP dam in Ukraine predetermine the international community's reaction to a possible catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, which is occupied and mined by Russians?