Who blew up the Kakhovka dam? Here are the three theories

The Dnieper River dam collapse this week caused a major humanitarian crisis in southern Ukraine, but who, if anyone, was behind the breach is still shrouded in mystery.

Both Ukrainian and Russian officials are pointing the finger at each other, accusing the opposing side in the war of carrying out an attack on the Nova Kakhovka dam to further their aims on the battlefield.

The dam, which contained a reservoir as large as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, was breached on Tuesday, flooding thousands of homes across dozens of settlements, leading to mass evacuations and killing at least 14 people.

There has been no independent, compelling evidence against either side for carrying out the attack on the dam in the Kherson region. And the roots of finger-pointing over a fatal blow to the dam stretch back to last fall, when both Ukraine and Russia accused each other of planning to carry out the attack.

Another theory is the dam, which supplies water to both Ukrainian and Russian-occupied regions, may have collapsed on its own due to wartime neglect and stress from frequent strikes in the region.

The U.S. is investigating the incident but has not reached a formal conclusion yet.

“People are continuing to assess how this could have happened,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a Thursday briefing. “At this point, it’s all speculation.”

Here are the three theories that have been floated thus far.

The case against Russia

The alleged motivation for Russia carrying out the destruction of the dam is to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which began last weekend and is underway in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and southern Donetsk region.

The flood has effectively created a new shoreline and a dramatic mass of water between the western and eastern banks of the Dnieper River, complicating any Ukrainian landing on the opposite side.

Ukraine has formally accused Russian soldiers of planting explosives with the assistance of military engineers.

Russia has occupied the area around the Kakhovka dam for more than a year, with the facility effectively under Moscow’s control. Theoretically, that means it would be relatively easy for Russian saboteurs to plant explosives inside the dam.

Ukraine’s Security Service, the nation’s domestic intelligence agency, claimed it had direct evidence of Russian plotting to destroy the dam, releasing what it said was an intercepted phone call between Moscow’s agents.

In the audio — which has not been independently verified by The Hill — a Russian official says a “sabotage group is there,” allegedly referring to the dam, and the goal was to destroy it to “scare people.”

Elina Beketova, a Democracy fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis, said she believed the audio was authentic. Beketova told The Hill there were “multiple reasons to suspect Russia” and very little reason to suspect Ukraine.

“Ukraine is protecting its territory, and Ukrainians are trying to fix all the problems right now,” said Beketova, a Ukrainian citizen. “That’s our people who are suffering.”

Danielle Johnson, a senior Ukraine analyst at the humanitarian analysis nonprofit Assessment Capacities Project, said the evidence points to Moscow because it has a “long record” of carrying out attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure to cow the people into submission.

“While the destruction of a major dam would mark an escalation in this campaign, it would clearly not be unprecedented,” Johnson wrote in an analysis.

The case against Ukraine

The motivation for Ukraine in destroying the dam is less clear, but Kyiv has been accused of carrying out nefarious attacks before.

The U.S. believes Ukrainians are behind the drone strike attack on the Kremlin last month, along with blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines last year and bombing prominent Russian officials inside Russian territory.

Russia formally accused Ukraine of bombarding the dam on Tuesday morning with missiles in order to prevent future, potential Russian attacks in the southern Kherson region.

Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya argued Ukraine was likely behind the attack because Kyiv began testing the possibility last year.

“As early as last year, leaders of Ukrainian military publicly claimed [to be] ready to blast the dam in order to obtain some military advantage,” Nebenzya said, according to Russian state-run media TASS.

A Washington Post article last year did cite Maj. Gen. Andriy Kovalchuk, a commander of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson region at the time, discussing a test to bomb the dam — apparently to see if it could prevent Russian crossings without flooding villages.

But the idea was scrapped and was proposed during a more strenuous time for Ukraine. A Russian assault into Kherson is unlikely at this phase of the war.

Kelley Vlahos, a senior advisor and editorial director at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, did not assess who was behind the dam breach but criticized the outpouring of blame on Russia.

Vlahos compared the case to the Nord Stream attack, in which Russia was blamed at first but now, months later, accusations are centering on Ukraine.

“Not all is what it seems at first,” Vlahos said. “I’m concerned that the story and narrative is being shaped in a way that might not turn out to be what we think six, seven, eight months down the road. 

“And this is also occurring within the context of a number of Ukrainian attacks by militant groups across the Russian border, the attack on the Kremlin,” she added.

One issue with the Ukraine theory is that the dam was built to withstand a ton of damage, according to Ukrainian engineers. The Ukrainian state-run engineer firm Ukrhydroproject said the dam would have to be blown from the inside to collapse.

“Kakhovskaya HPP was designed and built to withstand a nuclear strike from the outside,” officials wrote on Telegram.

The case for neglect

It’s also possible that neither side carried out the attack and the dam collapsed due to neglect during wartime and from the degradation of the structure from missile strikes and bombings in the area.

Bridges and overpasses around the dam have been attacked repeatedly. During a Russian retreat from the Kherson region last year, the facility also took damage. Russian soldiers have frequently blown up bridges and laid mines in hasty retreats.

And Russia has accused Ukrainian strikes of hitting the dam.

The theory is also plausible because neither side stands to gain much from destroying the hydroelectric power plant on the wide Dnieper River, which separates the Ukrainian- and Russian-occupied parts of the city.

The dam supplies water to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, which is not at a direct risk from the flooding but certainly is threatened by the collapse. Damage to the nuclear plant could trigger an even worse environmental catastrophe.

Kakhovka also supplies water to the Crimean Peninsula coveted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who illegally annexed the region in 2014. It’s unclear why Russia would compromise Crimea, though Moscow could have backup stations for water supply to the peninsula’s residents.

Conversely, a natural collapse scenario appears less likely if the dam was constructed to withstand a nuclear missile attack. And The New York Times, citing U.S. officials, reported that satellite images did show an explosion at the dam when it collapsed, although it’s unclear what caused it.

But neither side would gain much from the torrent of water unleashed this week, leaving tens of thousands of residents on both sides without potable water. Russian fortifications have also been washed away from the flooding.

Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, also said the dam collapse is unlikely to change the dynamics on the battlefield.

Though he conceded the flood would destroy the initial Russian lines of entrenchment across the Dnieper River, Kofman argued the breach is unlikely to “substantially” shorten Russian lines to strategically benefit Ukrainian troops. He additionally cast doubt that Ukrainian forces had planned to stage a cross-river attack in Kherson and said the flooding did little to bolster Russian defenses. 

“This is an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe, with long term economic implications for the region, for which Russia is responsible,” Kofman tweeted, “but I’m skeptical that Ukraine’s military prospects in the short term will be negatively affected in a meaningful way.”