BELGRADE, THURSDAY

THE DISPUTE OVER how the Kakhovka Dam collapsed may have been resolved after a blogger in Vladivostok claimed that a new oral health drive among Russian conscripts serving in Ukraine could have led to the disaster.

The blogger, who calls himself Tsar Nikki Vlad, and wears a shopping bag on his head, said his brother, who was conscripted last week and is in training in the Urals, had taken part in a project to improve the teeth of Russian soldiers.

“Yuri (the brother) told me that ten thousand soldiers were made to floss together,” Vlad blogged, “and a weird thing happened, the vibrations caused by the act of flossing married itself to the resonant vibration of the surrounding barrack buildings. And they all fell down. Even taking into account the shitty Soviet era construction of these buildings, the fact that the flossing managed to bring them down caused Russian commanders to ban the practice for more than ten soldiers at a time.

“Fast forward to last week. The Ukrainians began attacking in their Great Counter-Offensive, and Russian troops, unbeknownst to one another, prepared for battle by washing and shaving and … cleaning their teeth thoroughly. Only this time half a million men were flossing at precisely the same time. Maybe even three quarters of a million, it is impossible to say. The Kakhovka Dam was already weakened by over a year of war. And, suddenly, wham, it collapsed!”

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv will comment on the idea.

“Well, they wouldn’t, would they,” Vlad remarked. “Moscow doesn’t want the world to know the new wonder weapon it has stumbled upon; and Kyiv is terrified of its soldiers having to face thousands of Russian troops flossing their teeth all at the same time.”