Moscow, Jun. 6, (dpa/GNA) – Russian authorities in occupied southern Ukraine declared a state of emergency on Tuesday following an early morning explosion that destroyed a major dam on the Dnipro river and an adjacent hydroelectric power plant.
The blast is one of the most significant single incidents in recent months during the war in Ukraine, and brought fears of widespread flooding of residential areas, environmental damage and power supply disruption.
“The city is flooded,” said Vladimir Leontyev, the Moscow-appointed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, the city by the Kakhovka dam. The power plant is also underwater, he said.
On the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River, Leontyev said a total of 600 houses in three regions were affected by severe flooding.
Many thousands more people may be affected downsteam as the water unleashed from the reservoir behind the dam cascade down the river.
According to local authorities, about 16,000 people are currently in a “critical zone.” The Ukrainian government is also warning of an environmental disaster.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba condemned the attack on the dam and hydroelectric plant in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region as a “heinous war crime.”
It was “probably Europe’s largest technological disaster in decades” and put thousands of civilians at risk, he wrote on Twitter.
Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office in Kiev, on Tuesday called for Russia to lose its seat on the UN Security Council.
The Kremlin meanwhile accused Ukraine of “sabotage” and said that Kiev was responsible for destroying the dam.
“We officially declare that this is clearly a case of deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side, planned and carried out on the orders (…) of the Kiev regime,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Such explanations were rejected by Western leaders, who have supported Ukraine throughout the conflict.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg condemned the destruction of the Kakhovka dam as “an outrageous act.”
“The destruction of the Kakhovka dam today puts thousands of civilians at risk,” Stoltenberg tweeted.
The Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River lies about 30 kilometres east of the city of Kherson, which is held by Ukrainian forces.
Further upstream lies the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant which relies on water from the Dnipro for cooling its reactors.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there is no immediate danger to the Zaporizhzhya plant.
“IAEA experts at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant are closely monitoring the situation,” the UN agency wrote on Twitter.
There is “no immediate nuclear safety risk at the plant,” it added. The safety of the plant has been in question for many months due to the fighting in Ukraine. It is currently occupied by Russian troops.
The flooding in the area could affect plans for a planned Ukrainian counteroffensive, but the Ukrainian military said it would not be slowed down.
The Ukrainian armed forces said on Tuesday that it had “all the necessary boats and pontoon bridges to overcome water obstacles.”
The Russian occupiers had blown up the dam in southern Ukraine “out of fear of the Ukrainian army,” the military wrote on Telegram.
Many Western leaders placed the blame firmly with Russia.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz accused Moscow of increasingly attacking civilian targets, saying it showed a “new dimension” in Russia’s war tactics.
In a report released on Monday, the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said it has observed an increase in fighting between Russia and Ukraine on multiple frontlines.
“Ukrainian forces are likely making limited gains despite Russian denials,” it said in its latest situation report.
The Washington-based ISW would not speculate, however, whether or not these land gains could be part of the widely expected counteroffensive.
“A successful counteroffensive operation may take days, weeks, or even months before its outcome becomes fully clear, during which time Russian sources may falsely claim to have defeated it,” the ISW wrote.
The British Defence Ministry meanwhile reported a “substantial increase in fighting along numerous sectors of the front” in Ukraine over the past 48 hours.
This included “those which have been relatively quiet for several months,” it said on Twitter, in its daily intelligence update on the war in Ukraine.
In the south, the flood wave from the reservoir could make the lower reaches of the Dnipro River almost impassable, so the military consequences of the blast are impossible to predict.
Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022.
The Ukrainian army is reportedly conducting several offensive operations in the country’s eastern and southern regions.
Information provided by the warring parties could not be independently verified.
GNA