A major dam in the Kherson region was damaged, releasing a large amount of water from the reservoir and prompting officials to order residents in surrounding areas to evacuate.
Aerial footage circulating on social media on the morning of June 6 showed extensive damage to the Nova Kakhovka Dam, located upstream on the Dnipro River from the city of Kherson. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the incident.
However, the Russian-appointed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, confirmed to Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the upper part of the dam had been destroyed by shelling and described the incident as a major “terrorist act” carried out by Ukraine.
The dam was reportedly shelled at around 2am local time. A video taken from a drone (UAV) circulating on Telegram shows the aftermath of the attack, with streams of water seen flowing through the breach.
The Russian news agency TASS cited Russia's emergency services as saying that 80 residential areas in the area could be affected by flooding. TASS quoted Leontyev as saying that damage to the dam would also lead to problems with water supplies to the Crimean peninsula.
“The only threat is that at this moment we will have problems with the water supply to Crimea. And, as you know, the attacks [by the Ukrainian army] on Novaya Kakhovka continue. The authorities are on the scene. We are working, don’t worry, everything will be fine,” he said.
Map showing the location of the Kakhovka Dam. Photo: ABC News
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam. “The Kakhovka reservoir was blown up by Russian forces,” the Southern Operational Command said on its Facebook page. “The scale of the destruction, the speed and volume of water, as well as the areas that could be flooded, are being clarified.”
The Ukrainian military administration in charge of the Kherson region urged residents early on June 6 to be ready to evacuate several villages on the right bank of the Dnipro River as water levels rose after the dam was destroyed, saying the water level “will reach critical levels in five hours”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will convene an emergency meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council following the explosion at the dam, said Oleksiy Danilov, the council's secretary.
“This is ecological destruction,” Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, said of the dam’s destruction.
“The Russians will be held responsible for the possible loss of water to residents in the Kherson region and in Crimea,” the Ukrainian official said.
According to Ukrainian and Russian forces, the Soviet-era dam in the Russian-controlled Kherson region could cause flooding across the war zone. Unverified videos on social media show a series of powerful explosions around the Kakhovka dam.
The dam, which is 30 metres (98 feet) high and 3.2 kilometres (2 miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro River as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. According to Reuters, Kakhovka includes a reservoir with a volume of 18 cubic kilometres – equivalent to the Great Salt Lake in Utah – that supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is also under Russian control.
Moscow has repeatedly blamed Kiev for multiple attacks on the Kakhovka dam, warning that a breach could threaten the lives of thousands of civilians. Ukraine, meanwhile, has accused Russia of planning to blow up the dam in a false flag operation to blame Kiev .
Minh Duc (According to RT, Al Jazeera, CNN)
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