In the middle of the night, the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine bursts through. Huge masses of water flood dozens of places. Did the Russians blow up the facility? Or was it a sabotage action by Ukraine, as the Kremlin claims? And was the dam intentionally destroyed at all? ntv.de answers the most important questions.
What happened?
In the Russian-occupied area in southern Ukraine, the important Kachowka dam was destroyed on Tuesday night. Ukraine accuses Russia of having blown up the plant. Moscow, on the other hand, claims it was an act of sabotage by the Ukrainian army. According to Ukrainian information, around 16,000 residents were in the critical zone in the immediate vicinity of the dam. Several villages are already completely flooded. There is a risk of flooding in a total of around 80 settlements, including the city of Cherson on the right bank of the Dnipro River, which had almost 300,000 inhabitants before the war.
The areas on the left bank of the river occupied by Russian troops are also likely to be affected. While the Ukrainian authorities are busy bringing the residents on the right bank of the Dnipro to safety, the occupying administration of the Kherson region installed by Russia says it sees no need for a major evacuation of the population on the left bank.
What was the importance of the dam?
The dam was 30 meters high and 3.2 kilometers long. It was built in 1956 as part of the Kachowka hydroelectric power station. The resulting reservoir holds around 18 billion cubic meters of water and supplies water to several power plants, including the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. Several cities in the region, but also the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia, are supplied with fresh water from the Kakhovka reservoir via numerous canals. Russia had reopened the North Crimean Canal, which had been closed by Ukraine after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, immediately after the February 2022 invasion. The reservoir is also of great importance for agriculture. Around 200,000 hectares of farmland in the region are irrigated via the canals.
Were there any signs of destruction of the dam?
Just a week before the dam was destroyed, the Kremlin issued a decree dealing with the application of Russian legislation to the occupied territories of Ukraine. This states, among other things, that “accidents in dangerous production plants and hydraulic structures caused by military action, sabotage and acts of terrorism” no longer have to be investigated. The regulation was published on May 30th and came into force the following day.
As early as November last year, there was concern that Russian troops could blow up the Kakhovka dam as they pulled out of the right bank of the Dnipro in order to inflict as much damage as possible on Ukraine’s withdrawal. At the time, however, Russia did not take the step. Immediately after the Russians withdrew, however, the level in the reservoir began to drop massively.
The political magazine “Eastern Europe” suspected in March that the Russian occupying administration could have deliberately lowered the water level of the reservoir “in order to blow up the dam wall in the event of certain developments in the war.” The calculation behind it: The tidal wave in the Russian-occupied areas on the left bank of the Dnipro would be less devastating when the water level was low than when the lake was full. “However, the consequences for the people in south-eastern Ukraine and for the entire Ukrainian economy would be catastrophic,” said the “Eastern Europe” report.
Since April, however, a continuous rise in the level has been observed. There can be two reasons for this: Either Russia moved away from the alleged original plan and let the lake fill up in order to cause maximum damage during the blast. However, it is also conceivable that the level rose uncontrollably because the Russians did not adequately maintain the hydroelectric power station. If this is the case, one could even assume that the dam was not destroyed on purpose, but through the lack of maintenance (more on this in the last point).
Who or what caused the dam to collapse?
The Russian side may have blown up the dam. The region around the dam is part of the area currently occupied by Russian troops. So, unlike the Ukrainians, they had access to the site. “We know from the past that the Russians mined the dam. They basically let us know that,” military expert Markus Reisner told NDR. One option would be that the Russian side has now detonated these prepared mines.
A second possibility would be for the Ukrainians to destroy the dam. Their troops should have attacked from afar. However, since the dam is a very massive structure, “the mere impact of an artillery shell would have caused manageable damage here,” says Reisner.
Retired Colonel Wolfgang Richter also considers an artillery attack to be very unlikely. “Such strikes are area fires. If a battery shoots, it would cover an area of 200 by 300 meters,” says Richter ntv.de. “So you would also have to see other impacts and an explosion directly at the dam would be a coincidence.”
However, from Richter’s point of view, Ukraine has another weapon that can be used to carry out such a long-distance attack with high precision: HIMARS, the multiple rocket launcher from the USA. In July last year, Ukrainian forces conducted precise HIMARS attacks on a Russian depot in Nova Kakhovka and the command post of the Russian 22nd Army Corps. “They succeeded in killing a whole group of high-ranking Russian officers very precisely,” Richter recalls.
