A dam explodes, the stakes rise and the war in Ukraine enters a new phase

CLIP You are listening to a Frequency Podcast network production.

Jordan Heath Rawlings When a war drags on for months and then years as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is doing now, it can be tempting to look for any sign the tide might be turning, that something might be changing.

CLIP A sleepy produced video has been released by Ukraine’s defense officials. Showing soldiers urging silence surrounding its expected broad assault against invading forces, all aimed at retaking Russian occupied territory in the east and the south.

Jordan Heath Rawlings That’s why whispers of a spring and summer Ukrainian offensive sounded so hopeful to so many. A push that could break through Russian lines, reclaim territory, and even take the war to Russia itself to sap support for Putin’s plan. Unfortunately, in war, things change quickly and the aggressor doesn’t often follow the rules.

CLIP This morning, a major disaster unfolding in southern Ukraine. Drone video showing the Niro River gushing through a critical dam and hydroelectric power plant. This video shot from the banks showing huge chunks of the Kakhovka dam destroyed.

Jordan Heath Rawlings In the past day or so, a destroyed dam has unleashed a torrent of water that poses threats to life, homes, infrastructure, and perhaps to Ukrainian plans for the next few weeks. It may also pose a threat to a nuclear plant, and it will undoubtedly result in serious environmental consequences. So what do we know about the Sudden Dam collapse about the past few weeks, which had seen a shift in this war about how far Russia is prepared to go to support its failing invasion? And what in this conflict at long last, might actually signal a turning point?

I am Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Balkan Devlen is a super forecaster at Good Judgment Incorporated and senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic program at the McDonald Laurier Institute. He comes on this show every so often to describe the, increasingly terrifying state of world affairs Balkan.

Balkan Devlen Well, unfortunately, yes, I wish we could talk more, cheerful subjects, but the world does not seem to be, you know, playing in our favor.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I want to ask you first before we get into the details of what’s going on in the conflict and invasion of Ukraine over the past 24 hours and maybe over the past week or so. Has this conflict entered a new phase?

Balkan Devlen In a way, it is the most likely the much weighted, Ukrainian offensive started, but it’s, you know, this. So much fog of war right now, so we are not particularly sure, to what extent do operations are the actual thrusts, of the upcoming offensive, or it is just a feigning attempt to do so. But it is clear that once the Russian sort of winter offensive fizzled out and. Basically bogged down in, in Bahamut and didn’t really do anything else. The, the counter offensive, that the ukranians have been preparing for and, you know, building brigades and, and equipping them with the Russian weapons and training and so on so forth, seems to be starting instead of a spring offensive. It’s clearly going to be a summer offensive. So we might say that we are now in a new phase, of the, of the war.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I’ll talk about the offensive in just a second because we do know a little bit about, you know, to your point, what it’s been building to. But first, we’re speaking today just I guess 12 hours or so after a major dam failed in Southern Ukraine. I know, as you mentioned, fog of war makes it a quickly evolving situation where nothing is certain. But can you explain what that dam is and what we do know so far?

Balkan Devlen So the, the dam itself is one of the several along the, river in the Kherson region. And it serves basically, I mean, multiple things, but two things are, are quite important about, about that particular dam. The, the first one is that it provides the significant amount of the cooling water for the Zaporizhzhia, nuclear power plant that provides the cooling for the, for the reactors, although it seems like there is no imminent danger to the operation of, of that nuclear power plant, it is going to be a problem. So it’s, it’s one important, important aspect. The other one is, is of course, it’s also part of the canal system that provides water to, to the Crimean, peninsula. So those two things make it important. And the, the, the damage to the dam that’s basically blowing up, and opening is also, created not only sort of in humanitarian disaster, thousands of people will be affected, areas that are being flooded, but it’s also ecological disaster. It, it destroys the environment and, and actually continues to pollute the Black Sea going forward. But it also does have a military consequences because it makes it harder for Ukraine to operate, to cross the river on the other side and make operations towards the south much harder. And, and that’s probably one of the reasons why the Russians blew that up.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Do we know that it was the Russians blowing it up? And do we know at this point, I guess, what purpose it serves for them? Is it just specifically to cause chaos in the Ukrainian side of the river?

