A double edged sword. The unexpected explosion of the dam and power plant in Nova Kakhovka, located on the east bank of the Dnieper River, brings strategic advantages to Russia, on a purely theoretical level. It slows down the media momentum of the supposed counter-offensive, prevents Ukraine from advancing in the south of its territory and forces Kiev to reformulate the plans to recover the lost territories. still so, Moscow did not claim responsibility for the attack., recalling that the attack on the infrastructure ends up also harming the towns it occupies in the neighboring country, specifically Crimea. And the Russian authorities have used exactly this argument to point the finger at the Ukrainians.
In light of military strategy, the decision may even make some sense. However, in other domains, the dam burst constitutes a accident that has very serious consequences for the environment and for local populations: the latest count shows that thousands of people had already left the Kherson region, where the infrastructure is located. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, even described what happened as a “ecocide”an illegal act that leads to the total or partial destruction of ecosystems.
Dam attacks, a military technique that has been used at other times throughout history, destroys the surrounding fauna and flora, in addition to forcing the evacuation of people due to flooding. In this case, the main region affected is Kherson, but it will also cause impacts in Zaporizhia, where the largest nuclear power plant in Europe is located and which uses the water stored in the Nova Kakhovka infrastructure to cool the reactors. For now, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is assessing the damage, although it has stressed that there is no “any imminent security risk”.
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Source: Observadora
