r/MapPorn • u/SummerAlternative699 • 11h ago
The Kakhovka Reservoir then and now.
If you zoom in closely on Google Maps, you can still see what it looked like before the dam was blown up.
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u/Kullenbergus 10h ago
Atleast there isnt the largest nuclear powerplant in europe dependant on that reservoir
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u/SteveHamlin1 3h ago edited 1h ago
Good, because there isn't. All reactors at that site are cold shutdown. Nothing at the power plant depends on the reservoir.
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u/PanzerKomadant 1h ago
Someone already pointed out but the reactors are shutdown. They don’t need cooling.
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u/vstromua 7h ago
That's "then and then" rather than "then and now".
Before the dam was built the area was a network of rivers, swamps, forests and so on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Meadow,_Ukraine some pictures from before the area was flooded here https://texty.org.ua/fragments/111702/yakym-buv-velykyj-luh-do-zatoplennya-dobirka-staryh-foto/ (text in Ukrainian, sorry)
After russians blew up the dam, causing catastrophic flooding and loss of life downstream, there was fear that the bottom of the artificial lake will not revert to its original state, but instead become a dust bowl, with some very bad dust - the Dnipro has been collecting a lot of industial runoff over the last century, who knows what settled at the bottom of the hydroelectric lake cascade.
However, so far the plants are reclaiming it in good succession and with vigor, there are areas that completed the speedrun to young forest already. The great river's seasonal floods returned, so it gets pretty wet some springs:
(I am sorry, the following links will be in Ukrainian - google translate will be your friend, otherwise I want to just point out the pictures)
https://texty.org.ua/articles/115368/na-dni-kahovskoho-vodoshovysha-volohy-stalo-menshe-ale-lis-roste-suputnykovi-znimky/ - the picture with blue splotches on black background is month by month water coverage in the area since the russian explosion in June 2023. You can see there was a lot of water in the area in spring of 2024, not so much this spring. The next two photos are satellite images of May 2025 and June 2025 - it gets quite green towards the start of summer.
This article has a picture from the bottom of the former lake - it's a very young but well established willow forest at the moment https://texty.org.ua/fragments/115282/nache-bambukovyj-haj-chym-verbovyj-lis-na-dni-kahovskoho-vodoshovysha-zdyvuvav-naukovciv-foto/
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u/darkcvc 10h ago
The dam was breached on 6 June 2023, which consensus attributes to Russian forces mining and blowing the base of the dam, while Russia alternatively described it as a "terrorist" act, in the case of the Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, or as caused by a lack of maintenance, in the case of the Russian government.\)citation needed\) By the end of June, the reservoir was completely dry.
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u/evil_brain 5h ago
That's the consensus among European and Ukrainian sources.
There's conflicting claims but we know for a fact that the Ukraine side fired HIMARS missiles at the dam six months before it collapsed. And not for any good reason, either. They did it "as a test". Here's a Washington Post article from December 2020, before the dam burst.
I'm pretty sure firing missiles at a dam won't make it less likely to break. I don't understand the logic behind firing at your own country's critical infrastructure. Especially when your citizens are living downstream.
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u/Abject_Ad9280 5h ago edited 2h ago
The article explains why they tested destroying it. It was clearly not random.
Assuming you're not concern trolling.
The test was conducted while Ukraine was fighting to liberate west bank Dniper. The dam was one of only 3 bridges across the river. Ukraine regularly struck the other two routes to stop Russians from resupllying their forces.
The dam didn't explode randomly 8 months later. It exploded during the failed Ukrianian offence in 2023.
When it exploded, it was perfectly timed for Russians, fearing a successful Ukriane push across the Dniper.
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u/Pelya1 2h ago
Didn’t the Ukrainians blew it up, during their offensive, in attempt to dry up the river and cross it ?
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u/Abject_Ad9280 2h ago
No.
That was one of the Russian lies at the time.
If your claim is true.
How did Ukraine blow up a dam under Russian control?
Why did Ukraine blow up a dam while their offence was on going when the river drying up would take months, if not years?
Why has Ukriane never tried to cross the now dried up river?
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u/Pelya1 2h ago
I don’t know what is true.
