Counter-offensive
The dam breach came as Ukraine prepares to launch its long-awaited counter-offensive to drive Russian forces from territory they have seized during more than 15 months of fighting.
Russia said it had thwarted another Ukrainian offensive in eastern Donetsk and inflicted heavy losses. It also launched a fresh wave of overnight air strikes on Kyiv. Ukraine said its air defence systems had downed more than 20 cruise missiles on their approach to the capital.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports and it was unclear whether any of the latest fighting marked the beginning of Ukraine’s long-anticipated counter-offensive.
The Southern Command of Ukraine’s military accused Russian forces of blowing up the Nova Kakhovka dam,which is 30 metres tall and 3.2 kilometres long. It was built in 1956 on the Dnipro River.
“The scale of the destruction,the speed and volumes of water,and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified,” the Ukrainian military said on Facebook.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency later said on Telegram that Russian forces had blown up the dam “in a panic”,in what it said was “an obvious act of terrorism and a war crime,which will be evidence in an international tribunal”.
Mykhailo Podolyak,a senior advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky,said that “a global ecological disaster is playing out now,online,and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours.”
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Russian news agencies said the dam had been destroyed in shelling while the mayor of Russia-controlled Nova Kahhovka city was quoted as blaming an act of terrorism - Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.
The Russian-installed head of the Kherson region said evacuation near the dam had begun and that water would reach critical levels within five hours.
The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant has been “totally destroyed” and cannot be restored after a detonation inside the engine room,Ukraine’s state hydroelectric company said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will hold an emergency meeting over the dam blast,Oleksiy Danilov,secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council,said on Twitter on Tuesday.
Zelensky said the destruction of the hydroelectric plant was another reason that “only Ukraine’s victory can restore security.”
“The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land,” he said in a message on Telegram.
Ukrainian attacks
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24 last year in what the Kremlin expected to be a swift operation,but its forces suffered a series of defeats and regrouped in the country’s east.
Tens of thousands of Russian troops dug in over the winter,besieging Bakhmut for months and bracing for an expected Ukrainian counter-attack to try to cut Russia’s so-called land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukrainian officials have made no mention of any broad,significant new campaign,although in his nightly address on Monday,Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was enigmatic,hailing “the news we have been waiting for” and forward moves in Bakhmut in Donetsk.
Russia says it thwarted a major Ukrainian attack in the Donetsk region over the weekend and on Tuesday the defence ministry said a fresh Ukrainian assault had also been repelled.
Russian forces inflicted huge personnel losses on attacking Ukrainian forces and destroyed 28 tanks,including eight Leopard main battle tanks and 109 armoured vehicles,it said. Total Ukrainian losses amounted to 1500 troops.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv about Russia’s assertions. Russia and Ukraine have often made claims of inflicting heavy human losses on each other which could not be verified.
Writing on Telegram,Russia’s Wagner militia leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said Moscow’s claims of huge Ukrainian losses were “simply wild and absurd science fiction.”
The Washington Post reported that some US officials thought Ukraine’s counter-offensive was underway,but White House national security spokesperson John Kirby declined to comment on whether this was the case.
“I’m not going to be talking for the Ukrainian military,” he told a briefing,adding that the United States had done “everything we could ... to make sure that they had all the equipment,the training,the capabilities to be successful.”
The success or failure of a counter-offensive,expected to be waged with billions of dollars worth of advanced Western weaponry,is likely to influence the shape of future Western diplomatic and military support for Ukraine.
In its evening report on Monday,Ukraine’s General Staff made no mention of any large-scale offensive,nor did it suggest any deviation from the usual tempo or scope of fighting along front lines that have not changed significantly for months.
Reuters