In the immediate aftermath of the breaching of the Kakhovska Dam on 6 June, there was huge concern that a wall of water would descend downstream causing destruction in its wake. That didn't happen, apart from very close to the dam, but within 24 hours waters were rising along the path of the Dnipro River for many kilometres.

In some areas they still have not peaked and many thousands of people have had to be evacuated along the river's western bank, plus even more across the low-lying east-bank districts, which are controlled by Russia.

The destruction of buildings may be limited but the economic effects will be huge, if primarily concentrated in territory controlled by Russia. The immediate concerns will be with food, drinking water and medical support for those directly affected. One concern, easily forgotten, is that right across the area affected by the flood, May to June is the most im-portant time of the growing season, especially for those who grow and store their own food. Commentators have pointed to the impact on farms, but smallholders and even amateur gardeners play a far more important role in food production than most urban dwellers realise.

Arguments continue over who was responsible for the damage, with President Zelenskyi lamenting at what seems like less than full support from some Western allies. While officials in NATO and the EU have been vigorous in their support, this has simply not extend-ed with anything like the same intensity to many heads of state.

Looked at from a distance, the immediate question is, who benefits from the dam's destruction? There are arguments that for Russia it would be a self-inflicted wound, with territory seized by Putin's forces experiencing the greatest damage. Why would Putin order this? Does it not make more sense, some argue, for Ukraine to be the perpetrator and then for it to blame Russia? That may be the line pushed hard by Moscow but it's decried as nonsense by Ukraine's allies, even if some have been muted in the extent of their condemnation.

Moscow's argument for pushing this line may make little sense in the West, but this conveniently forgets that attitudes across much of the Global South are nuanced, more of a case of 'a plague on both your houses'. It is an attitude powerfully expressed by Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu within days of the start of the war in early March last year.

Even so, the odds of it being a Russian attack are high. With Ukrainian forces starting to probe forwards it is likely, if not certain, that the much-predicted counter-offensive into the areas controlled by Russia is now unfolding. In those circumstances, the destruction of the dam and the flooding east and south of Kherson will certainly make any Ukraine advance in that area much more difficult.

Will the dam's destruction make much difference to the outcome of the war? It seems un-likely, but that and other recent developments mean new complications are emerging within both Russia and the West that may provide markers for the next few months.

In Russia the attack on the dam, even if it wasn't precisely as planned, means Putin and his group are prepared to see part of the land they have occupied, and now claim, severely damaged in a manner that will take years to redress. They are most likely prepared to do this because the state of the war means that they know full well that they cannot defeat their Ukraine/NATO opponents by conventional means. This was obvious within a month of the start of the war. Now, 15 months later, there are multiple signs of unease with the Russian security system within the country, including open questioning of the leadership's conduct of the war.

An added recent factor has been the growing impact of attacks within Russia, including drone attacks on Moscow itself, as well as pro-Ukraine Russians - based in Ukraine staging raids across the border. These are most likely adding to a sense of unease among otherwise supportive older Russians.

Putin may claim that this is all proof that he has been right to warn for years that NATO is determined to cripple Russia and stop it reclaiming what he argues is Russia's true status as a world superpower. This may cut less ice than it once did in Russia but is also, paradoxically, leading to unease among Western analysts.

Underlying this unease is the nature of the militias crossing the border from Ukraine to undertake the attacks. Many of them are extremely right-wing in their politics, to the ex-tent of holding neo-Nazi views. According to Andrie Rykov, writing last week in openDemocracy:

"Even before the start of the conflict in Donbas, Ukraine became a new home for dozens if not hundreds of Russian right-wing radicals persecuted in their homeland. They began to migrate in greater numbers a few years before Ukraine's 2014 Maidan revolution, in 2009 and 2010, when Russia began to prosecute particularly well-known and radical neo-Nazis. According to some experts, between 2014 and 2019, about 3,000 Russians took part in hostilities on the side of Ukraine."

Declassified UK has separately reported on a far-right militia leader, Denis Kapustin, also known as Denis Nikitin, who was a leader of a cross-border raid into Russia from Ukraine back in March. According to Declassified UK, the militia has been linked to a banned Brit-ish neo-Nazi group and has got Western arms for its attacks. It also "appears to receive support from Ukrainian military intelligence".

Nikitin/Kapustin taught at a 'Culture Camp' in the Brecon Beacons back in 2014, a far-right gathering designed to "enthuse [participants] with a sense of racial pride, and to awaken the 'Spirit Warrior' within".

The recent cross-border raids may concern Putin, but they also remind thoughtful Western analysts, as well as some politicians, that the far-right groups behind them are part of a substantial thread of extreme politics in Ukraine. That, together with a Ukraine oligarchy that is nearly as influential as its Russian equivalent, and the extent of corruption in pre-war Ukraine, and you have a sense of unease in Western government circles that is greater than comes across in the mass media.

This is despite Zelenskyi's best efforts to tackle the problems. If the best outcome for Ukraine in the coming year is a successful political settlement that brings stability, it would be unwise to expect this to come with rapid acceptance of Ukraine into the European Un-ion, or even into NATO.

From openDemocracy