Another war crime

The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, regardless of its authorship, is an act of war, perhaps the largest after the invasion, highly significant for the evolution of the conflict, and with long and harsh consequences for the wide flooded region of the lower Dnieper River. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has pointed out, war is the cause of this catastrophe of biblical dimensions that has befallen Ukraine as a result of military action. Although there is still not enough data or material evidence to corroborate the suspicions about the authorship, the first responsibility for the rupture of the dam belongs to those who have invaded the country and attacked, occupied or destroyed many of its infrastructures.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of demolishing the dam and hydroelectric power plant with explosives. The accident and even an attack with missiles or ground artillery, insufficient to cause a break of such characteristics, are ruled out. Only the previous mining of the installation could produce the demolition at such an exact moment as the beginning of the Ukrainian ground counteroffensive, with the result of stopping suddenly any possibility of advance on Crimea, at least until the flooded territory, the roads and even the firmness of the fields that allow the displacement of the armored vehicles is not recovered. If Putin has been able to win any battle without discussion, it could be that of the Nova Kakhovka dam, with incalculable destructive effects on the Ukrainian economy, its urban centers, its agriculture, its displaced population and even the environment, an action recognized as a war crime by all, including by Russia's representative on the Security Council (although he has attributed it to Ukraine). The Ukrainian offensive will have to adapt to the geography arising from the flood and go to the eastern front, where the first skirmishes had already taken place, such as small advances in Bakhmut, with which the correlation of forces favorable to Moscow was being reversed. In addition to modifying its combat plans, Kiev will have to devote a great deal of energy to saving the population cut off by the flood and then to meeting the needs of the thousands of displaced people.

The difficulties in the Ukrainian camp will be of little consolation to the Putinist camp, where divisions and displays of ineptitude persist, demonstrated by the persistence of infiltrations by saboteurs into Russian territory and the lack of coordination with the Russian contingents deployed on the left bank of the Dnieper, forced to retreat in haste as soon as the flood began. The spokesmen of the Russian army had acknowledged the existence of a broad offensive at five different points of the long front of 900 kilometers and even made bulky assessments scarcely credible about the destruction of tanks of Western origin and hundreds of Ukrainian casualties, immediately denied by Yevgeny Prigozhin himself, the head of Wagner's militias. But tension within the Russian camp between Wagner and the Russian Ministry of Defense is increasingly intense, not only because of the prominence on the battlefield, but also because of the assignment of responsibilities in the face of continuous military failures. At the moment, the Kremlin only achieves successes in the brutal art of the explosive, whether it is thrown on the cities, or previously placed in infrastructures, as may be the case of the destroyed dam.