Major dam supplying water to nuclear plant breached in southern Ukraine, unleashing floods

MOSCOW/KYIV: A major Soviet-era dam in the Russian-controlled part of southern Ukraine was breached on Tuesday (Jun 6), unleashing floodwaters across the war zone in what both Ukraine and Russia said was an intentional attack by the other's forces.

Footage showed water surging through the remains of the dam which is 30m tall and 3.2km long.

The Nova Kakhovka dam supplies water to Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, both under Russian control. The vast reservoir behind it is one of the main geographic features of southern Ukraine, 240km long and up to 23km wide. A swathe of countryside lies in the floodplain below.

The destruction of the dam creates a new humanitarian disaster in the centre of the war zone and transforms the frontlines just as Ukraine is unleashing a long-awaited counter-offensive to drive Russian troops from its territory.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was no immediate nuclear safety risk at the plant due to the dam failure but that it was monitoring the situation closely. The head of the plant also said there was no current threat to the station.

Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom also said the dam breach did not pose a threat for now to the plant and said the situation was being monitored.

Russia has controlled the dam since early in the war, although Ukrainian forces recaptured the northern side of the river last year. Both sides had long accused the other of planning to destroy it.

"Russian terrorists. The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Russians had "carried out an internal detonation of the structures" of the dam. "About 80 settlements are in the zone of flooding," he said.

Russian-installed officials in Kherson meanwhile said Ukraine struck the dam at 2300 GMT (7am Singapore time) several times, destroying the hydraulic valves of the hydroelectric power station but said the dam was not totally destroyed.

The governor of Ukraine's Kherson region accused Kyiv of striking the dam with missiles to distract attention from what he said were the failures of Ukraine's counteroffensive in the east. However, other Russian-installed officials said the dam had burst on its own due to earlier damage.

Neither side offered immediate evidence proving who was to blame.

SURGING WATERS

The water level at the town immediately adjacent to the breached dam could rise by up to 12m, its mayor, Vladimir Leontyev, said on Telegram.

About 22,000 people living across 14 settlements in Ukraine's southern Kherson region are at risk of flooding, according to Russia's RIA news agency. Kherson is one of five regions, including Crimea, that Moscow claims to have annexed.

The governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said there was a risk that water levels in the North Crimea Canal, which carries fresh water to the peninsula from the Dnipro river, could fall. Crimea had sufficient water reserves for the moment, and the level of risk would become clear in coming days.

An official in the town of Nova Kakhovka said residents of about 300 houses had been evacuated, adding that it would likely be impossible to repair the dam.

The dam breach came as Ukraine prepares its long-awaited counteroffensive to drive Russian forces from territory they have seized during more than 15 months of fighting.

Russia said it had thwarted another Ukrainian offensive in eastern Donetsk and inflicted heavy losses. Kyiv has maintained strict silence on the counteroffensive but has dismissed Russia's claims to have thwarted Ukrainian assaults.

Russia also launched a fresh wave of overnight air strikes on Kyiv. Ukraine said its air defence systems had downed more than 20 cruise missiles on their approach to the capital.

The Shebekino district of Russia's Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border came under renewed shelling on Tuesday, local authorities said, urging residents to take cover. Anti-government Russian fighters based in Ukraine claim to have infiltrated the area, seizing villages near the border.

Ukraine's military intelligence agency said on Telegram that Russian forces had blown up the dam "in a panic", in what it said was "an obvious act of terrorism and a war crime, which will be evidence in an international tribunal".

Zelenskyy will hold an emergency meeting about the dam's collapse, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said on Twitter.