The Kakhovka Dam was built in the 1950s to withstand heavy external bombing. It was an extremely robust structure. Therefore, the only possible culprit for its destruction is the Russian Federation that has controlled the dam since day 1 of the war. Russia mined the dam last fall and a few days ago it detonated the charges resulting in the dam's catastrophic failure.
In doing so, Russia turned the dam into a weapon of mass destruction. The resulting flood has already wreaked economic, humanitarian and ecolocical havoc in the entire southern part of Ukraine and will continue to do so for a very long time. Agriculture both in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts to the south and to a smaller extent north of the river and in Crimea depend on irrigation from the reservoir. The shores of the river Dnipro were extensively mined. Mines have washed ashore all the way in the city of Odessa about 100 km to the west of the mouth of the river. Even if the war ended tomorrow and the Russian occupiers left the country, rebuilding the dam would most likely take years. The three-kilometer long dam was under construction from 1950 to 1956. The Kakhovka reservoir is 2155 km2 in area and 18.2 km3 in volume. It will take days to fully drain into the Black Sea. It will leave in its wake large scale destruction including chemical pollution as 450 tons of machine oil was released into the stream in the explosion. From the bottom of the reservoir, toxic chemical and even radionuclides may be released whose origin is in the Enerhodar nuclear power plant.
Russia is watching very closely how Ukraine, its supporters and the international community as a whole are reacting to this catastrophe. If the response is deemed as indecisive and weak, the next step on the escalation ladder could be the nuclear power plant Russia has controlled since early March 2022. That would could have continent-wide disastrous consequences.
Russia has always been completely immune to ethical considerations, morality or rules - or even reason. But what it is very sensitive to is the logic of raw force. Russia always acts like a psychopath who is only deterred by immediate and strong consequences. This is why another type of flood must follow this one: Ukraine's supporters must step up military aid to Ukraine both qualitatively and quantitatively. Training is essential in addition to weapons systems.
Russia has always despised and exploited weakness. When it faces strength it tends to back down. As Lenin said: 'You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw'
Appeasement is the precisely wrong approach.