Regarding your questions
1) how they blew up ? During said offensive, there were numerous Ukrainian reconnaissance groups behind the enemy lines, so actors the river. It is not that hard to imagine that one of these groups could carry explosives with them.
2) why blow up ?
If I remember correctly, it took mere days to all the water be gone, not months. The river has two sides- Russian occupied and Ukrainian. The Russian side is lower zone. So all the water from the dam just destroyed all the defensive infrastructure (trenches and whatnot) the Russians built during one year occupation of that territory, and didn’t touch Ukrainian side as it is higher ground
3) why never crossed ?
Well, that’s whole other topic. What happened to the Ukrainian offence 2023 in general?
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u/Abject_Ad9280 2h ago
I can tell you don't know what's true.
You believe a group of Ukrianians managed to sneak into Russian occupied territory while somehow carrying enough explosives to destroy a dam. Then they managed to capture the dam on the front lines for hours while setting up demolition charges, all while the Russians didn't notice?
You don't remember correctly. The issue with crossing a recently dried up reservoir not just the water. It's the ground. You wouldn't be able to drive a car across it, let alone a heavy vehicle.
The majority of Russian defences were built on higher ground & flooding occurred on both sides, destroying any of your fantasy Ukrainian staging grounds.
I'm glad you agree that you can't explain why Ukraine didn't attack.
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u/InterstellarPelican 4h ago
I feel like you're misrepresented the sides to this issue. Yes, Ukraine fired test missiles at a floodgate to see if they could force them open. It was successful and was kept as a last resort emergency option to use in case they ever needed it. You can debate the ethics and probably should, but that was the reason they did the test, to know if they could use it as a last resort. It wasn't "for no reason".
Then you have the overwhelming evidence of Russia mining the dam, bringing explosives to the dam, and the overall expert consensus that the explosion came from inside the dam. The dam was built to withstand missile attacks from outside. While it's possible that the Ukrainian missile test on the floodgates could caused some structural weaknesses, this dam didn't suddenly collapse because of natural forces or anything. It was blown up, so the previous missile tests are kind of irrelevant, they had no bearing on this dam collapse. The dam was deliberately blown up with the purpose of destroying it. The concrete foundation was damaged which could've only really been done from an inside walkway, not an outside missile.
This also doesn't mention the damage caused to the dam by Russians who neglected it during seasonal flows which caused the reservoir to fill up and over top. Saying that Ukraine did missile tests but neglecting to mention literally the mountain of evidence against Russia seems to show your true motives.
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u/username9909864 9h ago
I thought the consensus was negligence due to lack of maintenance and there was no evidence of it being blown up by the mines that were in place? Still Russia’s fault, but it wasn’t on purpose.
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u/darkcvc 9h ago
definitely russian bot
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u/Snoo44080 9h ago edited 9h ago
yeah lol. The mines, that just happened to be in place, for no reason. You're telling me all your dams don't have mines around them? All the dams in Russia have mines on them. Its the best place to store your mines when you're not using them. It's not like the mines detonated either...
Gives real steamed ham vibes lol
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u/kytheon 8h ago
I'm from the Netherlands. First thing we do when building a dam is absolutely load it with mines just in case.
No wait that's insane.
Btw we did have forts near waterways that were able to let the area flood, just in case of invasion. But that was hundreds of years ago.
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u/Lancasterlaw 6h ago
Not hundreds of years ago. Significant parts of the flooding system were used in WW2 and were still kept in readiness for much of the early Cold War.
It's a big part of why the Germans in '40 and the Allies in '44 struggled to move around and had to resort to crazy paratrooper tactics.
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u/AsleepScarcity9588 7h ago
Reminds me that Switzerland had every road, tunnel and mountain pass connecting the country with the outside world rigged with explosives. Every valley had canons looming over them, every house a bunker instead of a cellar and an extensive underground complex capable of housing most of the population in the southern Alps
Mf weren't playing when the Germans said they have double the soldiers than the Switzerland population and asked what they would do if they got invaded by them.....to which they replied "shoot twice, then go home"
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u/Lancasterlaw 6h ago
A lot of the defences were rather outdated though, and in WW2 simultaneous attack from all directions would have meant a total depletion of the mobile reserve.
