A critical dam and hydroelectric power plant along the front line in southern Ukraine have been destroyed, videos verified by The New York Times show.
In the footage, a significant volume of water is flowing freely through the Kakhovka dam and power plant, which has been split in half. Russia took control of the plant and dam, which are located on the Dnieper River near the city of Kherson, last year.
Experts who have researched the dam say that the destruction could be catastrophic. The dam, which is under Russian control, manages a reservoir that supplies water for drinking, agriculture and the cooling of a nearby nuclear power plant.
David Helms, a former US Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist, said that communities along the occupied Russian side of the waterway risk being flooded and swept away. The destruction also poses significant risk to nearby ports and grain silos, as well as the surrounding ecosystem. “It’s just vast the amount of damage and harm, between communities, irrigation and transportation,” he said.
The visuals do not provide insight into what caused the damage. Ukraine’s southern military command blamed Russian troops for the destruction.
Vladimir Leontiev, the Russian-appointed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, where the hydroelectric power plant is, said the plant was damaged by shelling but denied that the dam had been destroyed, according to RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency. He said water levels south of the dam rose by about 8 feet, according to RIA.
Both the Ukrainian military and the local Ukrainian governor posted evacuation instructions early Tuesday for people in the city of Kherson in the event of an explosion at the hydroelectric power plant. Ukraine’s National Police and State Emergency Services were evacuating civilians in flood zones on the right bank of the Dnieper River, including parts of Kherson and 10 villages, Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
The infrastructure surrounding the dam has sustained damage throughout the war. Satellite imagery confirms new damage to the bridge next to the dam sustained from June 1 to 2, days before Tuesday’s destruction.
For months there has been concern over water levels at the reservoir, which had reached both its highest and lowest points in decades with Russian forces in control of the power plant.
Destruction of the dam, which holds back a body of water the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, could cause destructive flooding in a large area with a large number of homes. It also poses a risk to the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest, by lowering water levels in the reservoir that provides cooling.
Ukraine’s military intelligence has warned in recent weeks that Russians might create an emergency at the power plant to provide a pretext for a cease-fire and forestall a Ukrainian counteroffensive.