Ukraine’s Big Dam Problem

Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove

Guests

Nic Robertson

Nic Robertson is a CNN correspondent recently returned from Ukraine who covered the country's counteroffensive.

Tim Mak

Tim Mak is a Ukrainian-based editor and founder of 'The Counteroffensive: A War Correspondent's Open Notebook' and reports live from Ukraine.

Lee Ferran

Lee Ferran is a Breaking Defense correspondent covering Ukraine's offensive and military developments.

Episode Summary

Ukraine finally began its long-awaited counteroffensive on June 4th, two days before D-Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. Much is at stake - but barely after Ukraine began calculated assaults along Russian lines, someone blew up the Kakhovka Dam. A torrent of floodwater has been unleashed on tens of thousands of homes in both Russian and Ukrainian controlled areas, and both sides are laying blame on each other. If sticky Ukrainian mud was once an issue and a challenge for heavily armored tanks, rising floods, and burst riverbanks are now out of the question. One Decision sits down with CNN’s Nic Robertson, Ukrainian-based editor and founder of The Counteroffensive: A war correspondent's open notebook, Tim Mak, reporting live from Ukraine, and Breaking Defense’s Lee Ferran to discuss Ukraine’s offensive, how the floods might impact Kyiv’s strategy, and what to look out for in the coming weeks ahead of a critical NATO summit in Lithuania.

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Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Mcfarlane: You're listening to One Decision, the podcast that looks at how choices made shape our world. I'm your host, Julia McFarlane. Ukraine's long awaited counteroffensive appeared to have finally gotten underway earlier this month. Its armed forces launched what the Russian defense ministry described as a large scale assault on areas in occupied Donetsk province. There were cross border raids on the Russian town of Belgorod. Some gains were made in the western end of Bakhmut, the symbol of Ukrainian resistance that was recently overpowered by Russian Wagner mercenaries. Ukraine was doing well, and then suddenly this week, reports that a crucial dam near the town of Nova Kakhovka had been attacked, and its reservoir rapidly emptied, causing floodwater cascading down the Dnieper River and overwhelming multiple villages downstream, triggering tens of thousands of people to be at risk. The river, which in many parts of Ukraine marks the boundary between Ukrainian and Russian controlled areas, has now burst its banks on both sides. And for now, it appears that the Ukrainians' counteroffensive has been pushed aside in favor of rescue efforts for thousands of residents along the flood. It's unclear who is to blame for the attack, but one thing is certain. It's now thrown a serious logistical problem onto the front lines of the war, not least due to the waters displacing and potentially replanting Russian land mines further downstream and closer to populated areas. To consider the early days of Ukraine's critical offensive and how the Kakhovka Dam may impact its progress, we're joined today by three journalists covering the war in Ukraine. CNN's international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, Tim Mak, former NPR correspondent and founder of the Counteroffensive Substack, and Lee Ferren, managing editor of Breaking Defense, and formerly of my former parish, ABC News. I started by asking Tim, who's based in Ukraine and has just returned from Zaporizhzhia, just upstream of the Kakhovka Dam, what he saw on the ground in the aftermath of the flooding.

INTERVIEW

Mack: I think the important thing to realize is that the Dnieper River is this main artery in Ukrainian life. It's the pumping heart of Ukraine, that 70% of Ukrainians get their fresh water from this river. It divides Ukraine from west to east. It is, you know, just this critical important part of Ukrainian history and culture. It's really an important part of their economics, their logistics, their agricultural output. And so it's really hard to understate just how important the river is, and by extension, the breach of this dam is to Ukrainian life in general. So I spent the day in Zaporizhzhia reporting on the ecological effect and the economic effect of what is happening. So I spent time upstream from the dam, and so what I observed was water flowing away from the banks. And what we're seeing is a dramatic reduction in the amount of water in the Dnipro River. We're seeing pollution that folks have never seen before. We're seeing rotten wildlife as the water recedes in very dramatic ways. This is just the start, right? We're just talking about one element. We're talking about the ecological effect upstream of them. We're not talking yet about the flooding, the humanitarian crisis, the internally displaced people. We're not talking about the long term effects on agriculture. There are so many effects this is gonna have.

