The Kakhovka dam, which Kiev and Moscow accused each other of attacking on Tuesday, is a key structure in southern Ukraine that supplies water to Crimea, a peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.
Considered a priority target for the Russians at the start of the invasion, this hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River is now on the front line between Moscow-controlled regions and the rest of Ukraine, according to French news agency AFP.
Kakhovka Dam, built partly from concrete and partly from earth, has a length of 3273 meters and is one of the largest structures of its kind in Ukraine.
According to the website of the Ukrainian state company Ukrhydroenergo, the hydroelectric plant has a capacity of 334.8 megawatts (MW).
The damage to the dam is irreparable and was caused by “an explosion in the engine room from the inside,” the company said in a statement, quoted by Spanish news agency EFE.
The dam is located 150 kilometers from the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that floods caused by the destruction of infrastructure do not pose an immediate danger to the plant.
Built in the 1950s during the Soviet period, the dam allows water to be diverted to the North Crimean Canal, which starts in southern Ukraine and crosses the entire peninsula occupied and annexed by Moscow since 2014.
The destruction of this dam is likely to cause serious water supply problems for the Crimean peninsula, which Kyiv says it wants to restore.
Above the dam is the Kakhovka Reservoir – an artificial lake formed in the course of the Dnieper, 240 km long and up to 23 km wide.
Both the dam and the nuclear power plant were captured by Russian forces in the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022.
With the villages “completely or partially flooded,” the Ukrainian authorities were quick to condemn Russia’s “war crime” and President Volodymyr Zelensky called an emergency meeting of the Security Council.
“The goal of the terrorists is obvious: to create obstacles to the offensive actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” said presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
The authorities installed by Moscow in the Kherson region (south) accused Kyiv of “multiple attacks” on the dam, which would lead to the partial destruction of the structure.
“A series of shellings were carried out at the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, as a result of which the valves were destroyed,” said Vladimir Leontiev from the Russian local administration, quoted by the official TASS news agency.
According to Kyiv, “about 16,000 people are in the critical zone,” which is threatened by floods caused by the partial destruction of the dam.
Moscow said that 14 settlements with a population of “more than 22,000 people” were under threat, but believed that “the situation is under complete control.”
In October, as fighting raged in the region during Kyiv’s successful counter-offensive, Zelenskiy had already blamed Moscow forces for blowing up the dam and power plant units.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the President of Ukraine, also warned that the flooding would affect the irrigation systems in the area and severely damage agricultural production, dealing “a blow to global food security.”
This is “the worst man-made disaster in the world in recent decades,” said Yermak, quoted by EFE.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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