The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in Russia’s Kherson Region, located on the Dnieper River upstream from the city of Kherson, suffered significant damage as a result of a strike presumably from missiles fired from an Olkha multiple launch rocket system, threatening thousands of lives with potentially devastating floods.
“The Kakhovskaya hydroelectric plant dam in Russia’s Kherson Region, located on the Dnepr River upstream from the city of Kherson, suffered significant damage on Tuesday morning, according to a local official.
The upper part of the key infrastructure was ‘destroyed as a result of a strike’, the mayor of Novaya Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, confirmed to RIA Novosti. While several of the dam’s floodgates were damaged and unleashed an uncontrolled stream of water, the underwater structure itself withstood the attack, the official claimed.
As a result of what Leontyev described as a major ‘terrorist act’, the water level downstream has risen by up to 2.5 meters, according to Leontyev, who added there was no need for evacuations thus far. He noted that the area has seen higher water levels during previous floods caused by heavy rainfall, but emphasized that local officials were focused on helping citizens as they prepare for a worst-case scenario.
‘All services work in the city, all administration employees are in place. Electricity, gas, internet, and communications are available’, the mayor continued.
Moscow has repeatedly blamed Kiev for numerous attacks on the Kakhovskaya dam, warning that a breach could cause a disaster and result in the deaths of thousands of civilians. In turn, Ukraine claimed that Russia had been planning to blow up the dam itself in a false flag operation aimed at framing Kiev for the flooding.
The water is rising rapidly and is already flooding the nearby embankments.
The persistent threat was cited as one of the main reasons for evacuating civilians from certain communities in the area, and an eventual pullout of Russian forces from the city of Kherson to the left bank of the Dnepr River.
Russian military and civilian officials, including acting Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo, warned at the time that many areas in the region, including in Kherson city, could be flooded if the Kakhovskaya dam is destroyed.
Kherson Region was officially declared part of Russia in early October, together with Zaporizhzhia Region and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, after people in those territories overwhelmingly supported the move during referendums. Kiev and its Western backers have labelled the votes a ‘sham’ and vowed to recapture the territories using any means necessary.
Kiev indeed considered blowing up the dam to paralyze Moscow’s forces who were defending the city of Kherson – and even ‘conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates’ – a former head of Ukraine’s Operational Command South, Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, admitted in an interview with the Washington Post on December 29th, 2022”. -Iain Muir, Scotland Today
At least fourteen settlements, including one micro-district in the city of Kherson, have been flooded in whole or in part due to the shelling of the hydroelectric power station, and up to eighty settlements are purportedly in danger of being inundated.
There is also a risk of the drying out of the North Crimean Canal, which feeds water into Crimea, and farmlands along the Dnieper River getting washed away.
In response to Kiev’s deliberate sabotage attack against a hazardous infrastructure facility, the Permanent Representative to Russia to the United Nations told the UN Security Council “Attacks on facilities that contain hazards are directly prohibited by the international humanitarian law. Moreover, dams are directly mentioned in the Article 56 of the 1977 Amendment Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions”.