World shocked by Ukraine dam destruction

The Dnieper River dam is the farthest downstream in the Kherson region and has been under Russian control since the start of the Ukraine War in early 2022.

The dam broke in the late afternoon of 6 June due to unknown means, resulting in the flooding of hundreds of houses and evacuation of several thousand people.

Both sides of the Ukraine War have placed blame for the destruction of the dam on each other, with Russian officials alleging the dam was damaged by Ukraine artillery and Ukraine officials alleging Russian forces mined the dam before blowing it up.

US ambassador Robert Wood, speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine, said the destruction is a tragic outcome of Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“It is deeply alarming and concerning the Kakhovka Dam, a crucial hydroelectric plant on the Dnipro River, was destroyed,” he said.

“Its destruction has caused devastating floods and impacted the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians along the river. We are in close touch with Ukrainian authorities on providing assistance to the many civilians displaced and forced to flee their homes for safety. And we will continue to work with humanitarian partners on the ground to provide assistance.

“Deliberate attacks on civilian objects are prohibited by the law of war. As a party to Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, Russia has an obligation not to attack works or installations containing ‘dangerous forces, including dams, if such an attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and severe losses among the civilian population.

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“The dam’s destruction risks massive ecological devastation, as Ukraine’s already badly damaged critical infrastructure must once again absorb a devastating blow. Those downstream are under flood risk. The water supply to southern Ukraine, including Crimea, is at risk. Agricultural lands will likely also be impacted, further disrupting food production and impacting global food security.

“The dam’s destruction undermines the stability of Ukraine’s power supply and could create additional challenges to maintaining safety in and around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.”

The Minister of Energy of Ukraine, German Galushchenko, said the hydroelectric power plant cannot be restored or rebuilt.

“The hydroelectric power plant is completely destroyed, the Russians blew it up from the inside,” the minister said.

“We expect 80 settlements to be flooded, evacuations are underway, and all possible measures are being taken to protect people.

“The situation is currently very complicated, especially in the part of the Kherson region that has been de-occupied. Russia has committed ecocide on the territory of our country.

The hydroelectric power plant is also significant because it provides cooling of the occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant units.

“De-occupation and demilitarisation of the plant, as well as ensuring stable and safe operation of ZNPP are the only possible scenario that should be implemented if the world wants to avoid a nuclear disaster,” Galushchenko said.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement has alleged the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant was committed by Ukrainian armed forces.

“We strongly condemn the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant by the Ukrainian armed forces that has led to a devastating humanitarian and environmental disaster,” the statement said.

“This act of sabotage by the Kiev regime has caused devastating damage to the farmland in the region and the ecosystem at the mouth of the Dnieper River.

“This is a terrorist act directed against purely civilian infrastructure. It was planned in advance by the Kiev regime for military purposes as part of the Ukraine forces’ ‘counteroffensive’.

“The Kiev regime not only launched mass artillery attacks against the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, but also deliberately brought the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir to a critical level by opening the Dneprovsk Hydroelectric Power Plant’s floodgates.

“The Investigative Committee of Russia has opened a criminal case on this act of terrorism.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the disaster at the Kakhovka HPP caused by Russian terrorists will not stop Ukraine.

“Each Russian act of terrorism increases only the amount of reparations that Russia will pay for its crimes, not the chances of the occupiers to stay on our land,” he said in a televised address after the dam’s destruction.

“I am grateful to all our rescuers, military, representatives of local communities, each of our regions, who are now helping people from our southern regions flooded by the Russian terrorist attack.

“The government at all levels is doing everything to save people and provide drinking water to those who received it from the Kakhovka reservoir. Kryvyi Rih and the entire Dnipropetrovsk region, cities and villages in Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia regions — no matter how difficult it is, we have to help people.

“I am grateful to everyone who is currently evacuating people from the towns and villages flooded by water from the Kakhovka reservoir. It is very important now to take care of each other and help as much as possible.

“The whole world will know about this Russian war crime, the crime of ecocide. This deliberate destruction of the dam and other HPP facilities by the Russian occupiers is an environmental bomb of mass destruction.

“It is only the complete liberation of Ukrainian land from Russian occupiers that will guarantee that such acts of terrorism will not happen again. The terrorist state must lose.”

President Zelenskyy said the prosecutor general has already appealed to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to involve international justice in the investigation of the dam explosion.

“The Russian occupiers have committed the biggest crime of ecocide on the Ukrainian land; not only during this war, but in decades,” he said.

“Last fall, we had information that the occupiers had mined the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. They did it intentionally. First, to blackmail the world. Second, to blow up the dam and use the flood as a weapon. This is exactly what happened.

“Such a crime of ecocide could not have happened simply by shelling the dam. To destroy it, Russian forces had to act deliberately; mine, blow up, destroy.

“The deliberate destruction of the hydroelectric dam by terrorists looks the same from all corners of the world. For Africa, Europe, the United States, China, Australia, and India, man-made disasters are evil.”