The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- Jack Brumby
A dam and a hydroelectric power plant in a Russian-controlled area of southern Ukraine were destroyed Tuesday, putting thousands of lives at risk in what President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said is the “largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.”
Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of causing an explosion at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant that sent a torrent of water gushing through damaged sections of the facility located on the Dnipro River.
Mr. Zelenskyy said Russian troops have been controlling the dam and the entire power plant for more than a year following the invasion of Ukraine.
“It is physically impossible to blow it up somehow from the outside, by shelling. It was mined by the Russian occupiers and they blew it up,” he tweeted. “Russia has detonated a bomb of mass environmental destruction.”
Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the Kherson region, accused Kyiv of hitting the power station with a missile attack. He said the strike led to a “large, but not critical” amount of water flowing down the Dnipro.
“It will not prevent our military from defending the left bank. However, fields along the coast have been washed away, and peaceful infrastructure has been disrupted,” Mr. Saldo said on his Telegram social media account.
He said a major evacuation in the area won’t be necessary, with most local residents still remaining in their homes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been receiving regular reports on the situation at the Kakhovka power plant, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
“We can already say unequivocally that this is deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side,” Mr. Peskov said, according to the official TASS Russian news agency.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg blamed Russia for the attack, calling it an “outrageous attack, which demonstrates once again the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
In addition to providing water for drinking and agriculture, the reservoir created by the dam helps cool the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it was aware of reports of damages to the dam.
“IAEA experts at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant are closely monitoring the situation; no immediate nuclear safety risk at the plant,” the UN atomic watchdog agency tweeted.