Balkan Devlen The best sort of evidence is when, when Kremlin denies something, when they denied, you can be pretty sure that it’s, it’s the Russians. But on another note, I think one of the sort of important, you know, pieces of evidence is that Zelensky back in October, 2022 actually warned about this particular dam and that the Russians mining it. So first there is that, there was, we know that it was under the control of the Russian invading forces and, you know, Ukraine is, did warn that they actually are mining it. And the, the second one, of course, Is that in a very similar way to do MH17, you know, shooting down of the Malaysian airlines over Ukraine before this, Malaysian started, the troops on the ground are, are bragging about it. You, you have, you know, telegram channels and, and, and others. The Russian troops basically saying that, oh yes, we did it and, we should do more of it, et cetera. They’re probably gonna have him, you know, shut up pretty soon. But you have underground suggestions that, so we have Kremlin denying it. But also that the Ukrainians have been warning about this is, this is gonna gonna happen. Now, the military side of it, like I said before, I’m the military analyst, but, to me what it looks like and when I read people who, who knows more than I do on this, the suggestion is that because it makes operations in this south harder for Ukrainians, it, it enables Russians to defend a smaller territory, which means they can concentrate their forces and then they can actually move some of the forces from the south towards the, say, Bahmut and and, and other places. So it provides them in a way, in natural protection in other barrier, which would make it a lot harder for Ukrainians to cross the river and, and conduct operations in the South. So it will benefit, the Russians on that side. And of course, The third one is that it also would create all the sort of the cows and, and the potential, damage to this Zaporizhzhia power plant again, that would raise a lot of alarms. The Ukrainians need to find ways to deal with this, with this damage, et cetera. So, there will be, you know, advantages for Russians, for doing this. But again, you know, this is war. It’s very hard to figure out whether that would actually work, the way that Russians hoped that it would do. All the evidence and all these sort of, The reasoning, at least to me, suggests that this is the Russian blowing up, blowing up the dam or comes razor, basically suggests that.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Last question about the dam before we talk about, the offensive from a geopolitical point of view, you mentioned that this is an ecological disaster. What does it mean when that kind of destruction is used as a weapon of war? What message does it send to the international community watching this, helping Ukraine, et cetera?

Balkan Devlen I think it, it’s another, you know, evidence, another proof, not that we need more, but the Russian side is, not willing to play by by the rules of war. This is a very clear, violation of the Geneva Convention. So it is another complete disregard of how to act, in accordance with international law in a very similar way that, you know, Russians are targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. In Ukraine they are destroying and creating the psychological, disaster conducting massacres and ethnic cleansing and kidnappings. So they, they seem to have a list of, war crimes and they seem to be ticking each one of them one by one. And, and it should be a sign for us in the West that the way some argue, for example, for coming to ceasefire and agreement, et, etcetera with the Russians, it’s, it’s quite clear that it is, it’s almost impossible to believe that Russians will or keep their word as they continuously commit war crimes, in their, in their invasion.

Jordan Heath Rawlings If this attack on the dam was indeed in response to a planned Ukrainian offensive, what do we know about that offensive and what it might do to the conflict? I know, I think there have been some strikes already on Russian front lines. Can you just give us a sense, I know not from a tactical point of view, but of what’s happening along the lines at this point.

Balkan Devlen It’s very early to say anything. And like I said, I’m, I’m not a military, you know, analyst in Ukrainians are keeping their cards very close to their chest, which makes a lot of sense, given the operational security. So I’m not gonna necessarily, speculate on that, but to me, I think there are, I, there’s a military side of things about, you know, how can you engage in, you know, combined arms operations and, and push the front and, and liberate more territory on the one hand. And then there is the political component, which is I think as if not more important than the military side of it. And that is, to show Ukraine’s partners and allies in the West that Ukraine can effectively engage in, in a counter offensive. And I think that is going to be the, the, the key part of it now, where it’s gonna go to the south, where it’s gonna go to the east, where they will strike. I have no, frankly idea. And there could be multiple axes of attack. There could be one, it could be faints. It’s, it’s war is very contingent as, as, as Michael Kaufman would put it. So it’s very, very hard to know how this this would go. But to me it’s, it’s quite clear that the Ukrainians have been preparing for this. They take their time, they make sure that, they have enough capabilities, they have enough brigades, and they choose the time that they think is most advantageous, both militarily and politically to engage in this offensive and this, this could go for weeks and, you know, so it’s, it’s very hard to know where will there be any breakthroughs. We’ll see. But it’s very important to also keep things in perspective and, and manage expectations that, you know, offense is always harder, right? The typical ratio is, you know, one to three in terms of the defender’s advantage. You need three times the resources and men, and so on and so forth. To engage in a, in a successful contra offensive, it’s easier to defend. And Russians have been preparing throughout the whole spring. So it’s gonna be brutal. It’s gonna be grinding, it’s gonna be, attritional. We’re just seeing the start of it.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Politically, what does it do to the international support for Ukraine and the coalition that has been, pretty strong around them providing ammunitions and supplies? When the Ukrainian army, which has so far been focused almost solely on defense switches to offense. What does that signal to the community and could that impact the support?

