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Comment by psychphysic | Hacker News Reader

Did Ukraine just wipe out majority of Russian defences? That could go down in history as one of the boldest moves ever.

Russia was in control of the dam, had mined it, and had in recent weeks let water levels go up to unprecedented levels. Something like 80 settlements will be completely inundated, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe loses its cooling reservoir and attacks over the river will be impossible for weeks.

I don't think Ukraine did it.

(getting information from the thread in /r/worldnews).

If it wiped away defences it'd be more than worth it and Ukraine is now more than capable with its Shadow Storm missiles which UK provided just for this kind of attack.

It's a very bold move and if intentional it could be pivotal in this conflict.

It doesn't matter if the defenses are wiped out, if you cannot cross to reach those defenses. The terrain and roads will be wrecked and everything will be a muddy mess for miles.

Whoever knew this would happen (i.e. planned it) stands to gain massively in strategic terms.

That's the case no matter if it was Russia or Ukraine so long as it went to plan.

It is an act of mass destruction and a war crime, that Ukraine was very worried about for some time since it will kill many innocent people. Very, very unlikely they did it. My first bet would be the dam failed from russian negligence / mismanagement, second the russians blew it up. But there will certainly be video of what happened today soon.

Cruise missiles don't win wars like this. It requires land forces crossing and holding territory. The narrower parts of Dnipro was the easiest path to doing that in the south.

Those cruise missiles were specifically designed to destroy tough targets like this dam.

If either side knew this was going to happen (because they planned it) it would certainly easily be the difference between winning and losing this war.

No. Storm Shadow has a small penetrating warhead. It is designed to punch through reinforced concrete to destroy whatever is within. It is not designed to destroy solid concrete. Otherwise the Crimean bridge would already had been destroyed with one of those super duper warheads.

No. Russians are trying to stop the counter offensive. This move will free up troops to defend Melitopol. Capturing that city effectively blocks land supply route to Crimea.

Wouldn’t Melitopol be harder to defend though? Looks to me that the huge accumulation lake upstream of the dam should drain in a few days, so a crossing by the Ukrainian forces should be much easier.

That will be meters deep mud with steep banks I guess, completely open to enemy fire. Not crossable.

The benefit near the flood will be in weeks to months.

That is if Ukrainian forces were concentrated elsewhere based on a plan to burst the dam.

If they win on other fronts they can turn attention south by that time Crimea will have not had fresh water for months and the forces will be depleted and demoralised.

This could be a major factor in the new offensive. But will require careful planning (if that didn't happen already).

There is a bridge to Crimea, they will bring in water like they used to do when it was cut after 2014 (even when there was no bridge yet). They made huge reservoirs in Crimea. The canal is mostly for water used by agriculture, and it will be a problem in years to come, not this year. And definitely not for troops. The canal is a tiny detail.

Oh that bridge Ukraine has previously blown up?

To be honest, I see the resolution more to do with securing better grain deal security.

At a minimum this will force the Russians to bring troops and weapons to guard a stretch of more than 100 km, which they didn't need go guard before. That could be thousands of troops that will not be taken from a different part of the frontline.

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