CDS Daily brief (06.06.23) | CDS comments on key events

Snapshot of the day:

General, humanitarian:

• Kakhovka HPP:
• About 16,000 people living within a 2-2.5 km distance (some eighty towns and villages) from the banks of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast will be severely affected by Russia blowing up the Kakhovka Reservoir dam; Evacuation of the civilian population from the flooded parts of Kherson Oblast started this morning; at least 1,300 have been evacuated in the first hours;
• Water shortage and panic are reported in the occupied Crimea;
• The destruction of the Kakhovka dam will not directly impact the operation of the Zaporizhzhya NPP as its power units are cooled down with a specially built pond. 
• Ukraine’s Military Intelligence claimed to have evidence of Russia blowing up the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant. The detonation of the dam did not affect Ukraine’s ability to “de-occupy its own territories,” Ukraine’s President stated.
• This is a war crime under the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949.
• On May 31, a Decree of the Russian Government came into effect, allowing the Russian authorities not to investigate accidents at hazardous facilities, including hydro-technical ones, caused by “military actions” and terrorist attacks, including in the Russia-occupied territories.
• Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has called for an extraordinary meeting of the U.N. Security Council and a new wave of sanctions against Russia’s missile and nuclear industry. The international community condemned Russia’s war, while the U.N. Secretary-General routinely omitted to name Russia. Russia blames Ukraine for the accident.
• Russian attacks:
• At night Russia attacked Ukraine with 35 cruise missiles. The Ukrainian air defense shot down all of them. Most of them headed for the Ukrainian capital; 
• Overall, Russia attacked 10 Oblasts of Ukraine over the past day.

Military: 

• Ukrainian Defense Forces conducted a number of successful attacks north and south-west of Bakhmut, in the western part of Donetsk Oblast and eastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast;
• The Russian military command has drawn conclusions from the defeat near Kharkiv and keeps its reserves outside the artillery range of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. From there, the enemy directs its units to areas under threat, preventing the Defense Forces from quickly developing success in the interposition space;
• The Defense Forces have intensified their activities in selected areas, simultaneously misleading the enemy regarding the true direction of the main strike and the overall concept of the counteroffensive in general.
• The Russian Black Sea Fleet command is trying to avoid the loss of materiel by transferring it to the mainland of the Russian Federation in the Novorossiysk region;
• The Russian Volunteer Corps [fighting on Ukraine’s side], with the support of the Polish Volunteer Corps, continues to operate in border villages in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation.

Sea:

• Russia resumed the registration of the inbound fleet while violating the established algorithm for registering and inspecting vessels.

International:

• Ukraine’s President talked about his “lucky day,” hinting that Ukraine may get a considerable number of F-16s.
• Finland expelled nine Russian spies under diplomatic cover in the Embassy. 

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Kakhovka HPP

The Russians blew up the Kakhovka HPP dam, a station that supplies southern Ukraine with electricity and freshwater (about seven million people in four regions) and is essential for the cooling systems of the Zaporizhzhya NPP. About 16,000 people living within a 2-2.5 km distance (some eighty towns and villages) from the banks of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast are severely affected. The water supply to the illegally annexed Crimea will be severed as well. Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the NSDC, said that the Kakhovka Dam was blown up by servicemen of the 205th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, who controlled this facility. It’s not unprecedented for the Kremlin to blow up a dam. During World War II, the Soviet leadership ordered the blowing up of bridges in Zaporizhzhya and the HPP dam to impede the German advance and prevent them from crossing to the left bank of the Dnieper. From eighty to a hundred thousand civilians were drowned as a result. 

The evacuation of civilians from the areas of potential flooding due to the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP started at about 7 a.m. The Russian army fired artillery at people during the evacuation from the Ostriv neighborhood in Kherson, injuring two policemen helping local residents evacuate. Nevertheless, about 1,300 people have been evacuated from the neighborhood, the head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, said. 

The city of Kryvyi Rih is expected to experience a severe shortage of potable and technical water, Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city’s military administration, said. Water shortage is not expected in either Kyiv or Zaporizhzhya, relevant authorities said. 

As a result of the explosion of the Kakhovska HPP, the machine room, which contained 450 tons of technical fuel oil, was also destroyed, and 150 tons of the oil have already ended up in the Dnipro River, the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko informed. 

