While it remains unclear who damaged a key Russian-controlled dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, the episode comes in the midst of what U.S. officials say could be the early stages of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, raising questions about which side will gain from the flooding reshaping important terrain along the front line.
Most experts think the counteroffensive will be east of the river, but the destruction of the dam could divert both sides’ attention and resources.
The Dnipro forms the front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces from Zaporizhzhia all the way to the Black Sea. The dam is the southernmost along the Dnipro and is roughly 35 miles east of the Ukrainian-controlled port city of Kherson.
Since Ukrainian forces retook Kherson in November, Kyiv’s troops have mounted limited river crossings toward the Russian-controlled eastern bank but have failed to gain a significant foothold.
The destruction of the dam, and subsequent flooding, would make any future cross-river incursions downriver from the dam more difficult for Ukrainian forces. Russian troops most likely fear Ukrainian incursions as they try to defend a roughly 600-mile-long front line.
The flooding will also draw resources away from the Ukrainian government as it scrambles to evacuate civilians trapped in the flood zone, potentially affecting the counteroffensive, depending on the scope of destruction.
The same could be said about flooded Russian-occupied territory on the eastern bank, where entrenched Kremlin troops could be displaced by rising water. Minefields and weapons storage areas could also be affected.
Pro-Russia military bloggers immediately blamed Kyiv for damaging the dam, claiming that the facility’s destruction was the result of constant shelling by Ukrainian forces dating back to last year.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern command, said it was clear that the explosion “took place from the inside” and was not a rocket attack.
“They decided that now, in this way, they will be able to stop the counteroffensive of Ukrainian forces,” Ms. Humeniuk told Radio Svoboda Tuesday.
Igor Girkin, a former Russian paramilitary leader who goes by the pseudonym Igor Strelkov, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the reduction in water levels upriver from the dam would force Russia to send reserves to the area to prevent Ukrainian troops from trying to ford the river there and create a bridgehead.
Dam warfare is nothing new for Russia. In 1941, during World War II, Soviet forces destroyed the Dnipro hydroelectric plant and dam, located north of Kakhovka, to thwart a German advance, killing thousands of civilians in the process. Two years later, the Germans would do the same, this time as they retreated west.
The early stages of what could be Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been marked with feints and distractions, most notably with a recent series of Ukrainian-backed cross-border incursions into Russia’s Belgorod region.
Those skirmishes have been minor compared with the heavier fighting in the south and the east. There, U.S. officials have noticed an uptick in activity and unverified videos posted online have shown large amounts of Western-supplied equipment in several larger Ukrainian assaults.
