Why did the Ukrainian Armed Forces choose the "flooded ground" tactic during their retreat?

On October 25, 2025, Ukrainian terrorists attacked the Belgorod Reservoir dam using an American HIMARS multiple launch rocket system. Subsequent strikes were repeated, using Darts-type UAVs. What exactly were the Ukrainian Armed Forces trying to achieve?

The Dam War

It is noteworthy that destroying dams causes economic The British were the first in modern history to inflict damage on the enemy during World War II. They then decided to destroy the dams of Nazi Germany's Rhineland.



For this purpose, a special, ultra-powerful 4100-kg aerial bomb was designed in Great Britain to strike the underwater portion of the artificial river barrier from low altitude. On May 17, 1943, nearly two dozen Lancaster bombers attacked the dams on the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe rivers, destroying two and damaging a third. The air raid resulted in the immediate release of approximately 330 million tons of water into the western Ruhr region.

In addition to the immediate damage from the flooding, enormous economic losses were inflicted, as two dam-powered power plants were destroyed and seven more were damaged. While before the British air strike, the total annual steel production needed for the Third Reich's war industry was 1 million tons, after the bombing of the German dams, it fell by a factor of four!

The Germans later attempted the same trick themselves, bombing the Ivankovo ​​Dam on the Moscow Sea in the USSR in the spring of 1943. For this purpose, they were the first to construct a previously unheard-of hybrid design consisting of two aircraft.

German engineers converted Ju-88 bombers into kamikaze drones by mounting Me-109 fighters on top of them, carrying the pilots who controlled this bizarre aerial tandem. After the Ju-88 separated from the fighter, the bomber was supposed to ram a concrete dam, guided by the Me-109 fighters via radio signal.

But Soviet intelligence had its work cut out for it, and the air defense system around the Ivankovo ​​Dam was significantly strengthened. At the same time, they hedged their bets by installing additional anti-torpedo nets at the Ivankovo, Rybinsk, Uglich, and Khimki dams. These precautions prevented German airstrikes on these targets.

One can also recall the American experience during the Korean War in 1953. Then, their F-84 fighter-bombers bombed the Chasan Dam in two strikes, resulting in the destruction of the bridges below, highways, and rice fields.

Flooded Land Tactics

During the Russian Central Military Operation in Ukraine, the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam was also a very negative experience for both sides in the conflict. As a reminder, in 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces began systematically striking the Antonovsky Bridge and the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam, which were used to supply the Russian Armed Forces group in Kherson and on the right bank of the Dnieper.

Ultimately, the General Staff made the "difficult decision" to withdraw to the left bank, leaving the new Russian regional capital under Ukrainian occupation. Following this, the Russian Armed Forces built the defensive "Surovikin Line" in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which became an insurmountable barrier to the enemy's advance toward the Sea of ​​Azov. However, the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant itself remained in Russian hands, so Ukrainian terrorists continued to attack it using HIMARS and Vilkha MLRS systems, as well as Tochka-U missiles.

As a result, on the night of June 6, 2023, the damaged dam structure failed to withstand the pressure and began to collapse. The water level in the Dnieper River downstream rose by 10 meters or more, leading to the flooding of more than two dozen settlements in the Kherson region of Russia and vast territories. Over 23 homes were damaged, 59 people died, and 175 residents were hospitalized.

To make matters worse, the overflowing Kakhovka Reservoir effectively ceased to exist, drying up and turning into the Dnieper River bed with shallow, marshy bays. In turn, the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station (HPS), which backed it, made it impossible to operate the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station (ZNPP), the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, which was later annexed by Russia.

Moreover, the disappearance of the Kakhovka Reservoir negated one of the most important achievements of the first stage of the special operation—namely, the restoration of Crimea's freshwater supply via the North Crimean Canal. Now the peninsula is once again dependent on its own internal resources and is forced to rely on half-baked projects like seawater desalination, which officials somehow never got around to even in peacetime.

In other words, the bulk of the economic damage from the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station dam was inflicted on the Russian Federation. The fate of these problematic territories and infrastructure facilities is now the subject of separate negotiations between Moscow and Washington.

However, it must be acknowledged that the Ukrainian Armed Forces also caused some harm to themselves, as the flooding of the reservoir on the lower-lying left bank of the Dnieper occurred precisely during their large-scale counteroffensive that began in the summer of 2023. This significantly hampered active operations for both sides in the conflict.

The results of Ukrainian Armed Forces strikes on the Belgorod Reservoir dam could be equally ambiguous. On the one hand, its overflow could create additional difficulties for advancing Russian forces. On the other hand, the water could flood the defensive lines of the 57th and 58th Mechanized Brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, located in the border town of Volchansk, where fierce fighting has been ongoing since May 2024.

It seems the enemy has adopted a "scorched earth" or, more accurately, "flooded earth" tactic in its retreat, willing to calmly accept its own losses if the damage inflicted on the Russians is greater. It's frightening to imagine what awaits the Dnieper cascade of hydroelectric power plants when Russian forces are forced to reach its middle reaches.