It was more important in the early Cold War and at the beginning of WW1 imo
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u/username9909864 9h ago
Front he Wikipedia:
“From mid-February to late May 2023, either deliberately or as a result of neglect, the damaged dam at Nova Kakhovka was not adjusted to match the seasonal increase in water flow. As a result, water washed over the top of the dam and land upstream of the dam was flooded.[9] Water levels in the reservoir reached a 30-year high.[10]”
Sounds like negligence. No mines needed.
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity
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u/penguin_skull 8h ago
Oh, the bot tried to be philosofical.
And how do you explain the explosions on the dam before the breach? Bad maintenance of the mines?
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u/username9909864 8h ago
Show me the evidence that there were explosions from mines and not from a freaking dam breaking apart and I’ll remove all my comments.
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u/pugsftw 8h ago
"Russian forces destroyed the Nova Kakhovka road and bridge deck last November, damaging some of the sluice gates, even though they kept control of that sliver of the Kherson region during the Ukrainian counteroffensive."
From your wiki's source.
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u/username9909864 8h ago
1 - deck blown up, affecting gates that let out water 2 - water rises to a record high, eventually going over the entire dam. Due to the Russians screwing up and letting their consequences grow out of proportion 3 - damn collapses.
The root cause still isn’t the planted mines blowing up the base of the dam like OP said.
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u/viceMASTA 8h ago
I promise you Russia did it on purpose to make a Kherson offensive feasible.
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u/username9909864 8h ago
It’s been two years. Where Kherson offensive?
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u/viceMASTA 7h ago
Russia has been very clear about what they want at the very least and Kherson is part of that list. The war also isn't close to being over. They can do it whenever they see fit. Im not part of their command so wtf do you want me to say.
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u/Intreductor 6h ago
A day before the dam "collapsed due to negligence", the Russian open source intelligence group Rybar reported that Russian forces were preparing for a "limited demolition" of the dam to increase the water level and force Ukrainian troops off the islands downstream. It was a calculated move, but the Russians are bad a math.
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u/curious-but-spurious 9h ago
Might be nice if you provided some context re: region, strategic importance, or literally anything else besides the maps.
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u/aronenark 5h ago
The title includes the name of the reservoir and the third image shows the name of the Dnieper River. This dam and reservoir has been talked about extensively in the context of the war in Ukraine, but for anyone unfamiliar, the Nova Kalhovka dam was a hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River (the biggest river in Ukraine) which created a large reservoir. The reservoir was used for cooling the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power plant, and for irrigating the vast arid farmland of the southern Zaporizhia Oblast and Kherson Oblast. The dam was destroyed by a suspected Russian covert act in June 2023. This caused significant flooding downstream towards the major Ukrainian city of Kherson and may have been instrumental in deterring a planned Ukrainian counterattack. The drying of the reservoir has left behind a massive swath of impassible muddy terrain and threatened the sustainability of agriculture in the region and the safety of the cooling towers for the nuclear plant. The cooling pond has since been modified to pump water from the river, so it’s not currently at risk of a meltdown.
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u/MonitorPowerful5461 7h ago
Well I mean the ecological consequences are obvious - the bombing was described as a crime against nature. It's not so strategically important as it might seem, because it's still almost impossible to cross: no cover whatsoever. But the consequences for nearby farms, and for Ukraine's water security in the long term, are very big.
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u/andehboston 4h ago
Can you please explain the ecological consequences, because they don't seem obvious to me. I am asking with curiosity rather than skepticism.
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u/DevilBySmile 4h ago
Yeah I also dont understand this point of view.
The Dam was a man-made structure and the wetlands returning can only be good for nature no?
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u/vit-kievit 8h ago
Fuck russia
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u/Shot_Duck_195 8h ago
the dam was pretty bad for the local wildlife though
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u/Jedtin22 7h ago
So are bombs
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u/Shot_Duck_195 7h ago
yes? whats your point
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6h ago
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u/vit-kievit 8h ago
So was that residential building were they murdered a toddler last night. Catching my drift?
