Riga Ukrainian authorities have been warning of this situation for months – and now the Kachowka Dam in southern Ukraine has been virtually destroyed. Russian mayor Vladimir Leontiev said the city of Novakakhovka, which is located directly on the dam, has been flooded, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. Parts of the Kherson region are controlled by Russian forces.
According to information from Ukraine, about 80 settlements are located in flooded areas. Some 600 houses had been flooded by midday, the rescue service told Russia’s TASS news agency. According to the TASS news agency, half the length of the dam has been destroyed and continues to collapse. According to Russian information, approximately 22,000 people are at risk of flooding.
Authorities and politicians in Ukraine and abroad have warned of enormous short- and long-term consequences for the region’s residents, civilian infrastructure and wildlife.
According to sources in Kiev, they want to stick to the counteroffensive plan. For months, it had been expected that the Russian occupiers would be pushed back by the Ukrainian armed forces. The Western allies armed the country.
Against this backdrop, Ukraine has also accused Russia of deliberately blowing up a dam built in the 1950s. President Volodymyr Zelensky convened the National Security Council on Tuesday morning and wrote to the Telegraph news service that the destruction confirmed the need to expel “Russian terrorists” from every corner of Ukrainian territory. Only victory in Ukraine will restore security. According to Selensky, Russian forces blew up the dam from the inside, the president said, at 2:50 a.m. Tuesday night.
Kachowka Dam: Scholz describes destruction as ‘new dimension’ in Ukraine war
Presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolak wrote on Twitter that Russia blew up the hydroelectric plant, causing “the biggest environmental disaster in Europe in decades.” Podoliak described the process as a terrorist attack that wiped many settlements off the map.
On the other hand, the Russian occupation authorities cited the shelling of the Ukrainian army as the reason for the destruction of the dam and the power plant. Information provided by both parties could not initially be independently verified.
Meanwhile, many foreign heads of state and government condemned the destruction, with Prime Minister Olaf Schulz describing it as a “new dimension” of warfare. Schultz said Ukraine was supported as long as necessary. Mayasandu, the president of neighboring Moldova, tweeted: “I strongly condemn the damage to the Nova Kakhovka dam this morning. Russia’s attack on critical infrastructure constitutes a war crime.”
This is how Handelsblatt reports on the war in Ukraine:
Latvian President Edgars Linkevich has called Russia a “terrorist state” that must be stopped. “We must step up our support for Ukraine and bring war criminals to justice,” he wrote. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said it was too early to meaningfully assess the details behind the sabotage, but the developments were due to the Russian incursion.
European Council President Charles Michel wrote that sabotage of civilian infrastructure “clearly constitutes a war crime – and we will hold Russia and its proxies accountable”. According to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, failure of the dam would endanger thousands of civilians and cause severe environmental damage. “This is a heinous act that once again shows the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
Russian sabotage to slow Ukrainian counteroffensive?
Sergey Lachenko, a Soviet-born British historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, called Kiev’s view more credible than Russia’s “usual denials”. On the one hand, Ukraine warned last October that Russia was already mining on the dam, Radchenko said. The Russians, on the other hand, would buy time by making it difficult for Ukrainian troops to cross the river downstream from Novakakhovka.
Dam blown in Kherson region: evacuations have begun
Ukrainian troops made “limited tactical progress” on Monday as they continued their ground assault on the Sidonetsk and East Zaporozhye regions, according to the US think tank Institute for War Studies (ISW) on Tuesday. In southern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops continued to target Russian rear positions. As of Monday, both Moscow and Kiev were reporting extensive fighting on the front lines, with expectations growing that Kiev’s planned counteroffensive had now actually begun.
Some people are currently speculating that the dam incident may be a sabotage operation by Russia to slow down Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Russian troops blew up the dam to prevent Ukrainian troops from crossing the Dnieper, according to Natalia Khumenyuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Military Command. The Russian army is well aware that the Ukrainian Defense Forces will move. “In this way, they are trying to influence the Wehrmacht so that the crossing of the Dnieper they fear does not happen.”
The Ukrainian military said the sabotage would not stop Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive. The army is equipped with all the necessary equipment to overcome water obstacles. Presidential adviser Podoliak said Tuesday morning that the disruption could mean Ukraine adjusts its plans. However, Kiev’s desire to liberate the occupied parts of the country only strengthened them. “Not attacking is not an option for us,” Podoliak said on the TV show.
more: You can find the latest developments in our news blog about the war in Ukraine