How Russian Forces Blew Up Nova Kakhovka Dam - Ukraine

Ukraine’s military has disclosed that Russian forces on Tuesday morning blew up a large dam in southern Ukraine, while the Moscow-installed official in the city of Nova Kakhovka in the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region denied the claim.

‘The Kakhovka [reservoir] was blown up by the Russian occupying forces,” the southern command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Tuesday on its Facebook page.

‘The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified,’ the army said.

Russian state news agency TASS quoted an unnamed source close to the matter as saying the dam was destroyed and the territory was flooding.

A second Russian state news agency, RIA Novosti, quoted the Moscow-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka as saying the dam had been hit by shelling he blamed on Ukraine.

‘There were several hits” on the dam, he said, according to the news agency.

Ukraine’s military administration for the Kherson region called on people to be ready to evacuate from several villages on the right bank of the Dnieper River as water levels were rising following the destruction of the dam.

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“The water level is rising and everyone who is in the danger zone must: Turn off all electrical appliances; take documents and essentials; take care of loved ones and pets; follow the instructions of rescuers and policemen,” the administration said on its Telegram messaging channel.

Africa Today News, New York can confirm that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called an emergency meeting of the country’s national security council following the explosion at the dam, said Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

The Soviet-era dam in the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region could unleash a flood across the war zone, according to Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Unverified videos on social media showed a series of intense explosions around the Kakhovka dam.

Other videos showed water surging through the dam’s remains with bystanders expressing their shock, sometimes in strong language.

The dam, 30 metres (some 98 feet) tall and 3.2 km (2 miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnieper River as part of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station.

According to the Reuters news agency, it holds an 18-cubic-kilometre (4.3-cubic-mile) reservoir which supplies water to the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.

Africa Today News, New York

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