a Norwegian institute claims to have recorded an “explosion” the night the dam was destroyed

An additional clue? A seismic signal of magnitude 1 to 2 was recorded by the Norwegian institute Norsar on Wednesday June 7. This locates the epicenter at the coordinates of the Kakhovka dam, the night of its destruction, at 2:54 a.m. (Ukrainian time). He also observed several weaker signals, from 2:35 a.m., again coming from the hydraulic structure. These sightings were recorded at stations in Romania and Ukraine, 600 and 500 km away.

For Ben Dando, one of Norsar’s department heads, there is little doubt: the characteristics of the signal recorded at 2:54 a.m. correspond well to those of an explosion. “We observed a high-frequency, high-pulse signal”he writes to franceinfo, ruling out any other hypothesis, such as the rupture of the dam itself.

The data collected by Norsar, on the other hand, does not make it possible to establish whether there were several explosions or whether the signal at 2:35 a.m. corresponds to an explosion. On Wednesday, in a comment collected by franceinfo, a resident explained that he was awakened at 2:15 a.m. by a series of detonations, repeated with intervals of three to five minutes.

Norsar is also not able to estimate the power of explosives needed to generate such a signal, usually expressed in equivalent tons of TNT. Ben Dando invokes “too much uncertainty” on the magnitude, and therefore, on the power. It is also impossible for him to designate a person in charge.

Loads at the valves?

In recent days, several observers have argued that the dam could have broken after being weakened by explosions in recent months. But the damage regularly observed on the roadway of the bridge has no consequences on the structure of the dam itself, according to a specialized engineer interviewed by franceinfo. The latter, in view of the various documents available, considered that the most plausible scenario was that of explosive charges placed at the level of the valves.

For their part, Ukrainian intelligence claims to have intercepted a telephone conversation between two Russian soldiers, supposed to prove the responsibility of Russia in the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. “It’s not them, but our special forces [qui l’ont fait]. Our sabotage group is here”, the men reportedly said, according to the brief verbatim published by the Ukrainian side. However, it is impossible to independently verify these claims.