KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) – A major dam in southern Ukraine collapsed Tuesday, flooding villages, endangering crops and threatening drinking water supplies as both sides in the war scrambled to evacuate residents and blamed each other for the destruction.
Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric plant, which sits on the Dnieper River in an area Moscow has controlled for more than a year. Russian officials blamed the Ukrainian shelling on the disputed area, where the river separates the two sides.
It was not possible to reconcile the conflicting claims.
Russian and Ukrainian officials used terms like “ecological disaster” and “terrorist act” to describe the torrent of water gushing through the breached dam and beginning to empty an upstream reservoir that is one of the largest in the world.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “Europe’s biggest environmental disaster in decades.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it “another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
As homes, streets and businesses flooded, authorities expressed concerns about drinking water supplies and emergency crews evacuated thousands of people from areas controlled by Ukraine and Russia.
In the downstream city of Kherson, angry residents cursed as they tried to preserve their pets and belongings. A woman who gave her name only when Tetyana waded through thigh-deep water to reach her flooded home and rescue her dogs. They were standing on any dry surface they could find, but one pregnant dog was missing. “It’s a nightmare,” she kept repeating, declining to give her full name.
Both Russian and Ukrainian authorities brought in trains and buses to move residents to safety. About 25,000 people in Russian-controlled areas and 17,000 in Ukrainian-controlled territory should be evacuated, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor Viktoriia Lytvynova told Ukrainian television. Neither side reported any deaths or injuries.
A Tuesday morning satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press showed more than 600 meters (more than 1,900 feet) missing from the 1950s dam wall.
The break of the dam, long feared by both sides, added a surprising new dimension to the Russian war, now in its 16th month. Ukrainian forces were widely seen as pushing ahead with a long-awaited counteroffensive in patches along more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of the front line in the east and south.
It was not immediately clear why either side might have destroyed the dam, and its collapse may have resulted from gradual degradation. Both Russian and Ukrainian controlled lands were in danger.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu charged that Ukraine destroyed the dam to prevent Russian attacks in the Kherson region after what he alleged was a failed Ukrainian counter-offensive. It claimed Ukraine had lost 3,715 soldiers and 52 tanks since Sunday and, in a rare acknowledgment of Russia’s losses, said 71 Russian soldiers were killed and 210 wounded. Ukraine followed its usual practice of not commenting on its casualties.
Zelenskyy told reporters that his government knew last year that Russia had undermined the dam, so “there may come a time when there will be an explosion.” Other Ukrainian officials alleged that Russia blew up the dam to hinder Kiev’s counteroffensive, although observers note that crossing the wide Dnieper would be extremely difficult. Other frontline sectors are more likely avenues of attack, analysts say.
Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, called the alleged Russian destruction of the dam “a deeply defensive move” that shows “a lack of confidence in the long-term prospects of Russia” in the war. .
Experts have previously said that the dam was in poor condition, which could also have caused the breach. David Helms, a retired American scientist who has monitored the reservoir, said in an email that it was unclear whether the damage was deliberate or simply careless by Russian occupation forces.
But Helms also pointed to a Russian history of attacking dams.
Underscoring the global repercussions, wheat prices rose 3% after the collapse. It is unclear whether the increase was due to a real threat of floodwaters destroying crops. Ukraine and Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other foods to Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
Authorities, experts and residents have been concerned for months about the water flowing through — and over — the Kakhovka Dam. After heavy rains and melting snow last month, water levels rose beyond normal, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over the damaged floodgates.
Zelenskyy assumed that Russian forces caused an explosion inside the dam structure at 2:50 a.m. (23:50 GMT Monday, 7:50 p.m. EDT Monday) and said about 80 settlements were at risk.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it “a deliberate act of sabotage by the Ukrainian side” aimed at cutting off water to Crimea.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the US “can’t say conclusively what happened” and declined to assess the impact on Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council later in the day, the deputy US ambassador did not offer any clarity on what Washington sees as the cause of the dam collapse, while ambassadors Russians and Ukrainians traded blame.
Both sides warned of an imminent environmental disaster from the polluted waters, caused in part by oil leaks from dam machinery and irrigated farmland.
Ukraine’s interior ministry urged residents of 10 villages on the west bank of the Dnieper and parts of the city of Kherson to gather essential documents and pets, turn off household appliances and leave.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that at least 40 settlements in the Kherson region were already flooded.
The mayor of Russian-settled Nova Kakhovka, which had a population of about 45,000 before the war, said the town was being evacuated.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, relies heavily on water from the dam’s reservoir, which is now being emptied. The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency said there was “no immediate risk to the safety of the plant”, whose six reactors have been shut down for months but still need water for cooling . He said the rate of decline in the dam’s reservoir level increased from 5 centimeters (2 inches) to 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) per hour and could be depleted within a couple of days. The plant has alternative water sources that can last for months, according to the IAEA.
Ukrainian authorities had already warned that the dam’s failure could release an estimated volume of water almost equivalent to that of the Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, warned that “thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed.”
The incident also drew international condemnation, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who said the “outrageous act…shows once again the brutality of war from Russia to Ukraine”.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnieper River, which runs from its northern border with Belarus to the Black Sea and is crucial to the country’s drinking water and electricity supplies and to Russian-occupied Crimea.
Ukraine and Russia have already accused each other of attacking the dam.
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Blann reported from Kiev. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.
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