Balkan Devlen I think it will have an impact, but I think that’s why it’s important to manage the expectations as well. I mean, whatever the outcome of this particular contra offensive, it’s not going to end the war. Ukraine have been getting, you know, supplies what ammunition and tanks and other weapons and, and reconstituting brigades and, and training them and keeping them outside the, the fighting, et cetera. But once this particular offensive culminates this summer, the war still will be on. We would still have, you know, Russian troops in Ukraine, despite, you know, whatever the, you know, potential territorial gains that Ukraine could achieve. And it’s important that the West continues to supply and provide the necessary material, and economic support for Ukraine and for them to be abl e to show that all these resources that are being provided can be put to good use. That, you know, Ukraine can engage in a successful contra, offensive, and, and regain territory and pushback. The Russians will be essential to convince some of the, of the Western allies that a new trench of, of support need to be provided. I mean, the weapons, ammunition will be used. Tanks will be destroyed. We would need to provide more because the war is not gonna end this year.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What about from the Russian side of things? You know, we’ve talked a couple of times about this conflict and this invasion, how it hasn’t gone the way obviously, Putin and his generals would have preferred it to go or even expected it to go. What is happening now from their perspective when you’re telling me that Russian forces are preparing to defend, rather than try to continue the invasion?

Balkan Devlen For them, it’s about digging in and I’m not particularly sure they will try to push back, but for them it is about how to what extent they can stand this contra offensive and dig in and ensure that they keep, the, the majority, of the territories they’re currently occupying. So this time they will be on the other side, right? They have been on the offensive, but this time they were on the other side of things. Now, it will be interesting to see to what extent that, what that does to the morale. I think it would be, sapping the morale of already a low morale situation among Russian troops. The quality of the troops doesn’t seem to be particularly high. That’s why I think Ukraine is, are also sort of, optimistic about the possibility of having breakthroughs. But there is a very clear ary between the motivations of, of both sides, right. Ukrainians are defending for their homelands. They’re trying to get their home back, and most of the Russian troops are either cons cripts, they, their best quality troops are being killed at least in Bahamut, they’re been grounded to, to a certain, extent. They’re having the, the so, so-called volunteers of the Mobics, the sort of the mobilized personnel, et cetera. Most of them don’t want to be there. The conditions are not particularly degraded. There, there is whole sort of infighting between Wagner and the, and the regular Russian troops and other pmcs. So the, the morale situation is not great. And if the Ukrainians can actually successfully conduct a localized and concentrated attack, they might break through the ranks. And if they do, that might, you know, change the dynamics significantly so it will further degrade their morale and that that is one hopeful sign that can hopefully surprise us with a, with a bigger, Ukrainian success in the war.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What about beyond the front lines of this conflict? I know some of our listeners probably don’t, hear daily updates on what’s taking place, but I know that, Russia has been aggressively attacking Kiev. And on the other side of things, I have no idea how verified this is, but I do recall reports about a potential Ukrainian attack far beyond the front lines trying to get, into Moscow. What do we know about how far the war is spread beyond those front lines?

