Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region early on June 6 an act of “mass environmental destruction,” and said the incident would not change Ukraine’s plans to retake territory from Russian forces.
The dam, 30 m high and 3.2 km (2 mi) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro River as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station and includes a reservoir with a volume of 18 km3 – providing fresh water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Satellite images show the Kakhovka Dam before and after it collapsed. Photo: Kyiv Post Telegram
Assumptions about Crimea
Describing the dam explosion as a chaotic and deliberate act by Russia, Mr. Zelensky said on June 6 that the action was aimed at “using floods as a weapon” to hinder Ukrainian forces.
In his nightly video address to the nation on June 6, the Ukrainian president also said that because Moscow was resigned to losing control of Crimea, it had destroyed the region's water supply.
“Russia’s deliberate destruction of the Kakhovka reservoir, which is extremely important, especially for supplying water to Crimea, shows that Russian forces have realized that they will also have to leave Crimea,” the Ukrainian leader said.
“Ukraine will take back everything that belongs to it, and will make Russia pay for what it has done,” he continued.
President Zelensky also predicted that Ukrainian forces would “restore normal life” in Crimea after driving out Russian troops and regaining control of the peninsula.
“We will also liberate all our land,” Mr. Zelensky said, adding that the explosion of the giant dam would not prevent Russia’s defeat but would add to the cost of post-war reparations that Moscow would have to pay Kiev one day.
Map showing the location of the Kakhovka Dam and the Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled areas of Kherson. Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW), American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, Google Maps. Graphic: NY Times
Some experts say that if Russia did destroy the dam, it was a strategic move to slow down a Ukrainian counterattack, and have expressed skepticism about the idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be willing to give up control of Crimea.
“There is no way this is signaling that Putin is giving up anything. Crimea is a big prize and Russia will hold on to it at all costs,” retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Mark Cancian told Newsweek on June 6.
“My assumption is that the Russians blew up the dam to expand the water barrier in response to a Ukrainian attack across the Dnipro River,” Cancian said. “This would be a classic defensive move that countries have done in the past.”
New humanitarian disaster
On the Russian side, the state news agency TASS on June 7 quoted the country's emergency services as saying that authorities had declared a state of emergency in the Kherson Region due to the dam collapse at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. Earlier, a state of emergency had been declared in the city of Nova Kakhovka.
TASS describes the incident as follows: In the early hours of June 6, the Ukrainian military launched an attack on the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, presumably from an Olkha multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). The shelling destroyed hydraulic valves at the dam, causing an uncontrolled release of water. In Nova Kakhovka, the water level at one point exceeded 12 meters. Currently, 15 residential areas in the area are flooded. Residents of nearby areas are being evacuated, although authorities say large-scale evacuations are not necessary. The dam collapse at the hydroelectric power plant has caused serious environmental damage. Farmland along the Dnipro River has been washed away, and there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal will dry up.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the attack on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant on June 6 as a deliberate act of sabotage by Ukraine, adding that the Kiev government bears full responsibility for the consequences.
The spokesman said Kiev destroyed the site to deprive Crimea of fresh water and distract from recent failures in its new counter-offensive.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said his forces had held off the first Ukrainian counterattack in the first three days of fighting that left thousands of Ukrainian soldiers dead or wounded. The decision to destroy the dam was to slow down the Russian forces’ offensive, Shoigu said.
Neither Moscow nor Kiev provided evidence for their claims regarding the dam's collapse.
A resident walks along a flooded street in Kherson after the Kakhovka dam collapsed, June 6, 2023. Photo: Al Jazeera
People evacuate after the Kakhovka dam in Kherson burst, flooding villages in the area, June 6, 2023. Photo: The Guardian
Red Cross workers drive along a street in Kherson after the Kakhovka dam collapsed, June 6, 2023. Photo: Al Jazeera
The dam collapse has caused a new humanitarian disaster in the heart of the war zone and as Ukraine prepares for a long-awaited counter-offensive.
Ukrainian officials said 17,000 people had been evacuated from Ukrainian-controlled territory and a total of 24 villages had been flooded.
“More than 40,000 people are at risk of flooding,” Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said, adding that another 25,000 people should be evacuated from areas at risk of flooding on the Russian-controlled side of the Dnipro River.
Vladimir Leontyev, the Russian-appointed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, said the city was underwater and hundreds of people had been evacuated. At least seven people were missing after water from the Kakhovka dam flooded surrounding areas, he said on June 7.
At least 16,000 people have been left homeless and efforts are underway to provide clean water, cash and legal and moral support to those affected, the United Nations said. Residents on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the Dnipro River have been evacuated by ferry to cities including Mykolaiv and Odessa in the west.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told the Security Council (UNSC) on June 6 that the full “magnitude of the disaster” would only be fully realized in the coming days .
Minh Duc (According to Al Jazeera, Newsweek, TASS)
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