Rescuing the Kakhovka Dam: Russia’s War in Ukraine had a New “Terrorist” Emitting Force

By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water in the air.

Energoatom, the nuclear operator, wrote that the Kakhovka reservoir, where water levels are “rapidly decreasing,” was necessary “for the plant to feed the turbine condensers and ZNPP safety systems,” the statement said.

Russia’s war in Ukraine had a complex new element added by the dam break. Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 1,000-kilometers of frontline in the east and south of Ukraine.

Leontyev said Tuesday that many strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant destroyed its valves and water began to flow uncontrollably downstream. Leontyev added that damage to the station was beyond repair, and it would have to be rebuilt.

Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video that the Russian Army had committed yet another act of terror and that water will reach critical levels within five hours.

Footage from what appeared to be a monitoring camera overlooking the dam that was circulating on social media purported to show a flash, explosion and breakage of the dam.

Online evidence of floodwaters and collapse of a dam along the Dnipro river: Ukraine’s interior ministry warned against disinformation

Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry called for residents of 10 villages on the Dnipro’s right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances, and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.

Videos posted online began testifying to the spillover. One showed floodwaters inundating a long roadway; another showed a beaver scurrying for high ground from rising waters.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that “a global ecological disaster is playing out now, online, and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours.”

The World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development, a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization, estimated that nearly 100 villages and towns would be flooded. It also reckoned that the water level would start dropping only after five to seven days.

The risk of a nuclear accident has been warned multiple times by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency said it was keeping a close eye on the plant and did not see any immediate dangers.

The fallout could have broad consequences: Flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream; depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe’s largest nuclear power plant; and draining supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed.

In the south of the country, a major dam near a nuclear power plant collapsed, posing a risk to the already troubled plant and creating the possibility of widespread flooding.

The Kakhovka Dam, southern Ukraine: a critical hub for Russian forces in the Cold War, and an announcement from Bakhmut

The latest development comes amid growing signs that Ukraine is about to — or already has — launched a long-awaited military offensive against the Russian forces.

Video on social media shows a big chunk missing from the Kakhovka dam, on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, allowing water to surge through the opening.

Ukrainian officials said some 80 cities, towns and villages are at risk along the river, which effectively serves as the front line in southern Ukraine.

The water is going to come. The situation is aggravated by the fact that some roads are being washed away. The minister said the evacuees are looking for other ways.

Russian troops seized the plant in the early days of the war last year, and the grounds of the facility and nearby areas have been repeatedly rocked by shelling.

Russia claimed Monday it had defeated the Ukrainian ground forces in the eastern Donbas region, which it described as the start of the offensive.

Zelenskyy praised the soldiers fighting around Bakhmut. But he didn’t say whether this was part of the larger offensive.