In the seven months that have passed since the offensive of the Ukrainian army on Khersonthe front of the war remained more or less stagnant. The Russian winter offensive in the eastern Donbass largely failed, and very limited successes, most notably the fall of Bahamut, did not change the overall picture.

However, last week historical time accelerated by leaps and bounds. On Sunday, it began, according to US officials, long-awaited Ukrainian counterattackalthough Kyiv understandably insists on keeping it as secret as possible.

Two days later, the massive dam of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station in Novaya Kakhovka collapsed., causing the largest environmental and economic disaster in the region since the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Events that herald a stormy summer, a decisive conflict that will decide the future of Ukraine, Russia and the European security architecture, are coming to an end.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Russians blew up the dam to prevent a Ukrainian counterattack, calling it a war crime. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg rode the same wave, and the powerful states of the Alliance, in more cautious tones, expressed suspicions in the Russian finger.

And only the synchronization of the catastrophe with the beginning of the Ukrainian counterattack gives grounds to assume that the Russians wanted to secure most of the front without losses. Later, this dam was designed under Stalin and completed under Khrushchev with calculations to withstand even a nuclear strike. Therefore, blowing it up without detonating explosives inside the hydroelectric plant, which until last Tuesday was controlled by the Russians, would be extremely difficult. This version was supported by satellite images of the Americans and seismographic analyzes of the Norwegians, which certify a strong explosion in the area of ​​​​the dam at the time of the collapse.

However, the recent past calls for some caution.. Last September, Western officials and the media were quick to accuse Russia of sabotaging the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic. However, the Washington Post reported last Tuesday that as early as June 2022, U.S. intelligence was aware of the Ukrainian plan to blow up Nord Stream 2 with a six-man team.

Who benefits?

Cicero’s classic question “cui bono?” (who benefits?) in this case, more than one answer can be given. As the Ukrainian governor of Kherson said on Thursday, 68% of the flooded land is on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnieper, and only 32% is on the opposite Ukrainian section, which is quite expected, since the area slopes towards the Russian side.

A day earlier, a Ukrainian officer told CNN that many Russian soldiers were swept away by the flood and drowned. In addition, the consequences of the disaster will be severe for Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014 and supplied 85% of its water needs from the said dam. Finally, the crossing of the Dnieper in the Kherson region is the most dangerous route for the Ukrainians in the context of the ongoing counter-offensive, proof that in the seven months after the capture of the city they were unable to force the other side.

Zelensky has accused the Russians of a war crime, Moscow has spoken about Ukrainian energy with strategic advantage, and some analysts do not exclude the possibility of a mistake.

Based on the foregoing, officials and observers in Moscow have argued that it was the Ukrainians who blew up the dam to thwart the Russian military and secure themselves in Kherson in order to free forces to reinforce the northernmost front of Zaporozhye. That is, where the main impulse of the Ukrainian counterattack seems to be concentrated during these hours in order to cut the Russian forces in two and open two corridors, one of which will reach Mariupol and Berdyansk, on the Sea of ​​Azov, and one approaching the Crimean peninsula.

It would be unwise and not reprehensible for Ukrainians to resort to the tactics of “flooded land” to fight against a numerically superior invader.. The Chinese did it against the Japanese, and the Soviets did it against the Germans during World War II, when Stalin did not hesitate to blow up the massive Zaporozhye Dam. On a smaller scale, controlled flooding tactics were used in this war both by the Ukrainians in the Battle of Kyiv and by the Russians in the canals in southern Ukraine, as a report by France’s Le Monde showed.

Of interest is the report of the far from pro-Russian Washington Post for last Tuesday.: “The reasons for the dam failure remain unclear. In one instance, when Ukrainian forces were planning their counter-offensive in Kherson, they attempted a test strike with US HIMARS missiles, punching three holes in a water barrier on the New Kakhovka Dam. Major General Andrei Kovalchuk, who led the Kherson offensive, told our newspaper late last year that the goal was to see if they could raise the Dnieper in a controlled way to block the enemy’s passages without flooding neighboring villages.”

Several experts who spoke to the international media did not rule out the possibility of inadvertent destruction. Satellite photographs have shown that the dam has been damaged partly due to lack of maintenance, partly due to bombing during the war, and more recently the river has risen dangerously, making it more vulnerable. If you add the possibility of a secondary detonation of mines by chance, then the scenario of a “perfect storm” cannot be ruled out.

New fronts

In any case, large-scale destruction in Kherson (on Thursday, according to Ukrainian authorities, about 600 square kilometers were flooded, while the average water height reached 5.6 meters) catalytically affect the business map. For several days now, fierce battles have been going on on the Zaporozhye and Donbass fronts. Backed by Leopard tanks, HIMARS missiles and Patriot air defenses, the Ukrainians will be pushing for decisive territorial gains in the five months leading up to the autumn storms to convince the West that the money and weapons they provide are paying off.

For their part, the Russians are likely to throw their air force into the fray, which has so far remained largely inactive and intact (out of their 1,300 fighters, “only” 82 were destroyed). The stakes for both countries, as well as for their leaders Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky personally, are skyrocketing, but as things stand, neither seems to have an alternative.