Mcfarlane: Tim, I think that's a really, really important point to lay out, that this is a multifaceted devastation across areas in Eastern Ukraine affected by the blowing up of that dam. We don't really know who exactly is to blame, who carried out the attack, the explosion. I know that the Ukrainians were warning last year that there was a lot of mining going on at that dam last year. We don't know for certain who is responsible for the blowing up of the dam, but who would you say has the most to gain from the dam being attacked in this way?

Robertson: It's a tough question to answer, and I'm not even sure if we know at this point. Was it attacked? Was it damaged that it received a few months ago? Were there explosives placed on it? Now I don't think we're even clear on that. But that said, you know, the preponderance to gain, I think, lies with Russia being behind the damage to the dam because it holds back the potential for Ukrainian forces to come across the river, which was always gonna be tough because it's so wide, and it was potentially a way for them to get behind some of the more heavier defenses further north, and this perhaps might not have been the original push in their counteroffensive. Who knows? But it's one way that Russia could blunt and help better protect an area that they increasingly seem to have fewer troops to protect given that they've now have to siphon some off to the north, Belgorod oblast. But that said, again, you know, Ukraine has something to gain. Ukraine has to really change the dynamic on the battlefield to be able to get its counteroffensive going. We've seen a ramping up of the attacks, whether they've been over the border in Russia or in the North, whether they've been the drones in Moscow or the cross border incursions in Belgorod oblast, or deeper behind Russian lines. We've just seen this sort of ramping up, and I don't think you can rule out the potential that Ukraine can gain some kind of initiative or advantage or destabilize Russia's thinking. But for me, the preponderance seems to come down on the side of Russia most likely being responsible.

Mcfarlane: Nic, the timing of all this is interesting because we've started to see in the last few days Ukraine potentially beginning, if not their counteroffensive, certainly new moves to try and possibly set that up. We've been hearing a lot about these so called probing attacks, these short range attacks in areas of Eastern Ukraine where the Ukrainians may be possibly trying to open up some lines in different Russian positions. I mean, the timing of this helps the Russians because it means that the Ukrainians now have to store their next moves as they are trying to launch this counteroffensive. They now have to deal with an impassable in many places, Dnipro River. The flooding is obviously gonna make it impossible for Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles to cross not just the water, but also boggy and flooded land. What's next for the Ukrainians now that this aspect of the terrain has shifted in such key battlegrounds in the front lines?

Robertson: You know, obviously, what's happened south of the dam, that's flooded the land down there, but what it's done further north is lower the level of the water. I haven't studied the military strategy of the Dnieper River further north, but it's certainly that could actually be advantageous to Ukrainian military, particularly if they wanna get across the river around Zaporizhzhia having lower water levels there. From what I understand, when they tried to attack there last year, they got into huge difficulty around the power plant and had to back off. It's very, very hard to make good judgments on this because we don't have all the information. And, you know, assuming one of the governments was responsible, there will have been a lot of calculation going into it. And from the Ukrainian perspective, obviously, how does this help if they were responsible? Lowering the river levels further north may have a minuscule effect, may just change a small dynamic. Because all they're trying to do in the shaping operations is shift the Russians out of where they are, force them to draw some troops to a different area, weaken them at a certain point. And if this was Russia's calculation to flood these lower reaches of the river, sure, this makes it harder down there, but the water will settle out. It was always gonna take boats to cross there. They were always gonna be vulnerable. A river crossing down there was always gonna be vulnerable. It was gonna be an odd bridgehead to have, but it was gonna bring you in, you know, on the softer underbelly of Russia's defenses, potentially. I mean, it's all about surprise. So it's doing the unexpected. I mean, for the Ukrainians, it's all about surprise. So I don't think we can rule out anything that catches Russia off guard. They need to use everything possible. But, yeah, what do they do now? I mean, you know, potentially any pontoon bridges they brought down to have in place may have to therefore be longer. They may have had boats downriver. If you look at all the boats that were normally tied up in harbor in Kherson, that's potentially damaged. Potentially, they've lost assets there. But further north of the dam, where there were little harbors that the Russians were worried about there that Ukrainians were using on the west bank of the river, they wouldn't be disabled in the same way.