Ukraine’s Military Intelligence has ruled out natural causes for the collapse of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) dam. A spokesperson for the Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated that explosives were used, although specific details were not disclosed. “The Intelligence report on the situation at the Kakhovska Hydro Power Plant (HPP). The main conclusion is that the detonation was intentional, but the enemy acted chaotically, allowing their own [military] equipment to be flooded. At the same time, the detonation of the dam did not affect Ukraine’s ability to de-occupy its own territories,” Ukraine’s President stated. The peak of water spillage from the Kakhovka Reservoir will fall on the morning of June 7, and in 2-4 days, the Kakhovka Reservoir will disappear, Ukrhydroenergo, a state-owned enterprise that administers major hydropower plants, stated.

According to the government agency “Ukrainian hydromelioration systems” calculations, irrigation will be impossible in Kherson Oblast for 2-3 years due to the explosion of the Kakhovska HPP. In Kherson Oblast, there are 426.8 thousand hectares of irrigated land, or 21.6% of the total area of agricultural land, including 384.5 thousand hectares from government irrigation systems, 42.3 thousand hectares from local irrigation.

International reaction

Article 56 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, explicitly prohibits targeting dams. “Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes, and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.”

A noteworthy fact: on May 31, a Decree of the Russian Government came into effect, allowing the Russian authorities not to investigate accidents at hazardous facilities, including hydro-technical ones, caused by “military actions” and terrorist attacks, including in the Russia-occupied territories.  This decree aligns with a recurring pattern, considering Russia’s previous government decree on “mass graves in wartime and peacetime,” which took effect in February 2022, coinciding with the decision to initiate the all-out invasion.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called for an extraordinary meeting of the U.N. Security Council and a new wave of sanctions against Russia’s missile and nuclear industry. “Today’s tragedy is yet another example of the horrific price of war on people. The floodgates of suffering have been overflowing for more than a year,” he added.

“That must stop. Attacks against civilians and critical civilian infrastructure must stop,” stated the U.N. Secretary-General, without explicitly naming Russia. “This is an outrageous act, which demonstrates once again the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General twitted. “A dam near a nuclear power plant is misused as a weapon of war, and human lives are put in grave danger. There is only one thing responsible for this environmental catastrophe: Russia’s criminal war of aggression on Ukraine,” Germany’s Foreign Minister twitted. “Blowing up the Kahovka dam significantly pollutes the Black Sea. What have the governments of littoral States Bulgaria, Romania, Türkiye, and Georgia said about this terrorist act?” former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves suggested. 

Putin’s spokesperson said he “unequivocally” believes the incident was “deliberate sabotage” by Ukraine. “Having launched large-scale offensive operations two days ago, now the Ukrainian Armed Forces are not achieving their goals. These offensive actions are choking,” Dmitry Peskov said. 

The Ukrainian military command had anticipated the possible actions of the Russian army regarding the blowing up of the Kakhovska HPP and made appropriate calculations. Therefore, these actions will not affect the offensive of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, the Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev, said.

Other Russian attacks

On the night of June 6, 2023, from 00:30 to 04:00, the Russian military attacked Ukraine with Kh-101/Kh-555 air-based cruise missiles; all 35 Russian missiles were destroyed by Ukrainian air defense. Most of the X-101/X-555 were headed towards the capital.

Overall, the Russian army attacked 10 Ukrainian Oblasts over the past day. 4 people were reported killed and 12 injured in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson Oblasts. 

ICJ

From June 6 to 14, 2023, the UN International Court of Justice will hold public hearings in the case of Russia’s violation of two conventions – on the fight against the financing of terrorism and on the prohibition of all forms of racial discrimination. There will be two rounds of presentations by the parties: on June 6 and 12, the legal team of Ukraine will speak, and on June 8 and 14 – Russia. The hearings will be broadcast live.

Occupied territories

The cities of Yevpatoria and Kerch in occupied Crimea started experiencing water shortages due to Russia blowing up the Kakhovka dam. According to Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, there is panic in the occupied Crimea after the explosion.

The explosion of the Kakhovska HPP does not directly affect the operation of the Zaporizhzhya NPP. An algorithm for the station and personnel in the event that the water of the Kakhovka reservoir is not sufficient to feed the cooling pond has been developed, Petro Kotin, President of State Enterprise “NAEK “Energoatom”, said.  

