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Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up major dam on Dnipro River near Kherson
The rise in water levels now threatens to flood villages along the Dnipro river.
Ukraine said Russian forces have blown up a dam at the Kakhovska hydro power plant in the south of Ukraine, causing a rise in water levels that threatens to flood villages along the Dnipro river.
Ten villages on the western bank of the Dnipro and a part of the city of Kherson face the risk of flooding and people were urged to prepare for evacuation, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said on Telegram.
“Water will reach critical levels in five hours,” regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the south of Ukraine, which has been occupied by Russian forces for more than a year, uses water from the Kakhovska reservoir for cooling its reactors.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has summoned the nation’s national security and defense council for an urgent meeting on the attack, the council’s secretary, Oleksiy Danilov, said on Facebook.
The dam was blown up by Russian troops, the southern military command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Facebook. The scale of the damage, changes in water levels and areas in danger of flooding were being evaluated early Tuesday.
Russia hasn’t commented on the incident officially so far, Ukraine has warned repeatedly in the past year that Russia may attempt to blow up the dam to try to prevent Ukrainian forces reclaiming territory in the country’s south that was occupied early in President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion.
The dam’s destruction, which will cause a lack of water supply for the surrounding area, occurred as Ukraine is poised to begin its much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian troops including those dug in alongside the Dnipro in Kherson region.