Mcfarlane: That's so interesting. Tim, Nic mentioned Zaporizhzhia as an area that could potentially open up, the area around Zaporizhzhia could potentially open up for the Ukrainians. What have Ukrainians on the ground been saying to you this week since we have been anticipating this counteroffensive? They did announce that they were officially ready, although they didn't quite fire off the starting gun, so to speak. Did you get any impression of how things were going, and what have people told you about how this dam collapse may have potentially affected the Ukrainians' plans with this counteroffensive?

Mack: Well, what's been so interesting for me is that many of the folks that I've spoken to on the front lines have suddenly decided that they don't wanna speak anymore, that this is a kind of critical moment. And it's very illuminating to me about what kind of period we're in. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has been very much emphasizing that plans love silence. And the thing with the river that is a, you know, military challenge is that the most difficult thing to do as a military operation is what's called multi domain operations. Right? When you're moving from air to land, or from land to water to land. This is because you're super vulnerable when you're moving from one kind of domain to another kind of domain. So you're very vulnerable when you're moving across vast expanses of water and you're landing on another piece of land. Even though there are new opportunities that come about because of the lowering of the river north of the dam, Ukrainians fundamentally still face a similar problem, which is that if they want to move across the river in large numbers, they're going to have to do so across water. Now there's a lot of historical parallels for this, right, that in World War II, as the Soviets were retreating east across the Dnieper, they blew up a dam on the Dnieper River near Zaporizhzhia in order to flood the areas in Southern Ukraine and prevent the German Nazi advance. The Germans took over that area. They rebuilt the dam. And then when it was their turn to retreat across the Dnieper River, they blew it up a second time.

Mcfarlane: That's something that Ukrainians have been saying, isn't it? They've been recalling this 1941 dam bombing when people have said, oh, the idea that the Russians were to blow up the dam is fake news. But they have past form for that, haven't they? It emphasizes that in different decades and in different times, we're still operating in a situation where, you know, this multi domain issue is a huge challenge even for modern militaries to confront.

Mack: We're still operating in a situation where, you know, this multi domain issue is a huge challenge even for modern militaries to confront.

Mcfarlane: Lee, I just wanna zoom out just for a little because you cover the defense and the arms industry, and you obviously have more of a sort of macro level of observation over the whole thing. How has the Ukraine war changed, you know, arms and defense companies? We've been anticipating this counteroffensive by the Ukrainians. The West is obviously backing Ukraine and hoping that they will be able to push the Russians back. One of the things that Ukrainians have said that they need is artillery. It's one thing giving them high-tech weapons. It's one thing giving them a few Patriot batteries and missiles and a lot of sexy kit like that. But one of the key advantages the Russians have, apart from way more cannon fodder to throw into this war than the Ukrainians by virtue of having a bigger population, is that they have huge amounts of artillery. They have their factories on a war footing, working around the clock. Defense production in Europe has not stepped up the way the Russians have. As we continue with this war, we're more than a year now. This is now a really key time for the Ukrainians to make a big push, and they are saying that they don't have what they need yet. What is the arms industry sort of, you know, how are they reacting to this? Is the war a bonanza for them, or is it all wrapped up in politics as the politicians continue to be a bit stalled behind the scenes?

Ferren: I think as with most things, it's a little of both, because it's certainly been a bonanza for them in the sense that demand for all sorts of weapon systems, artillery has never been higher. And, you know, you mentioned the kind of the sexier weapon systems that are debated a lot, the F-16, the Abrams, Patriot, stuff like that. But, you know, the heart and soul of this is artillery, like you said, and small arms and air defense systems and stuff like that. And I think that the companies that make those rounds, the ammunition, the rockets are doing more business than ever, but they're also they feel a bit precarious in that the demand is high now, but they want guarantees from the US government that it'll stay high. That if they ramp up production, if they, you know, open new lines of production, when the demand is not so high, are they going to lose a ton of money from that overhead that they've already spent? The defense companies want the government to kinda insulate them from, you know, the variations of war and demand and stuff like that. They don't want their business life dependent on how this war goes. They wanna look much farther into the future and be more stable, and they're counting on the US government to help them do that by guaranteeing purchases and whatnot.

