Updated throughout (12:15 UTC)
A few hours ago an alleged explosion blew up the Nova Kakhova dam in Ukraine.
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It was either that or structural damage from previous strikes.
Geoff Brumfiel @gbrumfiel – 6:31 UTC · Jun 6, 2023
The dam was already under enormous strain and damaged.
Then things got worse. On 2 June, it looks like a road over the dam failed. That could be indicative of a larger structural failure.
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In consequence the huge reservoir behind the dam is now flooding lower level land south of Kherson (Xepcoh). The pictures show the before and after of potential flooding due to the breach:
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Previously the Russian army had pulled back its troops from the northern part of Kherson oblast because a dam breach would endanger their supply route.
We do not know yet how much of the dam has been damaged. How much water will be flowing out of it depends on the part of the wall that is still standing below the current water level.
Of note is that the Ukraine had previously filled the upstream dams on the Dnieper to the brim to increase the potential damage. Those waters were released in early May. Notice the date of the following tweet.
ZOKA @200_zoka – 14:12 UTC · May 4, 2023
Water level in Kakhovka reservoir in Zaporozhye region risen by 17 m and almost reached critical level. Under threat of destruction of dam in Kamenka Dneprovskaya, dozens of villages may be flooded.
Kyiv opened the floodgates in Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye.
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The Ukrainian propagandists are claiming that the Russian blew up the dam. That is however unlikely.
On October 21 2022 Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, sent a letter to the UN Secretary General about the plans of the Kiev regime to destroy the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station.
In a report about last years Kherson counteroffensive the Washington Post reported of Ukrainian plans and attempts to blow up the dam:
[Maj. Gen. Andriy] Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages.
The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.
Destroying its own infrastructure is nothing new for Ukrainian servicemen. In April 2022 the New York Times already noted this:
What happened in Demydiv was not an outlier. Since the war’s early days, Ukraine has been swift and effective in wreaking havoc on its own territory, often by destroying infrastructure, as a way to foil a Russian army with superior numbers and weaponry.
Demydiv was flooded when troops opened a nearby dam and sent water surging into the countryside. Elsewhere in Ukraine, the military has, without hesitation, blown up bridges, bombed roads and disabled rail lines and airports. The goal has been to slow Russian advances, channel enemy troops into traps and force tank columns onto less favorable terrain.
Quoting the above Washington Post piece Andrew Korybko points to a possible motive for today's demolishing of the dam:
[Kovalchuk's] remark about how “the step remained a last resort” is pertinent to recall at present considering that the first phase of Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive completely failed on Monday according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Just like Ukraine launched its proxy invasion of Russia in late May to distract from its loss in the Battle of Artyomovsk, so too might does it seem to have gone through with Kovalchuk’s planned war crime to distract from this most recent embarrassment as well.
The most recent embarrassment was the failure of yesterday's attack near Novodarovka and Levadnoye. As the Russian Ministry of Defense noted in a special statement:
As a result of active and self-sacrificing actions of the Vostok Group of Forces, which displayed courage and heroism, the enemy has been stopped, and the set tasks haven’t been achieved. The AFU formations and military units suffered significant losses.
Total AFU losses in South Donetsk direction were over 1,500 Ukrainian servicemen, 28 tanks, including FRG-manufactured 8 Leopard tanks, three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, and 109 armoured fighting vehicles.
(I have seen pictures of the destroyed AMX-10 reconnaissance tanks but not yet of any destroyed Leopard.)
Interestingly the 'western' media, pressed into compliance by the Ukrainian government, were thanked for their pro-Ukrainian reporting on the issue around the time the dam was breached:
Michael Tracey @mtracey – 9:42 UTC · Jun 6, 2023
Top advisor of Zelensky thanks journalists in advance today for helping the Ukraine government win the "diplomatic and informational battle" around the bombing of the Nova Kakhovka dam. Helpful reminder of the state imperatives these journalists are expected to abide by Image
The attached image of the top advisor's Telegram post has a 3:03 timestamp.
The destruction of the dam is certainly not to Russia's favor. As the 'western' aligned Moscow Times noted six months ago (link corrected):
In a catastrophic scenario, destroying the dam could send a highly destructive flood wave down the Dnipro River, causing severe flooding in large areas of southern Ukraine. Backswell would also likely flood the Inhulets River, a tributary of the Dnipro.
However, terrain levels mean the flooding would likely be worse on the Russian-held left bank of the Dnipro, making a detonation of explosives on the dam an unlikely move for Moscow.
"[Destroying the dam] would mean Russia essentially blowing its own foot off,” military analyst Michael Kofman said on the War on the Rocks podcast last month.
“[It] would flood the Russian-controlled part of Kherson [region]… much more than the western part that Ukrainians are likely to liberate."
And the secondary effects of blowing the dam could be just as severe for Russia.
Lowering the river level behind the dam threatens both water supplies to Moscow-annexed Crimea and risks cutting off access to cooling water for the Russian-controlled nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
Water from the dam was also used to irrigate the southern Kherson oblast. The lack of water will disable the power generation at the dam which supplied the south.
The flood is likely to dissipate in a week or two but that does not change the major damages to the parts that Russia claims as its own.
The water will then have destroyed Russian mine fields on the left bank (seen from the spring) of the river. This will open routes for Ukrainian troops to cross the river and to attack into the southern Kherson oblast towards Crimea. There have previously reports that the Ukraine received bridging and ferry equipment for exactly this purpose.