Nova Kakhovka Dam Loss Makes Ukraine River Offensive 'Impossible': Adviser

The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine effectively ends any hope that Kyiv's troops will be able to launch a successful assault across the waterway, according to an adviser to the country's Defense Ministry.

The collapse of the dam—which occurred on Monday night after a reported series of explosions—has caused severe flooding in the lower Dnieper River basin, with hundreds of thousands of people in the area now being evacuated.

The river forms part of the front line between Ukrainian and occupying Russian forces, with Kyiv's troops on the west bank in the city of Kherson and Moscow's on the east.

The Kherson portion of the front line had been one possible location for Ukraine's long-awaited spring-summer counteroffensive. But Andriy Zagorodnyuk, who served as Ukraine's defense minister from 2019 to 2020 and is now an adviser to the Defense Ministry, told Newsweek an amphibious assault across the Dnieper—or Dnipro in Ukrainian—is now off the cards.

"It effectively makes crossing the river in that area impossible," Zagorodnyuk explained. "Even conducting operations in that whole area will be much more difficult."

Zagorodnyuk said the destruction of the dam "is pure terrorism," suggesting Moscow would not take responsibility for the disaster. "Blowing up the dam is to distract from the counteroffensive and prevent Ukrainian forces from crossing the Dnipro," he explained.

Kyiv has blamed Russian troops for the catastrophe, with President Volodymyr Zelensky branding the occupying forces "terrorists." Ukraine has previously warned that Russian troops had mined the dam, readying it for destruction in the case of further Ukrainian advances.

Kremlin-installed officials in the occupied region claimed several Ukrainian attacks on the dam overnight, though did not initially say the structure had been destroyed.

The dam's destruction poses a threat to hundreds of thousands of people, homes, and business in affected regions, including on the Russian-occupied side. The subsequent fall in water levels in the Kakhovka Reservoir may imperil the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which relies on the reservoir for its cooling system.

The reservoir is also the source for the North Crimean Canal, a vital manmade waterway used to supply fresh water to the occupied Russian peninsula to the south. Securing this water supply was a key early goal of Russia's full-scale February 2022 invasion.

The collapse comes amid conflicting reports that Ukraine's next counteroffensive has begun. Ukrainian forces have been conducting shaping operations and probing attacks in the south and east of the country, but officials in Kyiv have been tight-lipped as to their eventual intentions.

On Monday, Russia claimed to have defeated a Ukrainian push in Donetsk Oblast, and several officials and prominent military bloggers reported an intensification of fighting at several points along the 800-mile front. Meanwhile, Kyiv-aligned Russian fighters continued their incursion into Russia's western Belgorod Oblast.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry announced that units were "shifting to offensive operations in some areas," while also issuing a public call to maintain operational silence on any developing push.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry by email to request comment.