Mcfarlane: I think that's so interesting, and that's an angle I hadn't thought about before, about sort of the arms industry and the defense companies. If they ramp up production, they will need to sustain a bigger scale of manufacturing, and that's perhaps why that's one of the reasons why we're perhaps not seeing such a flood of weapons to Ukraine when there's a lot of countries who do want to see that happen?

Ferren: There is quite a flood of weapons. I mean, the US has sent upwards of $40,000,000,000 now worth of weapons and small arms, you know, hundreds of millions of small arms rounds, stuff like that. So I don't think, at least from the production side, there's not much of a question about the need for it or anything. There remains the question of capacity and supply chain issues and the political will to guarantee that these things, you know, won't go to waste.

Mcfarlane: It's so interesting how this invasion has really shown how important battlefield logistics is. And things, you know, the boring stuff like procurement and supply chains. The less sexy stuff is actually pretty critical to ensuring battleground success. Nic, the Russians haven't had such a great run of that lately, and there's been a lot of speculation that this is down to corruption and cronyism and things like that. But it's interesting because some of the Russians' battleground wins have been achieved through mercenaries. And we've had the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin who heads that group, the well publicized taking of Bakhmut, this town that has been at the center of a lot of fighting and has become really symbolic. As the months have gone by, that town apparently taken by the Russians with the help of these mercenaries who have now withdrawn. Prigozhin withdrew his mercs, and they've been replaced by general Russian army soldiers. But Prigozhin is continuing to have quite a lot of friction with Russian army generals and leadership as has the Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov. We have been speculating about how obviously this war has taken much longer than Putin originally anticipated, and that it could end up being an existential threat for him. What do you think the biggest vulnerabilities are at this stage?

Robertson: The defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the army chief of staff, military chief of staff, I think, Valery Gerasimov, they're still there. You know? Putin clearly has a level of faith in them. But, you know, why has that level of faith in them despite the criticism from Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary boss of Wagner, isn't clear. What we know about Putin is he's an arch manipulator. He controls the situation. I mean, we wake up again today and hear Prigozhin letting off steam again about Shoigu and the Russian troops. There is no way that this guy, who is a close friend and has been for years of Putin, gets to say all this stuff and gets away with it without Putin either being absolutely on the complete back foot or using it as a measure of just divide and conquer. That at some point, Putin would go, yeah. It's the army that got it wrong or Prigozhin. That's it. Enough from you. You're gonna be a political threat for me. You know, I'm done with you. You're used, and that's over. Or they do just put let some more get back in their boxes whenever all of this is over. I think it just presents Putin with options. I think that's the reality here is that this is a play. And I mean that in the pejorative term because what Prigozhin has to say and his criticism, Putin would not tolerate from anywhere else, perhaps only other from the Chechen leaders. So how much does he really need Prigozhin? Militarily, yes. But does he need him as a thorn in the side to the military to keep the military moving, or does he just need him as a potential scapegoat or to set up the military as a potential scapegoat in the end? There's a lot of smoke and mirrors. The reality where the reality kicks in is in the battlefield. Prigozhin said he wasn't getting enough ammunition. His troops have pulled out. Russia's military forces are there. The Ukrainians seem to be making some more, I'm talking about Bakhmut, the Ukrainians seem to be, over the past few days, making some more incremental gains around the edges, particularly the Northwest of Bakhmut, I think, at the moment. These are tiny, tiny gains, but is that because Prigozhin has gone? He was certainly willing to treat these former prisoners that he got out of jail as absolute expendable cannon fodder in the fight. That's what the Ukrainians say they witnessed.

