Critical dam in southern Ukraine is blown up
A vast Soviet-era dam in the Russian-controlled part of southern Ukraine was blown up on Tuesday, unleashing a flood of water across the war zone, according to both Ukrainian and Russian forces. Both sides blamed the other for destroying the dam.
Satellite imagery released on Monday showed a portion of the Nova Kakhova dam in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Kherson region before and after being damaged.
The dam was later blown up on Tuesday, unleashing a flood of water across the war zone, according to both Ukrainian and Russian forces as both sides blamed the other for destroying the dam.
"The Kakhovka (dam) was blown up by the Russian occupying forces," the South command of Ukraine's Armed Forces said on Tuesday on its Facebook page.
Russian news agencies said the dam had been destroyed in shelling while a Russian-installed official said it was a terrorist attack - Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify the battlefield accounts from either side.
The dam, 30 metres (yards) tall and 3.2 km (2 miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro River as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. It also supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.
Russian-installed officials said there was no danger yet to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest nuclear power plant, from the destruction of the dam. The nuclear power station gets its cooling water from the reservoir.
It was not immediately clear how the flood waters would affect Ukraine's long-planned counter-offensive against Russian forces who are dug in across southern and eastern Ukraine.
Reuters
