After the flood

Volodymyr Zelensky said hundreds of thousands of people have been left without drinking water and tens of thousands are still stranded by floodwaters following the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.

The Ukrainian administration added that 17,000 people were being evacuated – many from in and around the city of Kherson, prised from Russia’s grip in November – with some 40,000 more in danger of being flooded. Another 25,000 civilians require evacuation from the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River, raising fears they would be relocated to Russia.

It’s a fresh form of horror inflicted on a people who have endured death, destruction, and grief for 15 months.  

In his first public response to the dam breach today, Vladimir Putin called it a “barbaric act”, but the signs point to Russia being responsible. The Biden administration has said that while it could not say conclusively who is to blame, intelligence on the ground meant it was “leaning towards” Moscow being behind the attack.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Joseph Stalin ordered the destruction of a dam across the Dnipro in 1941 in the face of invading German forces marching eastwards towards Russia. This time around, a vast expanse of water will hamper Ukrainian efforts to recapture lost territory in the south – including Crimea.

The peninsula, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, depends on the Nova Kakhovka reservoir for drinking water and irrigation. The flooding will have severe consequences in a region that was already struggling to supply enough drinking water for its residents.

Russia may have calculated that the impact on Crimea was worth it. Writing in the Conversation, Stefan Wolff, professor of international security at the University of Birmingham, says: “Such an act of economic self-harm also begs the question of how committed Russia is to its future in Crimea. It looks more like a bid to inflict long-term damage to the viability of Ukraine as a functioning society and economy.”

Then there’s the catastrophic damage the flooding will do to fertile Ukrainian farmland. At least 150 tons of oil were swept into the deluge, and landmines unearthed by the catastrophic flooding are floating down the river engulfing Ukrainian homes. Kyiv labelled the destruction of the dam “ecocide”.

The threat of ecological disaster has haunted Ukraine since the early days of the war when the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was seized by Russian forces. The plant lies upriver from the dam and uses water from the reservoir for its cooling ponds.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that while the burst dam poses “no immediate threat” to the plant, there are long-term concerns, both over safety and the possibility of the plant becoming operational again in the coming years. Once again, Ukrainians are being made to pay a devastating price by forces they are powerless to stop. 

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