One rocket would also be enough to damage the dam to the current extent. “The Ukrainians proved this in two other HIMARS attacks on the Antoniv Bridge over the Dnieper near Kherson. In July 2022, it was so badly damaged that it is no longer passable for vehicles.” Military expert Thomas Wiegold, on the other hand, considers HIMARS to be too weak to cause such damage.
In summary, it would have been very easy for Russia to destroy the dam, but according to Richter, the Ukrainians also had the opportunity to do so. Apparently none of the options can be ruled out with certainty at the moment. But it can be shown which of the two warring parties has the greater benefit from the tidal wave.
How does the tsunami benefit the Russians and the Ukrainians?
The wave prevents the possibility of “an extensive military landing by the Ukrainians, who apparently tried to advance amphibiously in small groups – i.e. from the water – in the south of Cherson,” military expert Reiser told ntv.de. In order to prevent this, “one accepts widespread destruction and victims with diabolical calculations.”
From Wolfgang Richter’s point of view, such a surprise operation across the Dnipro would be a highly risky undertaking, since the river is more than a kilometer wide at that point. “So you can only cross the river by using a few pontoon bridges. The attack would then be concentrated on three to four crossing points,” says Richter. These would become targets for the Russian side to attack. “However, we have seen exercises by the Ukrainians, who have practiced exactly such an approach on large military training areas.” Should the Ukrainians have planned such an attack across the river, this is now impossible – an advantage for the Russian side.
However, the dam breach will also have long-term consequences, also to the detriment of the Ukrainians: the tidal wave will make the river so wide up to the mouth and it will flow at such high speed that it will be almost impossible for military vehicles to cross it in the foreseeable future. And the adjacent fields will also become muddy and tanks will not be able to drive on them for a long time. “Weeks or even months will pass before these areas are dry again,” says Richter. As a result, the Ukrainians are now unable to open a second front in the south-west parallel to the Donbass in the north-east, for example to start a diversionary maneuver here in order to confuse the enemy.
A clear disadvantage, because an important element of every offensive are deceptive manoeuvres: “Distracting the enemy, extending the front and finding the weakly protected places where you then surprisingly concentrate your forces and try to break through with fire and movement”, as described it expert judge. That should be the goal of the Ukrainians to regain territory.
So what the Ukrainian side had recently managed in Belgorod, namely to tie up Russian forces in a region in which there had been no fighting so far and thus to extend the front, they are now losing again in the south-west. Here the front is shortening, here an attack by the Ukrainians throughout the summer will be almost impossible. This does not mean that the front has been abolished, “but you can theoretically withdraw forces from there and use them as reserves in other places,” says the retired colonel Gut for the Russians, who had previously had difficulties moving along the more than 1,000-kilometer-long front set up in such a way that they could fend off attempts at recapture by the Ukrainians.
So there is still no evidence that the Russians or Ukrainians are clearly to blame for the dam collapse. On the other hand, one thing is clear, regardless of the many victims that the flood catastrophe will claim: From a military point of view, the benefits clearly lie with the Russians.
Could the destruction also have been caused by poor maintenance?
This is also currently the subject of speculation. Poor maintenance could be due to the fact that the level in the reservoir has risen sharply to an unusually high level in recent weeks. This shows, for example, this graphic, which is based on data from a French non-profit organization.
US journalist Geoff Brumfliel, who works for the non-commercial radio network NPR, suspects that Russia has not taken sufficient care of the dam. “They left some lock gates open, which caused the water level to drop in the early winter. But after the spring rains, the locks didn’t let enough water through,” tweeted he. At the beginning of May, the level had reached such a high level that water flowed over the lock gates.
Brumfliel points out that prior to this loading, the dam had already been damaged by two previous incidents. There was an attack last fall. Russia blamed the Ukrainian side for this. This rejected the allegations. Later, probably Russian units blew up part of the roadway over the dam. A few days ago, part of the road was washed away by the water, according to Brumfiel. “This suggests to me that prior to what happened today there were structural issues at the facility,” he tweeted.
This does not mean that the dam was definitely destroyed by poor maintenance and not by a blast. However, a structural failure cannot be ruled out, according to Brumfiel – “at least not yet”.