Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: SVITLANA HORIEVA / ANADOLU AGENCY / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA AFP
It is a military operation that has been meticulously prepared for many weeks. And fragments of which have already been observed in the vicinity of Bakhmout, a city in Donbass that the Russians claim to control. Ukraine wishes, in fact, to carry out a vast counter-offensive in the south-east of the country, intended to recover territories occupied by Moscow. In an interview given to 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 upset kyiv’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 in the way of the advance of the Ukrainian army,” said Mikhailo Podoliak, adviser to President Zelensky, on Twitter. For its part, Moscow attributes this partial destruction – responsible for major flooding – to “a series of night bombardments” carried out by Ukrainian soldiers. Nevertheless, everything suggests that the consequences of this incident will further serve Russian interests and force the Ukrainian forces to change course. “The Russians certainly thought that the Ukrainians would choose this area to carry out their counter-offensive. Is this the case? Hard to say but in any case, these floods prevent the deployment of armored vehicles”, notes 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 impossible given the rising waters. “This can pose a real tactical problem for the Ukrainians because the idea could have been to create a diversion there to carry out a larger offensive in the Donbass or in the area of Zaporijjia”, notes General Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the review National Defense.
And the disaster does not seem ready to be resolved. Upstream of the dam, there is indeed a vast reservoir of water 240 kilometers long and whose width reaches 23 kilometers in places. “To evacuate the water will take several days, even several weeks. And even once it is done, the ground will be muddy. So it will remain impracticable”, observes General Pellistrandi. For the Russians, this blow to the Kakhovka barrage also has another advantage. “This allows them to leave this flooded area, which in any case was not of great economic interest to them, and to go and reinforce militarily another sector where Ukraine could attack”, supports Jérôme Pellistrandi. kyiv would then find itself facing a greater number of enemy soldiers while being unable to attack via the territories currently under water.
“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 will be able to stop the ‘Ukraine”. In the evening, he also assured that this partial destruction would not affect the counter-offensive plans.
But in fact, the solutions available to the kyiv 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”, says Jérôme Pellistrandi. For the time being, the Ukrainian authorities are emphasizing operations to evacuate civilians. 17,000 of them have already been forced to leave their homes, according to Andriï Kostine, the country’s attorney general.