INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
strategic plans of both sides, the Kakhovka dam disaster is ultimately believed to be more beneficial to Russia rather than to Ukrainian
flooded swathes of land downriver and sparked a major humanitarian and environmental crisis.The New York Times reported over the weekend
said.Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said that the Ukrainian command had to make adjustments to its counteroffensive plans
due to the destruction of the dam, but noted that the incident would only "increase the desire to liberate the occupied
the front fairly quickly and ensure their consistent supply.For Russia, meanwhile, the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions are the
It will then take two more weeks for the soil to dry out completely, weather permitting
Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.Olga Maltseva / AFPUkrainian officials have claimed the dam attack
was organized and carried out by Russia for its own strategic benefit.Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said earlier this month
that Russia blew up the dam in order to free up its reserves and transfer them to Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia, where the most active fighting
said.Ukrainian military near Bakhmut.General Staff of the Armed Forces of UkraineKovalenko said the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region is
Russian Defense Ministry has built three lines of defense here, but they do not have enough troops to proportionally occupy it along the
Kherson region will leave Russia's positions there vulnerable, Kovalenko said
forces from the Kherson region is illogical, but experience and recent events at the Kakhovka dam show us that the Russian command rarely
the launch of its counteroffensive, which started at almost the same time as the Kakhovka dam's destruction.These advances have been small
and incremental, with a handful of villages in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions declared to have been recaptured.Russian officials,
including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly asserted that the counteroffensive has failed.Yet many experts believe the flooding is
been planning to launch its offensive from Kherson in the first place.Similarly, Kovalenko said that if Ukrainian forces had tried to ford
the Dnipro River, they would have been met with a heavily mined left bank, three lines of defense and numerous strikes of the Russian