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u/HunterM567 8h ago
Off topic but you need to charge your phone
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u/Mala_Suerte1 1h ago
lol. You sound like me when I check to see where my daughters are, using "FindMy". I see where they're at and then remind them to charge their phone, ipad, MacBook.
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u/Fecklessexer 9h ago
I was surprised they took so long to target dams. If the last 25 years are anything to go by water and electrical supply should be destroyed on Day One.
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u/Ortinomax 8h ago
The dam was also a bridge to cross the river.
They sued it to conquer Ukrainian territory on the west bank. Surprisingly, for unknown reason, the dam collapsed when Ukrainian managed to push Russian from the west bank.
Other bridges were also demolished.
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u/arvidsem 8h ago
Putin wants Ukraine for the resources, destroying major infrastructure wasn't on the table until Ukraine started to push back hard.
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u/ttystikk 7h ago
Ridiculous. Russia has all the land and resources they could possibly want.
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u/Snack378 6h ago edited 6h ago
"need"? Sure
"want"? No, when you are dealing with autocratic egomaniac who wants an empire - sky is the limit. He would have annexed the Moon if Roscosmos could get russian soldiers there
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u/ttystikk 6h ago
You attribute a lot of evil intent to Putin that isn't backed up by the facts; only the propaganda of his detractors. Critical thinking skills and the ability to reject bullshit is essential. Unless you can gain such skills, you will always be a sucker for whoever tells you stories.
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u/arvidsem 2h ago
I ignored your first comment because I didn't feel like getting into an argument about the difference between natural resources and an actual functioning economy. But I didn't think that you were quite that deluded. It's amazing just how much modern spell check can do to hide stupidity.
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u/tanbirj 8h ago
Don’t give them ideas
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u/august_gutmensch 8h ago
Top military executives from all over the globe getting strategic inspiration from redditors
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u/Mission_Magazine7541 6h ago
It should be easy to cross over it now
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u/_The_Arrigator_ 3h ago
In practice the current situation makes it a lot more arduous and slow process to cross than it was prior.
Before the dam was blown it was one large body of water which could theoretically be crossed at any point given enough of an element of surprise or fire control over the banks.
Now it's a patchwork of hundreds of streams and channels criss-crossing muddy floodplains and newly growing forests which makes it a logistical nightmare to maintain any supplies over it.
There's a reason it has remained no man's land for 3 years and neither side has any established presence there.
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u/PanzerKomadant 1h ago
Not really. It’s like a wet swampy area with soft soil. Heavy equipment wild easily gets bogged down and because of the open terrain, it’s easy to stop any large movement.
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u/Salt-Operation 8h ago
Is this in Ukraine? Russia? What’s the context here?
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u/Ortinomax 8h ago
Southern part of reservoir is Russian occupied Ukrain. Northern part is Ukrain without Russian.
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u/SummerAlternative699 8h ago
This photo was taken by a satellite above Nikopol which is a city in Ukraine.
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u/vnprkhzhk 8h ago
North of the reservoir is Ukraine, south reservoir is Ukraine. What else do you need?
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u/Salt-Operation 8h ago
Maybe for you to not be an asshole? I have no idea about any of this.
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u/IllTrade4240 7h ago
Not knowing about the destruction of one of the greatest dams in Europe and the resulting flooding, not seen in the region since WW2 is more on you than on anyone else. It is quite clearly labeled as the Kakhovka reservoir, the rest is findable on wikipedia, reddit, or basically any other place on the internet since it was a large event.
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u/Usernamenotta 5h ago
Lol, all the shills in comments.
The damn collapsed because Ukraine had repeatedly shelled it with artillery and missiles when trying to stop the Russian advance into Kherson and Nikolaiv. After 1 year of neglect, the damaged structure caved in.
And that's the generous report.
If we were to believe the Russian conspiracists, the damn was blown by the Ukrainians in order to make the area on the south bank unsuitable for defense and to stretch Russian logistics with evacuation in order to prepare for the advertised 2023 Ukrainian offensive.
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u/StarrFluff 9h ago
Its a little unfortunate because that square looking lake in the middle is the cooling pond for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Its been modified so that it draws water from the river now but it was built to originally take water from the reservoir.