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PremiumNova Kakhovka dam Live: Ukraine has claimed that Russia blew up a strategically important dam and a hydroelectric power plant in the Kherkhov region of southern Ukraine, now controlled by Moscow.
The Ukrainian officials have warned that the breaking of the dam could being about an ‘ecological disaster’ triggering massive flooding in the region. Both Russian and Ukrainian officials have ordered ordered hundreds of thousands of residents downriver to evacuate the area as soon as possible.
Videos and images emerged on Telegram which showed the humungous Kakhovka dam, on the Dnipro river, broken and gallons of water gushing out.
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A CNN analysis has cited satellite images showing that the Nova Kakhovka dam was damaged way before it collapsed on Monday with Ukraine and Russia blaing each other of triggering foods and causing mass scale damage.
According to the media outlet's report, Satellite imagery from Maxar shows the road bridge that ran across the dam was intact on May 28, but imagery from June 5 shows a section of the same bridge missing. Analysis of lower resolution satellite imagery suggests the loss of the bridge section took place between 1 and 2 June.
It cannot be verified if the damage caused the collapse of the dam on Monday
According to reports, residents of Kherson have been forced to evacuate their home and the region as water level continues to rise dangerously in the aftermath of the Nova Kakhovka disaster.
The collapse of the sprawling dam in Ukraine's Russian-occupied Kherson region, triggered a wave of evacuations as floods of water spilled from the Nova Kakhovka hydro-electric plant.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the destruction of a crucial dam and hydro-electric power plant in the Russian-occupied Kherson region demonstrates "the brutality of Russia's war in Ukraine."
"The destruction of the Kakhovka dam today puts thousands of civilians at risk and causes severe environmental damage," Stoltenberg tweeted on Tuesday.
According to CNN, the Kremlin said it “strongly rejects" accusations that Russia is responsible for damaging a sprawling dam and hydro-electric power plant in southern occupied Ukraine, as Kyiv and Moscow traded accusations over the destruction of the dam.
On a regular call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he “unequivocally" believes the incident was “deliberate sabotage" by Ukraine, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin was being kept informed about the situation.
Peskov claimed the attack was “planned and carried out by order received from Kyiv, from the Kyiv regime. The Kyiv regime must bear full responsibility for all the consequences."
He claimed Ukraine wanted to “deprive Crimea of water" and to distract from the battlefield.
The Ukrainian military forces have said that they are equipped with ‘necessary watercraft’ to overcome any obstacle that would arise because of the flooding triggered by the Nova Kakhovka dam disaster.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces said they are “equipped with all the necessary watercraft" for "crossing water obstacles" after the destruction of a major dam and hydro-electric power plant caused flooding in parts of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.
In a statement, the military reiterated that it believes Russian forces were responsible for the damage to the Nova Kakhovka dam which spans the Dnipro River.
Russian authorities have said that the city of Nova Kakhovka has been flooded after the Nova Kakhovka dam broke, triggering a massive outflow of water, CNN reported.
"The city is flooded," Vladimir Leontyev said on Russian state TV Rossiya-1.
The city administration said on Telegram that a local emergency regime had been introduced in the Nova Kakhovka urban district.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's interior ministry announced mass evacuations in liberated areas on the west bank of the Dnipro River near the dam, adding they "are worried" about people in the Russian-occupied east bank.
According to Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, the total collapse of the dam would wash away much of the left bank and a severe drop in the reservoir has the potential to deprive the nuclear plant of crucial cooling, as well as dry up the water supply in northern Crimea.
Ukraine's nuclear operator Energoatom said in a Telegram statement that the blowing up of the dam "could have negative consequences" for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is Europe's biggest, but wrote that for now the situation is "controllable".
Ukrainian authorities have previously warned that the dam's failure could unleash 18 million cubic metres (4.8 billion gallons) of water and flood Kherson and dozens of other areas where hundreds of thousands of people live.
The warring sides of Ukraine and Russia has blamed each other of what is being considered as a major ecological disaster, the dam that was situated on Dnipro river in Kherkhov now stands as ruins.
The fallout could have broad consequences: Flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream; depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe's largest nuclear power plant; and draining supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed.
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