Rivers as Battlefields: Ukraine’s Dnipro

Abstract

The Dnipro River and the inhabitants of its basin have experienced the cruel hardships of rapid environmental change and war over the last one hundred years. The Nazis and Soviets clashed over the Dnipro. It was a major focus of Soviet industrialization and collectivization efforts. The river was central to the Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature (1948) and the site of a cascade of six major reservoirs and dams. In June 2023, 18 months after the Russian invasion, the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro was blown up, leading to human suffering and environmental devastation, and putting the largest nuclear power plant in Europe at risk.