Russia may be interested in using the flood to expand the Dnipro River and thereby complicate the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported.

“Ukraine has no material interest in blowing the dam and pointed out that 80 settlements would risk flooding. Russia may use the flooding to widen the Dnipro River and complicate Ukrainian counteroffensive attempts across the already-challenging water feature,” the report reads.

The ISW reminded that Russian sources expressed intense and explicit concern over the possibility that Ukraine has been preparing to cross the river and counterattack into east bank of Kherson region. Available footage from June 6, corroborated by claims made by Russian milbloggers, suggests that the flooding washed away Ukrainian positions near the Dnipro shoreline and forced Ukrainian formations to evacuate while under Russian artillery fire.

At the same time, the occupiers' positions on the eastern shore could be caught by surprise and threatened with flooding due to the terrain. According to ISW experts, the balance of evidence, reasoning and rhetoric suggests that Russian troops deliberately damaged the dam.