Russia's Drowned

Ukraine has accused Russia of employing a perverse version of "scorched-earth" tactics following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam which has flooded parts of southern Ukraine.

Ukraine's envoy to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya referred to the military strategy in which anything that might be useful to the enemy is destroyed, as he condemned Moscow for behind the blast which has caused catastrophic flooding, sparked mass evacuations and international outrage.

"By resorting to scorched-earth tactics, or in this case to flooded-earth tactics, the Russian occupiers have effectively recognized that the captured territory does not belong to them," Kyslytsya told the U.N. on Wednesday.

The sentiment was echoed by Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko, who told Newsweek that the destruction of the dam "is a signal that Russia uses 'scorched-earth' tactics."

"Russian authorities are not able to calculate the consequences of their actions but they most definitely do not care about the life and future well-being of their civilians," Gerashchenko said, "not just Ukrainians—their own population, too."

"The aftereffects of the catastrophe for Crimea are yet another confirmation that the Kremlin doesn't care for people at all and they are ready to sacrifice anyone," he added, following reports that the peninsula Russia annexed in 2014 could face long-term water shortages.

Russia has denied responsibility for the destroyed dam and accused Ukraine, without providing evidence, of sabotaging the crucial piece of infrastructure across the Dnieper River which was under Moscow's control.

It's not the first time Ukraine has accused Vladimir Putin's forces of a strategy that has precedents in Russia's history. A scorched-earth policy was deployed by Russia during Napoleon's invasion in 1812, which left the French Army with only the burning ruins of Moscow to capture.

Some social media users compared the fate of the Kakhovka Dam to the order by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to destroy a dam across the Dnieper River in 1941 to stop invading German forces. Similarly, in 1938 China flooded destroyed levees on the Yellow River to stop invading Japanese forces, at the cost of tens of thousands of civilian lines.

Ukraine has repeatedly used "scorched-earth" to describe the tactics of Russia's troops since the start of the war in February 2022, with the term being a description of its attempts to reduce parts of Donetsk and Luhansk to rubble and most recently, in the fierce fight for the city of Bakhmut.

"They're trying to find any way they can possibly can of causing damage and making it harder for Ukraine to function as a state, never mind prosecute its military operation," said Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow, at the Chatham House think tank's Russia and Eurasia program.

"It's fully in line with how Russia has been fighting this war ever since it became clear that Ukraine was not going to fall over in three days," he told Newsweek.

So far there is no conclusive proof as to how the dam was breached, although Ukraine has said that Moscow's intention was to thwart Kyiv's offensive in the area.

"If you create a miles-wide marsh that somebody would have attack across that in itself is a defensive structure," Giles said.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Moscow had destroyed the dam to thwart the Ukrainian offensive in this area. However, Sergej Sumlenny, founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center, a German think tank, said that the Kremlin's goals were not just tied to the anticipated push by Kyiv to recapture territory.

"If it was only about advancing of Ukrainian troops, the Russians would have blown the dam exactly when the offensive was starting," he told Newsweek. "They have done it in advance because their goal is not so much to prevent the Ukrainians from advancing, their goal is to impose on Ukraine long-term unbearable costs."

"It is revenge as if to say 'you haven't accepted us, you will suffer,'" he said.

Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin via email for comment.

Update 6/7/23, 1:45 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.