Mcfarlane: And the other really interesting thing that has happened is we're seeing increasing potential incursions into Russia. We've seen these attacks in Belgorod, we've seen these cross border raids, these drone attacks on Moscow. I think it's interesting because a year ago at the earlier part of this war, the West and particularly the US was terrified about aggravating Putin too much and that any strike if Ukraine were to use any Western made weapons against Russia proper, that would be a dangerous escalation. And, of course, there is that ever present threat of nuclear war, which Putin has brandished a couple of times, at least with words, and of course, moving some nuclear weapons across to Belarus. The Belgorod stuff is interesting, and yet we've seen these things in the last couple of weeks, this attempted assassination of Vladimir Putin by drones. We've seen this cross border activity and raids on Belgorod. And yet the US doesn't quite seem to be as concerned perhaps as it once was about these attacks representing quite dangerous escalation. We actually had the British foreign minister speaking over the weekend at a defense summit in Singapore saying that actually Ukraine has the right to project force into Russia because it was fighting a war essentially. Why do you think that's changed? And do you think that it's a dangerous step, that politicians are increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of Ukraine bringing the war back to Russia?

Robertson: I think you're right when you say this represents a change. It absolutely does, for a number of reasons. You know, Western leaders supporting Ukraine have gone all in behind Ukraine, and rightly so. They've committed to a situation which doesn't allow for a Putin or a man like him to try to exercise that kind of military power in the future. They're all in on that concept. The reality, however, on the ground has changed. And despite the support, you know, and as you're talking about weapons arsenals before, you know, NATO's partners, the supporters of Ukraine have dug into their weapons arsenals, and they've come up their ammunition arsenals, and they've come up short. They're also, as Lee was discussing, trying to find ways to make sure that the procurement can be stepped up. European Union has tried to find a formula to make that work for weapons manufacturers in Europe. But the reality is you cannot have the Ukrainians fight with a hand tied behind their back. And I use an analogy of striking over the border. You know, when the IRA wanted to get the attention of the British government during the early stages of the peace process in the 1990s, they broke out of their ceasefire and they targeted right in the financial district of London because that got the government's attention. The problem with the war in Ukraine for the Ukrainians is Putin sells any kind of lies to his population. When the attacks start happening on his territory, it's harder for him to hide that kind of thing, like aircraft getting shot down, trains being blown up, small towns getting invaded. So I think the recognition there is that the Ukrainians need to use this tool of crossing the border to put pressure on Putin, and everyone's gone all in. And you're gonna get a stagnated fight, is gonna turn into years of potential trench warfare. And this is the kind of stuff that allows Putin to live on politically, that gives him bragging rights, is the wrong word to use here, but it gives Putin the opportunity to say, I've stared the West in the eye, and here I am, and I've done it. And I believe that the West has put itself in a position where it can't have that outcome. Wars have a habit of growing. They aren't static things. You know, Lee probably has a way better handle on this than me, they, you know, nothing survives the first contact. You have to adapt. And the adaption here is that there isn't enough on the ground in the country to win the battle in the country, so you've gotta do it by other means. And I think that's where we're at.

Ferren: I will say I think there's a connecting thread between any operations in Russia and US willingness to provide weapons to Ukraine because throughout this whole thing, the administration has been very nervous about escalation and has put limits on what the Ukrainians can do with the weapons that America provides. So you might see this kind of odd situation in which the bolder Ukrainians get going into Russia, the more apprehensive Washington gets about supporting them. And I'm curious how that's gonna play out, especially with regard to if European F-16s come into the mix, that kind of thing. American Abrams tanks are supposed to be in Ukraine in a few months. I think it's gonna be very interesting how nervous the White House gets about all this.

Robertson: Yeah. And I think when you're talking about the British foreign secretary saying these things about, well, it's sort of, you know, this is a necessary part of the war, these comments made in Singapore over the weekend. The UK has taken this very forward leaning position. I mean, they were the first to offer up tanks. They were first to really get behind the F-16 fighter pilot training way back in February. They put their Challenger 2 tanks into the mix, opened the door for Germany, which eventually, well, didn't eventually. That also was part of the key to unlock the Abrams as well. The UK has been kinda bold and pushing out forward, and I think to Lee's point, perhaps some of the European position, the northern Europeans, perhaps, they feel more all in than Washington may be on this. Obviously, you know, there's a very big election next year, and all of this comes into play. Putin knows it all.

