Ukrainian military authorities denounced early Tuesday the shelling by Russian forces of the Kajovka dam, located about 70 kilometers from the city of Jerson upriver, in southern Ukraine, which has forced the start of the emergency evacuation of residents of the affected area.
“The Russian army has carried out another terrorist attack. They have blown up the Kakhovka dam,” said the head of the Military Administration of the Kherson province, Oleksandr Prokudin, in a video directed at the population of the area. The Southern Command of the Ukrainian army, for its part, has written that "the destruction, speed and volume" of the overflow caused by the explosion is being established. The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, has reported the call, by the country's president, Volodímir Zelenski, of an urgent National Security Council.
Yermak has called the blowing of the dam a "war crime" and "ecocide", and has released a video that allegedly shows how water begins to overflow from the damaged dam. "The Russians will be responsible for the lack of drinking water for the people of the southern Kherson region and Crimea, for the possible destruction of some towns and the biosphere," Yermak added.
Shortly after, it was Zelensky himself who condemned the Russian "terrorists". “The destruction of the plant only confirms to the whole world that they must be expelled from all corners of Ukrainian territory,” he wrote on social media, along with a video of the dam overflowing that is already viral in Ukraine.
Zelensky added that "only the victory of Ukraine will restore security" to the country. "The terrorists will not be able to stop Ukraine with water, missiles or anything."
The mayor of the occupied Ukrainian town of New Kakhovka, in the southern Kherson region, said the hydroelectric power station on the banks of the Dnieper river was damaged and water began to discharge "uncontrollably". The councilor imposed by Russia in the town, Vladimir Leontiev, affirmed, around 02:00 local time, that the night attacks on the plant have been carried out by Ukrainian troops, who would have destroyed the valves, for which reason "the water from the reservoir began to discharge uncontrollably downstream". As a result, he added, "water from the Kajovka dam began to discharge uncontrollably downstream."
The destruction of the dam occurs when both Ukraine and Russia have reported in their latest military reports actions by the Ukrainian army that seem to point to the beginning of their long-awaited counteroffensive to recover territories occupied by the Russians.
Ukraine has warned on several occasions since the start of the war of the possibility of Russia blowing up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station dam. In October last year, in the midst of the Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake control of Kherson, Zelensky called on the international community to put pressure on Russia to prevent it from doing so. Zelensky then warned of catastrophic consequences for the entire area if that happened, including a power outage (New Kakhovka is a dam and a hydroelectric power station that provides 10% of Ukraine's electricity consumption) as well as difficulties in cooling the power station. Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is located inside the dam, due to the lowering of the water level.
