2023-06-06 14:38:17
The ukrainian war begins its sixteenth month waiting for the kyiv government to start its great counteroffensive to push back the russian invading forces. A military movement that has been delayed for technical reasons -Ukraine is completing the integration of the last Western material received- and for weather reasons -it was time to wait for the ground to dry after the spring thaw-.
In recent days, Ukrainian forces have begun to attack different Russian positions along a front terrestrial that extends in more than 700 kilometers, between the region of Kharkov and the southwest of the area of Kherson that is located to the east of the Dnieper river. It is unknown if these movements are already part of the first tests prior to the great Ukrainian counteroffensive or if, on the contrary, they are simple erosion attacks on the enemy.
This Tuesday, it is not yet known under what conditions, the New Kakhovka Damthe most important water infrastructure in Ukraine, has blown up. On social networks there are videos of the supposed moment of the explosion, although it is extremely difficult to verify their authenticity. It is difficult to quantify the mass of water released to the south of the Dnieper River, although the capacity of the gigantic artificial reservoir that forms the dam is 18 million cubic meters.
Russia y Ukraine they blame each other for the attack to the water structure. Moscow accuses Kiev of having caused the destruction using a mobile system of mobile rocket launchers, which seems complicated for a mass of cement designed to withstand the pressure of 18 million cubic meters. Ukraine accuses Russia of having caused the destruction by detonating the dam with explosives placed in strategic areas of the dam.
What is clear, at this time, is that the destruction of the infrastructure will cause the flooding of good part of Jershon region both east and west of the riverbed, and that this includes Kherson city, where about 300,000 people lived before the war. The Ukrainian civil protection plan prior to the war maintained that in the event of a break, another 80 towns in the region would have to be evacuated, which would be flooded by the waters.
Beyond the disastrous consequences for the population of the area, as well as for the fauna -the first images of fawns or beavers fleeing the floods have already appeared on social networks-, the reality is that the destruction of the Nueva Kajovka is a major alteration of the situation on the battlefield. Both Ukrainians and Russians will be directly affected by this fact.
Ukraine seems to be the badly damaged by the explosion of the New Kakhovka dam. First, because they are its citizens who are in danger, those who will have to leave their homes, those who are going to lose a good part of the belongings that they have managed to keep safe during the last 15 months of war. And they are the ones they will have to redo a critical work and all affected populations when the war ends.
will also be seen affected at the military level. It is possible that if the kyiv government planned to open some kind of hostility in its great counteroffensive against Russia from Kherson, it may have to return to redo your plans. He Water is one of the great natural defenses in a war and the rupture of the dam complicates the movement of troops and the passage of the banks. We will have to see how both sides of the river are once the big wave that is expected in the next few hours has passed.
The Ukrainians have been making amphibious operations in recent months from the west bank of the Dnieper that is under their control to the east bank that the Russians control. Small forays to test the terrain and study the Russian defenses. Now, if the area gets badly flooded, it would be difficult to develop a large operation to cross his troops from one side of the river to the other.
Russia has been working all winter on creating a triple defensive line made by trenches, dragon’s teeth and anti-tank ditches along the eastern bank of the Dnieper, from the mouth to near the city of Zaporizhia. A defensive infrastructure that, at least in its first line, seems to be totally useless. It can even affect the second line.
The flooding should not put the lives of the Russian troops on these defensive lines at risk, although the way Moscow treats its troops, it is possible that, if they were the cause of the explosion at the New Kakhovka dam, neither They have cared that some of their troops lost their lives to try to sell internationally that they have not been the cause of the disaster.
The Kremlin would also have to write off the North Crimean Channel, key infrastructure for Russian interests. So much so that Moscow ordered to take it by assault and so did its troops during the first 24 hours of the invasion. This channel had been supplying, since its creation at the time of Leonid Brézhnev leading the Soviet Union85 percent of the fresh water for human and agricultural consumption that the Crimean Peninsula needs for its day to day.
The Kiev government ordered the water channel cut off when Russia illegally invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, causing huge water supply problems in Crimea until the Russians reactivated it in the first week of the war. For Moscow is uA vitally important infrastructure, although he already has experience of surviving without it for eight years.
The last major consequence of the destruction of the New Kakhovka dam is its role for the daily operation of the Zaporiyia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, with five reactors that were still working until the first months of the Russian invasion. The water used to fill the large cooling pond for the reactors is extracted from the large artificial reservoir that formed in the Dnieper riverbed.
The Dnieper is a tremendously mighty river, so if it is necessary to fill the large pond it seems that there would be no problem. for now, there appears to be no risk of a nuclear incidentaccording to experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), since the nuclear power plant’s reactors have been idle for months and, therefore, their residual heat is quite low.
It does seem clear that before the plant can be fully operational again -Ukraine wants it for its electricity supply and Russia wants to keep it for its own supply- it will be necessary to fix the New Kajovka dam so that possible problems related to it cannot arise. water supply for cooling the reactors.
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