Thread by @tomiahonen

In Trent's excellent analysis, the strategic flooding is a whole subject to itself. It was a key element to winning the Battle of Kyiv. Flooding impacted the convoy, the battle of Irpin, the delayed encirclement of Kyiv. It helped push Russians into areas for Ukraine ambush

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1510745444065943559

I want to underline this point. A whole separate study will be made of how to use flooding in modern warfare

It is not just to create water barrier. And in flatlands around Kyiv with rich soil, incredibly useful mud as obstacle against attacker. It is FAR FAR more than that

This flooding was done at WINTER time. The water on the Dnipro (Dnieper) River is FREEZING cold. If not moving, it will freeze. When freezing, it freezes on top but still flows below, creating flat surface you think you can walk on that will fail. & there will be snowfall to top

The flooding would come RAPIDLY. Any troops on the way of the flooding will get wet. This is not ordinary wet. It is ice-cold water that just made you wet. Your feet & legs are now freezing even if you get out of the water, you will likely catch pnemonia. You might lose your feet

Then comes the VISIBILITY. A thin layer of water, knee deep, will TOTALLY obstruct the ground under that flooding muddy water. If you put small obstacles or had dug SMALL trenches before the flooding any tank or armored vehicle commander will not SEE them and drive into them..

If the Ukrainians had a flooding plan - and now we see they did - they could build MODEST defenses against invaders, that if you saw the obstacles, then you could easily avoid them, but under flooded conditions, are perfect TOTAL barriers

The we get the mud. Even after the the flood has subsided, you've now muddied that part around Kyiv. The Ukrainians have no need to 'attack into it'. It is ONLY the Russian who has to attack THROUGH the mud. Mud slows down or traps tracked vehicles & makes turning very difficult

What Ukraine did, was targeted localized flooding. This minor river. This field, this part of town. We saw satellite photos of Irpin on it. That prevented one path that Russian Generals had looked on a map, that is the way we go. Very VERY clever by Ukraine

One last point. This ability to use flooding will work to Ukraine's advantage throughout rest of the war, & in most cases, Russians are DOWNSTREAM to the Ukrainian position, so the waters would flow AT the Russians. Russia does not have the ability to use flooding against Ukraine