Military analysts and Ukrainian officials said the timing of the Kakhovka dam breach, just as speculation mounted that Kyiv had launched its counteroffensive, may not be a coincidence.
The destruction of the Kakhova dam Tuesday unleashed a torrent of water on southern Ukraine, threatening to sweep away villages and halt Ukrainian hopes of advancing across the Dnieper River.
As officials scramble to evacuate thousands, experts assess the environmental toll and both sides trade blame, one key question hung over the flooded fields of Kherson: Who, if anyone, might stand to gain from this stunning turn in the war?
NBC News looks at what the disaster could mean for the conflict.
What could be in it for the Kremlin?
Ukraine immediately pointed the finger at Russia, whose forces controlled the dam and parts of the surrounding region.
The incident came less than 48 hours after Moscow claimed that Kyiv had launched its long-anticipated counteroffensive, and Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts said the timing may not be a coincidence.
The Kherson region, annexed and partially occupied by Russia, has long been seen as a likely target for Kyiv, almost seven months after it liberated the region’s capital in an offensive blitz.
That pushed Russian troops into an embarrassing retreat across the Dnieper River that now bisects the front lines, while Moscow retained control of the Soviet-era dam. Ukraine warned previously that Russia may be planning to blow up the dam, while Moscow said the same about Kyiv.
“Russia would stand to gain most,” said Christopher Tuck, an expert in conflict and security at King’s College London. It “would only have made military sense to Ukraine while Russia was on the western side, which it now isn’t; and it never made political sense,” he added.
The increased intensity of Ukrainian attacks across the front lines this week may hint that the counteroffensive has begun, but the breadth of the battlefield will now be reduced. That, analysts said, benefits Russia.
What could be in it for the Kremlin?
Ukraine immediately pointed the finger at Russia, whose forces controlled the dam and parts of the surrounding region.
The incident came less than 48 hours after Moscow claimed that Kyiv had launched its long-anticipated counteroffensive, and Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts said the timing may not be a coincidence.
The Kherson region, annexed and partially occupied by Russia, has long been seen as a likely target for Kyiv, almost seven months after it liberated the region’s capital in an offensive blitz.
That pushed Russian troops into an embarrassing retreat across the Dnieper River that now bisects the front lines, while Moscow retained control of the Soviet-era dam. Ukraine warned previously that Russia may be planning to blow up the dam, while Moscow said the same about Kyiv.
“Russia would stand to gain most,” said Christopher Tuck, an expert in conflict and security at King’s College London. It “would only have made military sense to Ukraine while Russia was on the western side, which it now isn’t; and it never made political sense,” he added.
The increased intensity of Ukrainian attacks across the front lines this week may hint that the counteroffensive has begun, but the breadth of the battlefield will now be reduced. That, analysts said, benefits Russia.
Both sides stand to lose something, Horowitz said.
“This does wash away some of the defenses the Russian army built along the coast, and will certainly have an impact on many settlements in areas Russia controls,” he said, adding that for Kyiv, “this is an ecological disaster, coupled with the prospect of losing one of the major sources of energy in southern Ukraine.”
Indeed some analysts wondered if the act was deliberate at all or rather a result of reckless negligence by the Russian forces controlling it.
In the months prior to the breach, experts raised concerns about damage to the dam and warned that the reservoir behind it was too full from heavy rains and snow melt.
“In which case, it’s a disaster for everybody,” said Frank Ledwidge, a lecturer in military strategy at the University of Portsmouth in Britain and a former military intelligence officer.
What now for the war?
It’s too early to tell how the disaster could shape Ukraine’s counteroffensive, especially since Kyiv has kept its plans secret.
But the fallout from the dam collapse could both hinder planned ground attacks and force Ukraine’s government to focus attention and resources on recovery efforts.
“One imagines they knew it was a possibility,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Wet and muddy conditions on the ground may have already delayed Ukraine’s counteroffensive, making it difficult for heavy equipment to traverse a lot of ground.
“Now just as it was beginning, this could leave huge areas swamped for a long time,” O’Brien said. “If that was their intention, it definitely makes it far more difficult.”
But it seems highly unlikely that the breaching of the dam will prevent the counteroffensive from taking place entirely, according to Tuck.
“River assaults are problematic, so it would seem more likely that the main Ukrainian attacks will take place along land axes rather than across the Dnieper,” Tuck said. “But the flooding might disrupt prospective secondary Ukrainian attacks from that direction.”
It’s also a sudden and significant distraction for the Ukrainian government, he said.
The sheer shock of the dam collapse and the scale of the fallout could point to another potential Russian motive: An audacious warning to Ukraine that it might be willing to throw in other — previously unthinkable — twists to try to change the course of the war.
Ukrainian and global officials have been warning for months about the vulnerability of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.
Russia controls southern areas of the Zaporizhzhia region and any Ukrainian advance in that area would thrust that plant into the center of the action.
“If Russia did blow up the dam, the question is, would they do the same with the nuclear plant they control that also sits in a key area of the front line?” Horowitz added.