the three advantages that Russia achieves

plans Zelensky and his senior staffDespite the fact that its strategic moves have always surprised Russia, they have been delayed first by winter and then by rain. Snow and mud are not good friends with your new leopards or the rest of the battle tanks, nor do they favor the movements of the infantry troop.

All of the above only justifies and makes sense (military and strategic) of what happened at dawn this Tuesday at the Nova Kajovka dam in the same way that it had an overwhelming logic in March 2022 when the kyiv government decided to flood the surroundings of the Ukrainian capital to prevent another assault attempt to the heart of the country.

This movement comes to strengthen the Russian strategy to protect Melitopol to prevent Crimea from losing its land connection with the Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia. Within that strategy, Russia has built three levels of defenses along 120 kilometers south of the Zaporizhia region. A distance that covers the territory included from the Dnieper River to Melitopol and where a first line of advanced fighting positions and two almost continuous and more elaborate defense zones separated by approximately between 10 and 20 kilometers.

Thus, and no matter how much Russia argues that the dam has collapsed “due to damage” which, moreover, have multiplied due to the “strikes that are taking place in Ukraine” (so says the FSBsecret service heir to the KGB), the truth is that If anyone benefits, it’s the Kremlin. and to their immediate interests in undermining Ukraine’s vaunted counter-offensive and the usefulness of their new Western weapons. Furthermore, it cannot be ignored that the dam was controlled by the Russians almost from the beginning of the conflict.

[La UE y la OTAN apuntan al Kremlin como culpable de la voladura: “Es un crimen de guerra”]

In summary: the Leopard, the Abrams M1 or the Challenger are useless British if they cannot move through flooded or directly flooded terrain. However, this is not the only income that Russia achieves.

The blowing up (or the collapse according to the Russians) of the Nova Kajovka hydroelectric power station, 60 kilometers north of Khersonwill not affect in any way the operation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, under Russian control since almost the beginning of the invasion and whose energy no longer reaches any territory controlled by kyiv.

However, will fully affect the hydroelectric plant itself which will only raise Ukraine’s energy problems to the nth degree after the campaign carried out by Russia does not do much to destroy all their centers electricity producers.

humanitarian disaster

The dam, which was built in 1956 as part of the central, retained just over 18 cubic kilometers of water. An amount that will now move at full speed towards Kherson, a city that Ukrainian troops recaptured at the end of 2022 and from where they had begun to launch amphibious operations on the other side of the Dnieper almost from that moment always with an eye on the Crimean Peninsula.

According to the Reuters agency, the residents of a town near the dam have been warning that, since April, the water level was rising at an average of 30 centimeters a day due to the damage that the infrastructure was suffering. Nothing compared to what they are going to have to face from now on.

At least 22,000 people living in 14 settlements located between the dam and Kherson are at risk of flooding and other 80 towns Evacuations have already begun due to the imminent and rapid rise in the water level.

The newspaper ‘Cornucopia’ has analyzed the situation by preparing a prediction model for the worst in Nova Kakhovka. According to this model, the water should begin to rise in Kherson to alarming levels. Based on this predictive model, most of the territory on the south bank of the river will be flooded, creating a humanitarian alert for a population that has already been suffering the rigors of war since February of last year.

Still, Russia has achieved a triple objective: 1) stop, delay or change the script of the Ukrainian counteroffensive; 2) increase the energy problems of the Zelensky government; and 3) cause a humanitarian catastrophe that will add to kyiv’s management problems in the midst of a war on its own territory.

[Ucrania exhuma cadáveres soviéticos para que no estén con sus muertos: “Lo hacemos con humanidad”]

Russian media accuse Ukraine of having used a “dirty bomb” against the dam, but the truth is that what happened in Nova Kakhovka only benefits the Kremlin. At least in the short term.