- settlements on river banks will be swept away
- the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe, ZNPP, won't be restarted due to lack of cooling
- Crimea will lost access to fresh water
- First line of defence for both sides are swept away.
- it will be harder for Ukraine side to mount an amphibious assault
I'm kinda happy for that power plant not to be restarted though.
It's much better for it to be in a shutdown state if it finds itself in the middle of combat again. I know Ukraine needed the power but it getting damaged could cause problems far beyond Ukraine. One Chernobyl was enough. But I hope it has enough cooling water to cool its storage reservoirs.
All the other effects are terrible of course :( And all favour Russia.
It will also make it easier for Ukraine to attack upstream when the reservoir is empty. In places where there are virtually no Russian defenses. So that's a win for Ukraine.
First, the reservoir won't empty completely. Second, if it were there will be meters of mud on the bottom of it. It's possibly more impassable when empty.
In short term yeah, it will probably be too muddy. But it will dry over time and in the long term this unlocked a completely new axis of attack for Ukrainians. Similarly in the downstream regions. The water will go away eventually and it will be much easier for Ukrainians to attack in the future, when the Russians will not have the capability to flood the downstream regions with this dam.
The Dnipro is still a large river to cross and it's not going away. I looked at it in Google Maps and it's at least 500 m wide before and after the reservoir.
I am actually not sure how wide it will end up. Dnipro is actually reservoirs all the way up to Kyiv. It will be Ukrainians in Dniper HES that will control the flow from now on.