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Operational situation

General conclusion: 

• The Russian military concentrates its main efforts on defensive operations in all directions, trying to complete the capture of Maryinka, locally improve its tactical position in the Lyman, Bakhmut, and Maryinka directions;
• Ukrainian Defense Forces conducted a number of successful attacks north and south-west of Bakhmut, in the western part of Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhzhia Oblasts;
• The Russian military command has drawn conclusions from the defeat near Kharkiv keeping its reserves positioned outside the range of Ukrainian Defense Forces artillery. By doing so, Russian command is able to directs units to areas under threat, preventing the Defense Forces from quickly developing success in the interposition space. 
• The Russian Black Sea Fleet command is trying to avoid the loss of equipment by transferring it to the mainland of the Russian Federation in the Novorossiysk region;
• The Russian Volunteer Corps [fighting on Ukraine’s side], with the support of the Polish Volunteer Corps, continues to operate in border villages in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation.

Change in the line of contact (LoC):  

• 40 combat clashes took place on different fronts.
• Russian Volunteer Corps continues raids near Novaya Tavolzhanka, Belgorod Oblast, “Freedom of Russia” Legion – near Shebekino.
• In the Kupyansk direction, Russian troops conducted an unsuccessful reconnaissance to the northeast of Kharkiv, where a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group unsuccessfully tried to cross the state border near Zelene.
• In the Lyman direction, Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in the Novoselivske and Bilohorivka areas of Luhansk Oblast.
• In the direction of Bakhmut, the Russian military carried out unsuccessful offensive actions in the direction of Ivanivske. The Ukrainian defense forces conduct offensive operations and have advanced up to 1,600 m in the direction of Orikhovo-Vasylivka, up to 700 m near Ivanivske and Klishchiivka, up to 1,000 m in the direction of Zaliznyanske and Bohdanivka, and liberated part of Berkhivka. Russian units retreated in some areas from the Berkhivka Reservoir to hold positions in the village. Fighting continues near Rozdolivka.
• In the Avdiivka direction, Russian forces made an unsuccessful attempt to attack in the direction of Avdiivka, Severne and Nevelske. Ukrainian Defense forces attacked in the vicinity of Opytne, Vodyane and Pervomaiske.
• In the Maryinka direction, the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled numerous enemy attacks in the area of Maryinka. The Russian military lost about 70 killed, more than 100 wounded and 17 pieces of military equipment.
• In the direction of Shakhtarsk, the enemy carried out unsuccessful offensive actions toward Novosilka.
• In the Tavriysk direction, the Ukrainian Defense Forces advanced to the southwest of Velyka Novosilka, up to 1.5 km to the northwest of Storozheve, forded the Shaitanka River and led an assault near Novodonetsk, pushing out units of the 100th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st army corps from there by the end of the day. Also, the units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces tried to advance near Novodarivka, capture the positions of the 147th motorized rifle regiment of the 127th motorized rifle division near Pryiutne and Levadne, pushed back the units of the 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division to a distance of up to 3 km near Rivnopillia and Neskuchne, the fighting continues.
• The Russian military command is moving logistics and technical support centers of the Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Territory, due to widespread problems with logistics and ammunition in occupied Crimea.

Change in enemy disposition: 

• Units of the 36th Army of the Eastern Military District and the “Cascade” detachment of the so-called DNR are on the defensive in the Novodonetsk district.

Escalation indicators: 

• An increase in combat activity in various areas of the front line is observed.
• The ammonia pipeline was damaged in the Kupyansk district, Kharkiv Oblast; the consequences are being investigated.

Possible operation situation developments: 

• The Russian forces will try to improve their tactical position on the eve of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, conducting local offensive actions in selected directions;
• The Defense Forces have intensified their activities in selected areas, simultaneously misleading the enemy regarding the true direction of the main strike and the overall concept of the counteroffensive in general.
• The Russian forces will continue missile and air strikes on objects in the rear of Ukraine, thereby preventing the maneuver of air defense to the front-line zone to strengthen the cover of the troop groupings during the preparation and conduct of a counteroffensive operation. In the tactical depth, the enemy will focus on targeting command posts and ammunition storage facilities.

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area: 

• As of June 6, there were 7 Russian ships at sea. They patrol the areas near Crimea and along the coast of the Taman Peninsula. There are no Kalibr missile carriers at sea.

