Disaster in Ukraine

Things just got much worse.

Source: Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC

Credit: Shelly Cheng/NPR

Collapsed Nova Kakhovka dam

Downstream, the flood waters will subside somewhat as the surge reaches the Black Sea, but many of the villages and towns along the course of the Dnipro may not be habitable again unless and until a new dam is built. Thousands of homes and livelihoods have been swept away, along with countless domesticated and wild animals.

The ecological trauma of such an inundation of water and silt has changed the landscape in an instant, wiping away islands and wetlands. It could take years if not decades for the fauna and flora to bounce back.

[...]

With a reservoir of 18bn cubic metres, Nova Kakhovka was one the dams with the largest capacity in the world.

[...]

Along with all the debris carried along by the rushing waters are tens of thousands of mines. The flood waters are rolling through a frontline in the war.

[...]

Both sides laid mines along the waterfront and they have now been washed away and will be distributed randomly in towns, villages and farmland downstream [even many years after the war].

[...]

The devastation upstream from the dam is the other side of the coin from the downstream floods – a dearth of water. The left of the Kakhovka reservoir is falling dramatically. Within a few days it will be too low for the water pumps at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, about 120 miles (200km) upstream, to be used to cool its reactor cores and spent fuel stocks. Because the six reactors have shut down and the plant has a very large cooling pool for such an emergency, it should be able to maintain safety for several months at least, as long as the pond remains intact. But that is far from given. The pond, like the plant itself, is in Russian hands.

The loss of the reservoir will also mean there will be far less drinking water for cities in the region and irrigation for the agricultural belt around it. A drop of just one metre is enough for traps to run dry. That will have a knock-on effect on food production, and on exports of wheat, corn, sunflower oil and soya beans, to the rest of the world.

  Guardian

I can't help thinking that this would have been avoided if the US had agreed to give Zelensky the planes and other military equipment he asked for over a year ago.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE :