Dhe Tuesday morning began with shock news for Ukraine. There was an explosion at the Kakhovka dam in the south of the country near the city of Cherson, Ukrainian media reported. The dam had broken. Russian forces blew up the dam during the night, the military command south wrote on Facebook. One observes the situation. The Kherson regional administration announced emergency evacuations on the Ukrainian-controlled bank of the Dnipro.
Shortly after these reports, the first videos appeared on social media showing how the water masses of the Dnipro broke through the dam. A few hours later, a number of towns, including parts of the regional capital of Cherson, were under water. The brown waters wash around houses and cars, the city center of Nowa Kochowka with its white-painted Palace of Culture is completely flooded. Almost all the animals in the city zoo drowned.
The Dnipro River divides the Kherson Oblast into a Ukrainian-controlled part on the northern bank and a Russian-occupied part on the southern bank. A good 40,000 people in 80 villages and towns on either side of the river are directly affected by the flooding. Early in the morning, the Ukrainians provided information about collection points and organized trains and buses from the region. At noon the first evacuation train of the Ukrainian railways left Kherson. By the afternoon, 1,300 people had been evacuated from the area.
Russian occupiers downplay floods
There were also evacuations on the side under Russian control: buses would be provided for anyone who wanted to leave the area, the “area chief” appointed by the occupiers, Vladimir Saldo, told Russian media. However, he played down the consequences of the floods in a video. People understand that they can also stay in their homes. All cities on the lower Dnipro are “alive”, people “move calmly through the streets,” said Saldo. “The gas stations are working, some shops are working, even factories are working.” Of course, this life is now being disrupted by the destruction of the dam, “but only until the water has drained, and it’s falling pretty quickly.” It will all be over in three days, Saldo claimed.
His statements, however, contradicted the background against which he spoke: there you could see how the water was almost man-high in the streets of Nowa Kachowka behind him. Both the collaboration mayor of the Russian-occupied city and Russian media had previously reported a sharp rise in the water level in the villages below the dam. The area on the southern bank of the Dnipro controlled by the occupiers is flatter than the northern bank, so larger areas are affected by the floods.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy convened the National Security and Defense Council on Tuesday morning. This should take care of further evacuations and the supply of drinking water in the south. Upstream, as in Krivyi Rih, there were panic buying of drinking water in the supermarkets. The secretary of the council not only accused the Russian side in general, but also named a specific unit of the Russian army that blew up the hydroelectric power station with explosive devices placed inside: the 205th Motorized Rifle Brigade.
Zelenskyy said that with such actions, the Russians once again confirmed to the whole world that they should be expelled from every corner of the Ukrainian land. “Not a single meter should be given to them, because they will use every meter for their terror. Only a Ukrainian victory will bring back security. And that victory will come. The terrorists will not be able to stop Ukraine with water, rockets or anything else,” he said on Telegram.
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