Ukraine Says Russia Blew Up Major Dam & Flooding Imminent, Orders Evacuations

Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of blowing up a major Soviet-era dam and hydroelectric power station in a part of southern Ukraine that Russia controls, sending water gushing from the breached facility and risking massive flooding. Ukrainian authorities ordered thousands of residents downriver to evacuate.

Russia claimed it was Ukraine's military that inflicted the damage to the Nova Kakhovka Dam. The two sides couldn't even agree on the extent of the danger facing the region. A local Moscow-installed official said Tuesday there was "no threat" of major population centers being flooded, according to French news agency AFP.

But Ukrainian officials warned the breach could have broad consequences, flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream, depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe's largest nuclear power plant, and draining drinking water supplies for the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

The dam break added a complex new element to Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month, as Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 600 miles of front line in the east and south of the country.

Moscow-controlled authorities in the region claimed the dam was partially destroyed by "multiple strikes" launched by Ukrainian forces overnight, unleashing an "uncontrollable" flow of water, the AFP said. But the Reuters news agency cited Ukraine's military intelligence agency as saying occupying Russian forces "blew up the dam... in a panic. This is an obvious act of terrorism and a war crime, which will be evidence in an international tribunal."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymytro Kuleba accused Russia of "inflicting probably Europe's largest technological disaster in decades and putting thousands of civilians at risk" by destroying the dam. 

"This is a heinous war crime," Kuleba said in a tweet. "The only way to stop Russia, the greatest terrorist of the 21st century, is to kick it out of Ukraine."

Charles Michel, the President of the European Union's governing European Council, said he was "shocked by the unprecedented attack of the Nova Kakhovka dam," adding that the "destruction of civilian infrastructure clearly qualifies as a war crime — and we will hold Russia and its proxies accountable." 

Kyiv claimed Moscow had destroyed the dam in a bid to slow down its counteroffensive, adding that the consequences were "already catastrophic," AFP said. 

"The terrorists' goal is obvious — to create obstacles for the offensive actions of the armed forces," said Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak, adding that "a global ecological disaster is playing out now, online, and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours."

Videos posted online began testifying to the breach. One showed floodwaters inundating a long roadway, another showed a beaver scurrying for high ground from rising waters.

Ukrainian authorities have long warned that the dam's failure could unleash 4.8 billion gallons of water and flood the southern Kherson region and dozens of other areas where hundreds of thousands of people live, as well as threatening a meltdown at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant 93 miles away.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, appearing live on the BBC Tuesday morning, said 16,000 people were quickly told to evacuate towns and villages in the immediate risk area around the dam. 

Ukraine's state atomic agency said the dam's destruction put the plant at risk but the situation there was under control, according to Reuters. The International Atomic Energy Association tweeted that there was "no immediate nuclear safety risk" at the plant.

But the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group has said a total collapse in the dam would wash away much of the left bank and a severe drop in the reservoir has the potential to deprive the nuclear plant of crucial cooling, as well as dry up the water supply in northern Crimea.

And AFP quotes Ukraine's Podolyak as saying, "The world once again finds itself on the brink of a nuclear disaster, because the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost its source of cooling. And this danger is now growing rapidly."

The dam's hydroelectric plant was "totally destroyed" and can't be restored due to an explosion in its engine room, Ukraine's state hydroelectric company said, according to Reuters.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis.

He wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the Russians were "terrorists" and the dam's destruction "only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land. Not a single meter should be left to them, because they use every meter for terror."

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said on Telegram that the Kakhovka dam had been blown up and called for residents of 10 villages on the river's right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.

Video from what appeared to be a monitoring camera overlooking the dam that was circulating on social media purported to show a flash, explosion and breakage of the dam.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted to Telegram shortly before 7 a.m. local time (midnight EDT) that "the Russian army has committed yet another act of terror" and warned that water would reach "critical levels" within hours.

Zelenskyy moved to convene an emergency meeting of the country's security and defense council following the dam explosion, the council's secretary, Oleksiy Danilov, wrote on Twitter.

Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Zelenskyy predicted that Russia would destroy the dam in order to cause a flood.

Officials, experts and residents have for months expressed concern about the flow of water through — and over — the Kakhovka dam. In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.

By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.

Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro River, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country's drinking water and power supply. The Kakhovka dam - the one farthest downstream in the Kherson region - is controlled by Russian forces.

First published on June 6, 2023 / 1:02 AM

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