Global Courant
A huge dam located in the area occupied by Russian military forces in southern Ukraine has collapsed, unleashing flooding downstream.
Both Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the damage, reminiscent of the dynamics following the inexplicable explosions on the Nordstream pipeline last year.
In both cases, Western suspicions have immediately fallen on Russia. But both times, Moscow has responded by saying “It wasn’t us. Why would we do something like that? This affects us.”
In the case of the Kakhovka dam rupture, Russia can point to at least two ways in which it harms its own interests.
Downstream flooding has forced it to evacuate troops and civilians eastward, away from Kherson and the banks of the wide Dniepe River. This will provide a temporary respite for Kherson residents who have had to live with daily Russian artillery and missile attacks.
Second, this could affect the water supply for Crimea, an arid peninsula that depends on fresh water from a canal near the broken dam. Since it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, it has become heavily fortified ground that both Russia and Ukraine claim as their own.
But the breach of the Kakhovka dam must be seen in the broader context of the Ukrainian war, and more specifically in light of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, which is showing signs that it is already underway.
For this counteroffensive to succeed, it must break Russia’s grip on a swath of territory it seized last year that connects Crimea with Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
If Ukraine can find a way to break through the Russian defensive lines south of Zaporizhia and split that territory in two, then it can isolate Crimea and achieve a major strategic victory.
But the Russians have learned many lessons since their invasion in February of last year. They looked at the map, determined where Ukraine is most likely to attack, and spent the last few months building truly formidable lines of fortifications to block any Ukrainian advance into the Sea of Azov.
It is by no means certain that Ukraine planned to send its forces to the western side of those defenses. The High Command in Kyiv sensibly keeps its cards close to its chest to keep Russia at a loss.
BBC
But the damage to the dam, whoever did it, now makes that option much more problematic.
The Dniepe is already a wide river when it reaches southern Ukraine and it would be extremely dangerous to cross it with an armored brigade, under fire from Russian artillery, missiles and drones.
Now that the dam across it has broken and huge tracts of land downriver have been inundated, the area on the left (east) bank in front of Kherson has effectively become a no-go area for Ukrainian armor.
You also have to see the history. In 1941, Soviet troops blew up a dam on the Dniepe River itself to block the advance of Nazi troops. Thousands of Soviet citizens are said to have died in the floods it unleashed.
However, the bottom line now is that whoever breached the Kakhovka dam has upset the strategic chessboard in southern Ukraine, forcing a series of major adjustments on both sides and possibly delaying Ukraine’s next move in its counteroffensive promised.
