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Drone footage shows water breaching the destroyed Kakhovka dam

Drone footage shows water breaching the destroyed Kakhovka dam © Reuters

The Kakhovka dam spanning the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine was breached on Tuesday, flooding swaths of territory ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive and forcing mass evacuations in the area.

Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the dam break, which Kyiv warned would have “catastrophic consequences” and affect dozens of settlements as well as complicating water supplies to the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an emergency security council meeting and blamed “Russian terrorists” for the explosion. Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary-general, called it “an outrageous act” that showed “the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine”. The Kremlin accused Kyiv of a “deliberate act of sabotage” to “deprive Crimea of water”.

John Kirby, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council, told reporters that Washington was doing its best to “assess” reports that Russia was responsible for the attack, but “we cannot say conclusively what happened at this point”. Militarily, he added that it was “too soon to know” what effect it would have on Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

Water levels in the reservoir were higher than usual at the time of the breach and riverside districts of the regional capital Kherson were being flooded on Tuesday morning. Oleksandr Prokudyn, governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, ordered the evacuation of several villages along the Ukraine-controlled western bank of the Dnipro river.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant relies on water flow from the reservoir upstream of the dam to cool its reactors. Mustafa Nayyem, head of Ukraine’s State Agency for Restoration warned of potentially “catastrophic consequences” but nuclear experts said there was no evidence that the plant’s safety had been compromised.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said there was “no immediate nuclear safety risk at the plant” but it was monitoring the situation. Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear power operator, said water levels in the Kakhovka reservoir were dropping, but the level in the plant’s cooling pond stood at 16.6 metres — “sufficient for the power plant’s needs”.

The flooding is likely to complicate any Ukrainian plans for an amphibious assault on the area during its anticipated counteroffensive since much of the land on the Russian-controlled side of the Dnipro will be virtually impassable.

The dam and its hydroelectric power station, built in 1956, constituted one of the country’s largest energy facilities, containing about 18 cubic kilometres of water and providing electricity to more than 3mn people.

Nayyem said the dam formed a crucial part of the country’s energy infrastructure and “its destruction would have far-reaching consequences beyond the immediate area”.

“Russian military forces may consider that the breakthrough of the dam could cover their retreat from the right bank of the Dnipro and prevent or delay Ukraine’s advance across the river,” he added.

Henrik Ölander-Hjalmarsson, a Swedish civil engineer who in October modelled the widespread destruction from a Kakhovka dam break, told the Financial Times that Tuesday’s breach “looks much worse” because of the high water levels in the reservoir. The scenario had suggested a 4-5 metre wave would hit the Antonovsky bridge near Kherson within the first day.

Videos on social media showed water surging through the dam from the reservoir, which also supplies a canal that brings water to the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. Satellite images made by Maxar Technologies showed damage to the dam’s sluice gates and a section of road.

Russia captured the entire Kherson region, which is bisected by the Dnipro, during the early weeks of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion last year, before retreating across the river from the regional capital last November.

Despite surrendering Kherson to Ukraine, Putin still officially considers the city part of Russia and its residents to be Russian citizens after a botched attempt to annex four south-eastern Ukrainian regions before the retreat.

Ukraine and Russia have routinely accused each other of shelling the dam, the hydroelectric station and the nuclear power plant.

Zelenskyy said last year that Russia planted mines in the area while preparing its retreat, which he warned could cause a “large-scale disaster” and destroy water supplies to Crimea.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected claims Russia was responsible for destroying the dam. He said the “sabotage” would have “grave consequences” for tens of thousands of local residents.

Russian-controlled emergency services said about 80 towns could be affected. Authorities in Russian-occupied Kherson region launched evacuation of three large districts, telling residents to take food and drinking water for three days.

EU council president Charles Michel blamed Moscow for the dam breach. “The destruction of civilian infrastructure clearly qualifies as a war crime — and we will hold Russia and its proxies accountable,” he wrote on Twitter.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, speaking ahead of a visit to Washington, said that if verified as a Russian attack, this would “demonstrate the new lows that we would have seen from Russian aggression”.

“Attacks on civilian infrastructure are appalling and wrong. We’ve have seen previous instances of that in this conflict so far, but it’s too early to say definitively,” he said. “The immediate response is humanitarian,” he added.

Additional reporting by Henry Foy

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