Mcfarlane: Lee, if we were to spend the next few weeks watching and waiting as the conflict continues to grind on and if Ukraine is not able to come up with any even symbolic victories or advancements, how do you think that is gonna go down when the Ukrainian delegation is going to meet with members of NATO in Vilnius? I'm sure that the Ukrainians will be invited. I don't think we know if Zelenskyy will go to Vilnius, but certainly, there'll be representatives from the Ukrainian government present. What will happen if the war doesn't look like it's starting to turn on the backs of this counteroffensive that we've been waiting so long for?

Ferren: It would be interesting to see. Personally, I don't see very much change. I don't think, you know, the US populace is one thing, but I think the leaders of NATO are something else, and they seem pretty uniformly behind supporting Ukraine. Secretary of defense Lloyd Austin has said, for as long as it takes, and I feel like that seems to be kind of the sentiment among most NATO leaders, if not all of them. So I don't know if Ukraine is under pressure to have a spectacular victory here or there in the next few months. I think that timeline would have to be much longer before patience starts to run out. And that'll, of course, depend on the level of support from NATO. So you almost have a chicken and egg situation there, but it will be interesting to see it. For Vilnius, I have to assume that you'll just see support for Ukraine kind of wall to wall.

Mcfarlane: And, Nic, I'm gonna turn to you with a really fun question, and that is how do you think China's role is gonna continue to evolve around this war? Obviously, president Xi is backing Vladimir Putin in this fight. But I mean, the Chinese, it's in their interests, is it not, for the West and particularly the US to get bogged down in a long grinding war. We have also seen the Chinese display unease with the war, and there was that, I still reference it a lot, but that summit in Uzbekistan last year where Putin publicly acknowledged Chinese and Indian unease with how the war was going on. It's not straightforward how the Chinese are handling this. And so what are you going to be looking out for in the months to come when it comes to Xi Jinping and the calculations he may have to make?

Robertson: I'm gonna answer your China question, but I just feel really too tempted not to try to answer the previous question about Vilnius. I sort of stand the logic on its head, and I've got this analysis, but I have no idea if the analysis is correct. Any time will tell. It would be very bad for Zelenskyy to go to Vilnius with a failure under his belt. And they know with a, if you have a big counteroffensive, you can really snuff it up and make a big mess of it so quickly and expend everything you've been preparing. You know, you've lost a surprise, all of that. So I think to go to Vilnius with a failure would be a mistake. And for perhaps that reason, we won't see a big counteroffensive before that. China, I sort of, you know, Russia's made this analysis that the United States will fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian. I think perhaps there's a sense, you know, over the longer term that president Xi is willing to fight the United States down to the last Russian in Ukraine, that there are elements of this that over the longer term, there's a lot to play for here for Xi in terms of how he really wants to have his relationship with the United States and what sort of leverage not supporting Russia could bring at a certain point. He certainly has a huge scope to upscale, militarily. He's certainly providing a lot of the money that Putin needs through buying oil, gas, etcetera. I mean, he's got it at good rates because Putin has very few people else to sell it to, in bulk. So this is a good place for Xi right now. He gets to weaken the Western resolve for war, which we thought was thoroughly weakened, diminished entirely through Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think, to some degree, letting this play out without interfering too much can be in Xi's interest played out over longer term and see where your leverage can best be used. But there's no doubt about it. I don't think he's ready to see Russia fail and be on its knees. I mean, his peace plan would look wholly different if that were his view.

Mcfarlane: That's it for this week's episode of One Decision. We drop new episodes every Thursday. Like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Drop us a line. Tell us your thoughts. What decisions have impacted you and where you live? You can write to us. Our email is 1decision@1decisionpodcast.com. From me and the team, thank you for listening, and see you next time.