Threatening “disaster”: Is Russia blowing up the Kherson power plant? Will Meloni be given the task of forming a government today?

All eyes on Kherson: A decisive battle is looming in the Russian-occupied city in southern Ukraine that could fuel the war in Ukraine. For months, Ukrainian troops have been moving closer to the city, in some places it is less than 20 kilometers. The recapture would be a military and political disaster for Moscow – and hurt Kremlin chief Putin even more.

Ukraine’s territorial gains are forcing Russian leaders to reconsider: The new commander in chief of Russian forces in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, admitted in an unusual TV appearance that he was having trouble defending Kherson. He expects a violent Ukrainian attack on the city and “difficult decisions” to make – an indication that a Russian withdrawal from the city is at least conceivable.

Zelenskyj: Russia mined the facility

But another comment from Surovikin raised concern: Ukrainian forces are said to plan to blow up the Kakhokva dam east of Kherson to cause a flood. The head of the Russian occupation administration, Vladimir Saldo, also repeated the warning, accusing Kiev of shelling the hydroelectric power station there.

Is that correct? Or is it more like the Ukrainian government puts it the other way around? She does not take the warnings of the Russian General Staff lightly – and for her part claims that Moscow is targeting the dam.

“Russia is deliberately creating the basis for a large-scale catastrophe in southern Ukraine. We have information that Russian terrorists mined the dam and units of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address at the EU summit on Thursday.

Demolition of the factory would further escalate the war in Ukraine. But what exactly are the consequences for the people in the region? Why is the dam so important and why wouldn’t Moscow cut itself in the flesh by blowing it up? t-online provides an overview.

Why is the dam so important?

The Kakhovka Dam is located about 60 kilometers east of Kherson and connects the left and right banks of the Dnieper. The dammed river water supplies the hydroelectric power station of the Ukrainian company Ukrhidroenerho, which it says produces about 700 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, or electricity for about 200,000 households. In addition to power generation, the dam supplies parts of southern Ukraine and – via the Northern Crimean Canal – the northern parts of Crimea with water.

The battle for control of the power plant is not new: Shortly after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine blocked the water supply to the Russian-occupied peninsula through the North Crimean Canal with its own dam. In March, Russian forces in the Kherson offensive seized the canal and blew up the Ukrainian blockade dam. The water was able to flow back to the Crimea.

What interest does Russia have in destroying the dam?

While blowing up the power plant would likely cut off Crimea’s water supply permanently, the Russian military could benefit. “Russia would then have reached a buffer zone for itself so that the troops could withdraw in an orderly manner and the Ukrainian offensive would then stumble,” explains former Ukrainian Lieutenant Colonel Oleksij Melnyk “ntv.de”.

Since Russian propaganda is already warning of alleged Ukrainian plans, Moscow could also “exploit propaganda for propaganda”. For example, Putin could claim that Ukraine exposed its own citizens to a flood. “We are talking about a humanitarian and technological catastrophe for the entire region,” Melnyk told the broadcaster.

Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko also points out the strategic importance of the power plant: since the dam is also a bridge between the two banks of the Dnieper, it serves as a possible retreat route for the Russian armed forces.

What if the dam breaks?

In his video address on Thursday, President Zelenskyy feared that about 80 towns in the Kherson region could be flooded — including the city of the same name, which was home to 300,000 people before the war started. According to Zelensky, hundreds of thousands of people could be affected by the flooding in the “rapid flood zone”.

A map currently distributed by Russian war bloggers via the Telegram messenger service shows the extent of the possible flooding: places north and south of the Dnieper would be hit by the water masses, even the city of Kherson almost completely disappears in the animation in the blue of the floods.

According to the map maker, a collapsed dam would result in a tidal wave 4.8 meters high and five kilometers wide. In just two hours, the water would have reached the city of Kherson, with potentially disastrous consequences for the people there.

The information on the card cannot be verified. But one thing is clear: the water would most likely overflow on both banks of the Dnieper. Russia would also endanger thousands of people in areas it currently controls itself.

Can Russia be trusted to blow it up?

During the war, the Russian military targeted residential areas, tortured, raped and killed civilians, and also forcibly brought hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including children, to Russia. It is hard to imagine that the Russian leadership would suddenly have moral qualms about blowing up a power plant.

Over the past week, Kremlin troops have once again proved that attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure are not an accident, but a tactic of war: Hundreds of rockets and drones laden with explosives rained down on Ukrainian cities, destroying a third of the country’s energy supply. destroyed. Russian propaganda then praised the attacks as attempts to invade Ukraine «Freeze and starve» to admit.

The Kachokwa Dam is also part of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. An explosion with all the dramatic consequences that entails would therefore fit into the script of the Russian military leadership. While this is speculation at this point, Russia has a history of conducting false flag operations to portray itself as a victim and justify its own aggression. Since 2014, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has often justified his military intervention in the Donbass with an alleged “genocide” of the local population.

The Russian “warnings” about an alleged explosion by Ukraine do not bode well.

(t-online,dm)