War in Ukraine: does the destruction of the Kakhovka dam threaten Kiev's counter-offensive?

Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: SVITLANA HORIEVA / ANADOLU AGENCY / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA AFP 21:14 p.m., June 06, 2023

It is a military operation that has been carefully prepared for many weeks. And fragments of which have already been observed in the vicinity of Bakhmut, a city in Donbass that the Russians boast of controlling. Ukraine wants to carry out a vast counter-offensive in the south-east of the country, aimed at recovering territories occupied by Moscow. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even assured that his troops were "ready" to launch the major maneuvers. But the partial destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, located in the Kherson region, could seriously thwart Kiev's plans.

#Russia blew up the dams of the #Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. The purpose is obvious: to create insurmountable obstacles on the way of the advancing #AFU; to intercept the information initiative; to slow down the fair final of the war. On a vast territory, all life will be... pic.twitter.com/rFpkDbjyhj

— Михайло подоляк (@Podolyak_M) June 6, 2023

"The objective is obvious: the occupiers are trying to create insurmountable obstacles on the path of the advance of the Ukrainian army," Mikhailo Podoliak, an adviser to President Zelensky, said on Twitter. For its part, Moscow attributes this partial destruction - responsible for major floods - to "a series of night bombings" carried out by Ukrainian soldiers. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that the consequences of this incident will serve Russian interests more and force Ukrainian forces to change their tune. "The Russians certainly thought that the Ukrainians would choose this area to carry out their counteroffensive. Is this the case? Difficult to say but in any case, these floods prevent the deployment of armored vehicles," said General Dominique Trinquand, former head of the French military mission to the UN.

The Russians will be able to deploy their forces elsewhere

Concretely, since the reconquest of the right bank of Kherson by Ukrainian forces last November, the Russian army has established itself on the other side of the Dnieper. However, recovering this area necessarily involves crossing the river downstream of the dam, which has now become unfeasible given the rising waters. "This can pose a real tactical problem for the Ukrainians because the idea could have been to create a diversion at this point to carry out a larger offensive in the Donbass or in the Zaporizhzhia sector," said General Jerome Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the journal National Defense.

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And the disaster does not seem ready to subside. Upstream of the dam, there is a vast reservoir 240 kilometers long and whose width reaches 23 kilometers in places. "Evacuating the water will take several days or even weeks. And even once that's done, the ground will be muddy. So it will remain impractical," General Pellistrandi said. For the Russians, this blow to the Kakhovka Dam also has another advantage. "This allows them to abandon this flooded area, which in any case did not represent a great economic interest for them, and to go and militarily reinforce another sector where Ukraine could attack," said Pellistrandi. Kiev would then face a larger number of opposing soldiers while being unable to attack via the territories currently under water.

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"Neither water, nor missiles, nor anything else can stop Ukraine"

On his Telegram channel, President Zelensky, who once again called the Russians "terrorists", nevertheless adopted a conquering posture, promising that "neither water, nor missiles, nor anything else can stop Ukraine". In the evening, he also assured that this partial destruction would not affect the counter-offensive plans.

But in reality, the solutions available to the Kiev army do not seem unlimited. "The front is a thousand kilometers long but not everything is usable for military purposes. For example, going east of Kharkiv is not very relevant and would expose the Ukrainian army to Russian strikes," Pellistrandi said. For the time being, the Ukrainian authorities are focusing on civilian evacuation operations. 17,000 of them have already been forced to leave their homes, according to Andriy Kostin, the country's attorney general.