A new report in the major Russian online newspaper Vzglyad, details prospects for the inevitability of war between Egypt and Ethiopia, if not today, then in the future.

According to the Russian-language report, negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia resumed on Sunday over a set of issues related to building a huge hydroelectric station on the Nile.

A last ditch attempt to resolve a decade-long dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over a huge new hydropower dam on the Nile has failed, raising the stakes in what – for all the public focus on technical issues – is a tussle for control over the region’s most important water source.

The talks appear to have faltered over a recurring issue: Ethiopia’s refusal to accept a permanent, minimum volume of water that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD, should release downstream in the event of severe drought.

The Blue Nile is the main artery that feeds the Grand Nile, and the construction of the dam will lead to severe decay in the valley waters, where up to 90% of the Egyptian population lives.

Last year, an open conflict (between Ethiopia and Egypt) was avoided at the Russia-Africa summit in Sochi.

The current exacerbation is due to the fact that the Ethiopians have started filling the dam reservoir and will do so in record time, with a duration of three years.

“Now, it is incomprehensible that any compromise could take place. It was spent. Egypt is guilty of missing an opportunity. A warm congratulations can be sent to the ‘Arab Spring’ and Muslim Brotherhood,” Krotikov  argued.

“The next round of negotiations is likely to end with nothing. It is no longer possible to stop Ethiopia from its chosen path, with any international pressure. And Egypt, long ago, lacked the tools to exert such pressure on Addis Ababa. Things are moving towards war, and what can only be postponed for several years until the project works at full capacity, and its real consequences will appear on public life in Egypt.”

The report concluded: “After that, Cairo will have no choice but to try to solve the problem in a simple and severe manner.”