While Vladimir Putin holds the Ukrainians responsible for the Nova Kakhovka dam collapse, the West is convinced that the Russians are to blame. There is still no evidence, but according to the expert Richter, the Russian troops have clear advantages from the tsunami.
ntv.de: The dam broke near Cherson in the south-west of Ukraine, but there is fighting far away, in the north-east. How are the two areas related?
Wolfgang Richter: If you are planning a major counterattack, an offensive, it is also important to conduct diversionary maneuvers and then set the operational focus elsewhere with an element of surprise, where the enemy’s weaknesses have been identified. Operational success can only be achieved by achieving a surprising superiority in firepower and mobile formations in a planned breakthrough sector.
That suggests that an attack by the Ukrainians was also planned in the Cherson area?
A surprise operation by the Ukrainians across the Dnieper would have been a highly risky undertaking, since the river is already more than a kilometer wide at that point between Nova Kakhovka and Cherson, even without a tidal wave, and the Russians have established themselves there for defense.
Defense expert Wolfgang Richter was senior military adviser to the German representations at the OSCE in Vienna and at the UN in New York. He is also a retired colonel
How would the Ukrainians have gotten there in the first place?
The Ukrainian troops could have crossed the river by ferrying light units across in assault boats and helicopters, and then bringing the heavy troops across several pontoon bridges to the opposite bank. But that would mean that the attack by the heavy forces would be concentrated on three to four crossing points. And these concentration points would then themselves become targets for the Russian side to attack. Protecting these transitions from Russian return fire would be very expensive.
But possible?
An attack across the river would have to be covered by massive artillery fire, missile and air strikes. However, we have already seen exercises by the Ukrainians who have practiced exactly such an approach at large military training areas. It should also be noted that the route from the east bank of the Dnieper to the Crimea is far shorter than that from Zaporizhia to the Sea of Azov. Such a plan cannot be completely ruled out.
And that could be thwarted with a tidal wave.
Let’s assume that the Ukrainians only wanted to distract in the Donbass and then launch a surprise attack in the south-west, then the Russians could of course have aimed to prevent this advance. And they would have actually achieved that by blowing up the dam. So that could be the military logic behind it if it was a targeted demolition by the Russian army.
But could it also make sense the other way around? So that the Russians were planning an attack that the Ukrainians wanted to prevent?
Although this variant does not appear to be entirely out of the question, it is militarily less plausible. Because the Russians are on the defensive in the Donbass, and they already have to contend with the problem that their troops are increasingly thinned out and weakened. In this situation, their current resources would hardly allow them to dare such a difficult military attack in the direction of Cherson across the wide Dnieper.
If you say that the combination of distraction and surprise is essential for offensive success, what does the deluge mean for the Ukrainians’ chances in the coming weeks?
We have to assume a tidal wave rolling down the river towards the Dnieper estuary into the Black Sea with a height of three to five meters. Quite apart from the catastrophe for the population, from a military point of view this means that the river will develop such a width due to the wave up to the mouth and flow at such high speed that it would currently be completely impossible for military vehicles to cross it with pontoon bridges.
And what about summer?
The tidal wave will of course subside again in a few days. But it will leave so much water on both sides of the river that vast areas will become mudflats for tracked vehicles to get stuck on. They then become largely unusable for mechanized movement.
This means that three to four pontoon bridges would no longer be enough.
You would have to fortify the areas around it with appropriate equipment. Although these possibilities exist, I can hardly imagine that the Ukrainian army has prepared itself sufficiently and would accept these difficulties. In any case, Ukrainian movements would then be channeled and significantly slowed down, while the chances of Russian counterattacks would increase significantly. However, it takes weeks or even months for these areas to dry again.
Would an attack from the air be conceivable instead, with paratroopers?
Carrying out such an attack with airborne forces alone would be suicidal. Although they could surprisingly take parts of the terrain and hold them for a limited time, they would only be lightly armed and not adequately protected after an airborne landing, so they would have to rely on heavy follow-up forces. Without them they could not develop a resounding offensive power. Their logistical sustainability would also be limited. For the Ukrainian offensive plans, this means that there is no possibility now and in the foreseeable future of opening a second front in the south-west of the Kherson region parallel to the attacks in Donbass.
How significant is this shortcoming for the chances of success?
Subtlety maneuvers remain an important element of any offensive: it depends on distracting the enemy, extending the front and finding the weakly protected spots. Surprisingly, you then concentrate your strength on them and try to drive the thrust into the depths with fire and movement. That should be the goal of the Ukrainians to regain territory. The options for this are now one variant fewer, but not yet exhausted.
For the Ukrainians, however, the longer the front, the better, because the Russians then have to spread themselves out more loosely?
In principle yes, as long as Ukraine has sufficient forces not to open too many loopholes itself. In addition, the Russians must operate in a crescent-shaped approach to the south and east around the center of Ukraine. So if they want to move from the south to the east, their route is around the outside, and it is far longer than for the Ukrainians. They can move their troops across the “inner line”, i.e. through the middle of the country.
And now the front is getting shorter in the south and the effect that the Ukrainians achieved in Belgorod, namely to advance where there was no fighting at all and to extend the front to there, is now being lost again in the south-west?
A surprise attack can no longer be carried out across the Dnieper in the southwest of the Cherson region in the next few weeks. This does not mean that this front has been abolished, but the Russians could withdraw some forces from there and use them as reserves elsewhere. However, the situation there can change again in late summer.
If the front was more than 1,000 kilometers long, how much will Ukraine lose as a result of the dam collapse?
The front line from Nowa Kakhovka to Cherson is about 85 kilometers long and from there to the mouth of the Dnieper another 30 to 40 kilometers, but of course the front basically still exists, even if it is now about impassable muddy terrain and a widened river bed. However, difficult terrain is only an obstacle to an attack as long as it is effectively defended. However, what has changed for the Ukrainians is the option to cross the river surprisingly and quickly. The risks and costs of an attack are now far greater and more unpredictable.
Frauke Niemeyer spoke to Wolfgang Richter