Balkan Devlen I mean, Russians are, you know, in the past few weeks, actually past month, ramped up their missile attacks, on Kiev to terrorize the population as well as divert air defence resources and systems away from the front lines. because you’re putting in, Ukrainians in a, in a double bind, you have limited resources, you have to ration your air defense systems. Are you going to do that to protect your troops on the front lines or are you using them? Are you going to use them to protect your civilians in your cities. And for, for Russians, forcing this particular choice and, you know, forcing Ukrainians to use their, precious, in essence air defence, systems, by using the, you know, cheap, relatively cheap Uranian, shahied, drones, for example, is, Both psychologically to terrorize the population, but also militarily is a, is a good bang for their buck. Because you, you know, you, you have Ukrainians waste those resources, which means you will have less for the advancing troops in the front lines, et cetera. So they will continue to do that. Now, I would say we will see increasing Ukrainian and Ukranian aligned in a partisan and sabotage activity, both in the, in the occupied, territories within Ukraine, as well as on the border with Russia and perhaps within Russia itself. But otherwise, I would be very, very surprised to see, you know, sort of direct Ukrainian armed forces attack within, within Russia, we will most likely see more, going on in occupied territories, including Crimea, with direct attacks to the installations there. But the events that will be happening, be it in Moscow or in the in the border areas, will be primarily, through, you know, Ukraine military intelligence guided in a sponsored and, and, and supported, partisan activity or covered operations, which would I think already started having a psychological impact on the Russians. Seeing that, well, you know, the war is here as well. It’s not something that happens to the others and we just continue to enjoy our lives here. No, it is, it is coming to them and I think that is a, a very important psychological weapon that Ukraine would need to use and will use more.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You mentioned, and this is my last question, I’m not asking you to predict anything, even though technically I should cuz that’s your job. But you mentioned earlier that this won’t end the war. And I say, okay, what will?

Balkan Devlen Well, it’s very hard. I mean, the war ends when, the cost of continuing the occupation and invasion, for the Russian side, for the Russian political leadership exceeds the benefits that they think they are, they’re getting out of it.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Is it moving in that direction in terms of, you mentioned the psychological cost of the war coming home and the potential of perhaps breaking through the lines, like is it trending that way? I’m just trying to get a sense in general.

Balkan Devlen Yeah, I think it, it’ll eventually, move there if we continue to provide the necessary resources and the capabilities that Ukranians have. The, the key issue to me is, Is this in terms of mass, in terms of the quantity, the Russians have advantage. Well, the, the manpower as well as all the dumb weapons and missiles, et cetera. Ukrainian advantage is the morale, the focus, as well as the precision weaponry that the west is, is providing. So you cannot, you know, fight quantity that particular way. You cannot match duration, quantity, but we could match with better quality that will degrade Russia’s ability to pursue and persecute this war. Yes, they’re producing more, but they’re not catching up to the level that they’re, you know, they’re spending, right. They’re not matching or replacing their losses, both in terms of men In terms of ammunition, in terms of weapon systems. So they will over time, their ability to conduct these operations continue to degrade. They’re not able to, to maintain this particular temp. Now, when you cross that particular threshold, then things would start looking different within, within Russia as well. If we can sort of make the Russian population understand that they are not isolated and insulated from the effects of this war, that will put extra pressure on Putin. I mean, by all accounts, by different things. I mean, Putin is a risk averse guy. You know, it may not look like this way. And I, we talked about this before, but he is a risk averse guy, he changed tactics even in this invasion. Right? He gave up the idea of going through to Kiev, at least temporarily. He, he redirected his resources. He’s very, very reluctant to engage in full mobilization. He still doesn’t call it the war because he doesn’t wanna call the, all the conscripts, et cetera. So he is very, very much also worried about the domestic hosts of this war. So we need to increase those costs for him and for the elite, for us to, to end this, this war. So, but like I said, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a long one, maybe 2024. We might start seeing the beginning of the end, but it will, it’ll be a long war.

Jordan Heath Rawlings And in the meantime, does the risk of out of bounds attacks, like the one we just saw on the dam, continue to increase as Russia kind of gets more desperate?

Balkan Devlen Yes, I would expect greater, attacks in, especially in civilian targets on infrastructure across across Ukraine, including dams and other, other infrastructure. I still don’t see the nuclear issue, coming back, to be honest. You know, I, there’s all other different options for Russia to escalate in the way that we just see now without resorting to, to the use of nuclear weapons. So I don’t think that is on the table at all. but we will see as the Russia gets more desperate, we’ll try to, to target rest of Ukraine, target civilian population, perhaps utilize the Air Force more et cetera, as they try to divert both resources and effort on the Ukrainian part to deal with these other other damages.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Balkan as always, thank you for this. We’ll see what happens, in the coming days with this water.

Balkan Devlen Thanks for having me.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Balkan Devlen super forecaster for Good Judgment Incorporated and senior fellow at the McDonald Laurier Institute. That was The Big Story. For more including previous interviews with Balkan. You can head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. You can always find us on Twitter @thebigstoryfpn, and you can write to us the email addresses hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca. You can find The Big Story anywhere you get your podcasts, and of course, you can ask your smart speaker to play The Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rowings. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Balkan Devlen Thanks for having me.