• Locations of ships/submarines of the Russian Navy:
  • Frigate “Admiral Essen”, a submarine of project 636.3, submarine “Alrosa”, SK “Pitlivy”, SRZK “Ivan Khurs” – based in Sevastopol.
  • Frigate “Admiral Makarov”, corvettes “Vyshny Volochyok”, “Grayvoron”, “Ingushetia”, three submarines of project 636.3, patrol ship “Dmitry Rogachev”, “Vasily Bykov” and “Sergey Kotov” – based in Novorossiysk.
  • Corvettes “Askold”, “Tsiklon” – based in Kerch.
  • Patrol ship “Pavel Derzhavin” – located 10 km southeast of Cape Zheleznyi Rog.
  • Frigate “Ladnyi” – located 20 km west of Adler.
  • Reconnaissance ship “Priazovie” – located 165 km northeast of Sinop (Turkey).
• Sea of Azov:
  • “Eysk” corvette – to the northwest of the Kerch Strait.
  • The locations of the large landing ships:
  • LLS “Olenegorskiy Gornyak” – located 15 km west of Adler. 
  • LLS “Korolev” – located southeast of Cape Mishako. 
  • LLSs “Tsezar Kunikov” and “Minsk” – in Sevastopol. 
  • LLS “Orsk” – in Feodosia. 
  • LLSs “Yamal,” “Georgiy Pobedonosets,” “Pyotr Morgunov,” and “Kaliningrad” – in Novorossiysk.
• “Azov”, “Nikolay Filchenkov” and “Novocherkassk” are being repaired at the Sevastopol shipyard.

• Russian aviation continues to fly from the Crimean airfields of Belbek, Saky, Dzhankoy and Hvardiyske over the sea. Fifteen fighter aircraft from Belbek and Saki Air Force Bases were involved in monitoring the surface and air conditions in the northwestern part of the Black Sea, namely seven Su-27/30 (BELBEK), four Su-30SM two Su-24MR and two Mig-29 UK (SAKI). 
• The control of the air situation and the management of operational-tactical aviation over the Azov Sea were carried out by the A-50U Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft, Il-22 relay aircraft, and Il-22PP jamming aircraft. The military transport aviation performed two flight missions to the Belbek and Dzhankoy airfields and one to the Hvardiyske airfield to transfer personnel and military cargo.
• On the Dnipro River direction, the enemy attempted to carry out a tactical landing: up to 25 personnel (presumably from the 126th separate coastal defense brigade of the 22nd Army Corps of the Russian Navy) on Bilohrudy Island (near the city of Kherson). They suffered losses and withdrew.

The “Grain Initiative”

• On Monday, June 5, the Ministry of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine reported that Russia had resumed registering inbound fleet vessels, disregarding the established algorithm for registration and inspection. The ministry stated that on June 4, the Russian side registered two incoming vessels for the Grain Initiative on the same day, contradicting the rules that prioritize inspecting ships that have been waiting the longest. The Russian side neglected to inspect 56 vessels that had been waiting in Turkish territorial waters, some for more than three months, to enter Ukrainian ports. The registration of the inbound fleet by the Russian side in the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) is being carried out with limitations, and the logic behind the selection of vessels for registration is unclear and nontransparent, emphasized the ministry.
• As explained by Ukrainian experts, the inspection plan for today includes 9 inspections (3 for incoming vessels, 6 for outgoing vessels), but usually the Russians fulfill only half of the agreed plan. Currently, there are 67 vessels awaiting inspection in the territorial waters of Turkey, of which 58 are heading for loading in Ukrainian ports, and 9 are already loaded with food.

Russian operational losses from 24.02.22 to 06.06.23 

Personnel – almost 211,150 people (+800);

Tanks 3,860 (+12);

Armored combat vehicles – 7,543 (+20);

Artillery systems – 3,602 (+36);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) – 590 (+6);

Anti-aircraft warfare systems – 351 (+2);

Vehicles and fuel tanks – 6,332 (+20);

Aircraft – 313 (0);

Helicopters – 299 (+1);

UAV operational and tactical level – 3,212 (+23);

Intercepted cruise missiles – 1,171 (+35);

Boats/ships – 18 (0).

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International, OTHER 

“I just had a lucky day. Because sometimes, you know, something needs to be negotiated one at a time, two at a time (jets), and there was a serious, powerful proposal,” Ukraine’s President intrigued about preliminary agreements of F-16s supply to Ukraine after meeting European partners in Moldova.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told Vatican envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi that “a cease-fire and freezing of the conflict will not lead to peace.” Instead of pushing those ideas, the Holy See may make a great contribution “by seeking to bring about the return of Ukrainian prisoners of war and children “deported” to Russia.”

Finland expelled nine Russian spies under diplomatic cover in the Embassy. 

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