After nearly 16 months of conflict, a new level has been reached in the devastation inflicted on Ukraine. The destruction during the night of Monday June 5 to Tuesday June 6 of the Nova Kakhovka dam, in the south of the country, has already caused major flooding in several villages located downstream of the Dnieper River. “At this stage, 24 localities in Ukraine have been flooded, declared at midday the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, Igor Klymenko. We have already evacuated a thousand people. The evacuation continues”. If Russians and Ukrainians quickly passed the buck as to the responsibility for this destruction, several Western officials directly implicated Moscow.
“The destruction of civilian infrastructure is clearly a war crime – and we will hold Russia and its affiliates responsible”, reacted the president of the European Council Charles Michel in the morning, castigating a “shocking” attack. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg quickly followed suit, denouncing “a scandalous act, which once again demonstrates the brutality of the war waged by Russia in Ukraine”. The same goes for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who for his part condemned an attack that is “in line with many crimes that we have seen in Ukraine, committed by Russian soldiers”, and which “corresponds to the way whose Putin is waging this war”.
The scenario of Russian involvement is also favored among military experts. “The Russians accuse the Ukrainians of having carried out strikes on the dam, but shells could not cause such significant damage to an infrastructure of this type, points out General Dominique Trinquand, former head of the French mission to the UN. This is more consistent with explosive charges placed inside the structure, which the Russians just had under their control.”
“Strengthening the natural obstacle of the Dnieper”
On the tactical level, the destruction of the dam benefits Moscow. “The scale of the floods will reinforce the natural obstacle that the Dnieper constitutes, and thereby considerably complicate any attempt by the Ukrainians to cross the river”, points out General (2S) Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the Revue Défense. national. In addition, the flooded areas are mainly on the shore controlled by Kiev forces, which will force Ukraine to mobilize forces to evacuate civilians from the affected areas.” According to this expert, “Russian forces probably wanted to protect as much as possible the territories they control in southern Ukraine and northern Crimea”.
An analysis shared by General Trinquand: “Flooding the area south of the dam will allow the Russian forces to strengthen their defensive system on the other side of the Dnieper. Beyond complicating a Ukrainian amphibious operation, the wetting of the soil will also considerably hamper armor maneuvers in the event of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the area.”
While the signals of a Ukrainian counter-offensive – announced for months – have multiplied in recent days, the timing of the operation also seems to play against kyiv. “The objective of the (Russian) terrorists is obvious: to create obstacles for the offensive actions of the Ukrainian armed forces”, castigated Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the presidency, on Tuesday. The day before, Volodymyr Zelensky had rightly thanked his troops for recent territorial gains near the city of Bakhmout. “We see how hysterically Russia reacts to all the advances we make in this sector, to all the positions we take,” he said in a video posted hours before the attack.
First fears around a possible destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam by Russian forces had already emerged last fall, at the time of the Ukrainian counter-offensive on the city of Kherson, located at the mouth of the Dnieper. On October 20, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian forces of having “undermined the dam” and of wanting to blow it up in response to the advance of Ukrainian troops in the region. A threat visibly carried out. And which translates a real Russian feverishness in the face of the counter-offensive prepared by kyiv…