Blast damages Russian-occupied hydro-electric plant, flooding south Ukraine

It was not clear who was responsible for the explosion, which occurred as Kyiv stepped up offensive operations on the eastern fronts as part of what is expected to be a major counterattack over the coming weeks. Ukraine and Russia quickly traded blame for the blast.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of blowing up the hydroelectric power plant from inside. “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,” Zelensky said in a message on Telegram.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the attack was “a deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side,” in part to deprive Crimea of water. “Apparently, this sabotage is related to the fact that the Ukrainian armed forces, having started the offensive two days ago, are not achieving their goals now,” Peskov said Tuesday during his daily conference call with reporters.

As floodwaters continued to rise, Ukraine authorities said that 40,000 people should be evacuated from the Kherson region. By Tuesday afternoon, Ukraine’s interior ministry said about 1,300 people had been evacuated.

The dueling accusations by Kyiv and Moscow set off intense speculation about which side might have more to gain by flooding the battlefield in the south, and also deep consternation about the extent of environmental and economic damage.

The cause for the dam’s breach remained unclear. Water levels at the Russian-controlled reservoir had been rising dramatically in the weeks leading up to the catastrophic failure. The dam had also suffered previous damage from the war.

On one occasion, as Ukrainian forces plotted a counteroffensive in the Kherson region, they conducted a test strike with using an American-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System or HIMARS launcher to puncture three holes in one of the floodgates of the Kakhovka dam.

Maj. Gen. Andiry Kovalchuk who led the Kherson offensive, told The Washington Post late last year that the goal was to see if the water level of the Dnieper River could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but commanders decided to hold off on such an attack.

Tuesday’s dramatic events in the south came amid an escalation in Ukrainian combat activity, including a series of offensive operations on the eastern front, signaling that Kyiv’s forces may have launched the preliminary phases of their long-awaited counteroffensive.

Russia claimed on Tuesday that it repelled “a long-promised offensive” mounted by Ukrainian troops across at a dozen points on the front line over the previous three days. Ukraine denied that assertion.

“Attempts to attack were thwarted, the enemy was stopped,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

Kyiv has previously dismissed Russian claims insisting that its army has repelled Ukrainian attacks as disinformation and psychological operations aimed at undermining the long-awaited assault. Leaders in Kyiv have cautioned repeatedly in recent days that no single action would mark the start of the counterattack, nor would it be announced.

It remained to be seen how the flooding would affect troop movements.

Ihor Syrota, the general director of Ukraine’s state hydroelectric company, Ukrhidroenergo, in an interview with The Washington Post, said the dam was “irreparable” and that the full weight of water held in the Kakhovka reservoir could spill out within the next four days.

Syrota also warned of imminent environmental damage. About 450 tons of oil had begun seeping from the station into the river, he said. “It is heading toward Kherson and the Black Sea,” he said. “This will be an ecological catastrophe.”

Ukraine’s state-owned hydropower company, in a statement on Telegram, said the hydroelectric plant was “completely destroyed” as a result of an explosion inside the engine room.

Aerial videos showed heavy structural damage to the dam, which appeared to be missing sections measuring hundreds of feet. By 9 a.m., reservoir levels were rapidly decreasing as water poured out, officials said. A video shared by Ukraine’s public broadcaster appeared to show that water had almost covered the hydroelectric station.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s southern command, said in a radio interview that the dam was not completely destroyed but sustained serious damage. She accused the Russians of blowing up the dam using explosives to prevent Ukraine from carrying out its expected counteroffensive.

Andrii Pidlisnyi, a captain in Ukraine’s armed forces currently based in the south, accused the Russians of trying to destroy positions that Ukrainians could use as springboards for an offensive. By flooding the area, Russians could prevent Ukrainians from moving south by land along the east bank of the Dnieper. in a bid to oust the Russians from parts of Kherson they control.

But Pidlisnyi argued the Ukrainian-controlled west bank is higher in elevation than the east, and that Russia’s military positions “are simply flooded” and had to be evacuated. Russian units there, Pidlisnyi said, “were not aware of this whole situation. They’re just shocked.”

Michael Kofman, a Russian military analyst at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, said he did not expect the dam breach to have a significant impact on Ukraine’s offensive. The likelihood of a Ukrainian offensive operation across the river south of the dam was quite low, he said.

“The flood washes away Russian defenses there, but makes a river crossing now exceedingly more difficult,” Kofman said.

In the Russian-occupied city of Nova Kakhovka, adjacent to the dam, water levels were several feet high in front of the city council building, according to video published by Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne. Swans could be seen swimming in the water.

The former Ukrainian mayor of Nova Kakhovka, Volodymyr Kovalenko, said in an interview with The Post that the rising waters had flooded a zoo, a recreation area and a sports complex in a matter of hours. While he was not in the Russian-occupied city, Kovalenko said he spoke to residents through encrypted channels as he often does.

As the waters quickly submerged the zoo, only the ducks and swans could be saved, according to UAnimals, Ukraine’s largest animal charity, which said it spoke with the zoo’s management. The zoo was home to 260 animals.

In the low-lying city, located on the east bank of the Dnieper River, the water in some places had overflowed by about 1,600 feet from the normal shoreline. Kovalenko said he feared the water would reach residential buildings near the river, in an old part of the city made up of two-to-three story homes and cottages.

“At any moment, the water may have reached these houses,” he said.

The dam sits at the end of the Dnieper River, in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, where a reservoir stores roughly the same amount of water as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Russian occupying forces pushed the Ukrainian workers out of the plant, created a military base at the site, and, in October, cut it off from Ukraine’s electrical grid.

The fast-rising water levels threaten residents from northern Kherson, where the dam is located, down to the Black Sea.

Its reservoir also supplies water, through canals, to occupied Crimea and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, in Russian-controlled Enerhodar. Ukraine’s atomic energy authorities said the plant has not been affected by the dam breach so far.

Ukrainian officials blamed Russia and called the situation an ecological disaster. “Russia destroyed the Kakhovka dam inflicting probably Europe’s largest technological disaster in decades and putting thousands of civilians at risk,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “This is a heinous war crime.”

Ukrainian authorities in Kherson called for a mass evacuation while the Russian occupying authorities who still hold territory in the Kherson region east of the Dnieper River appeared to initially play down the potential consequences.n

On the west bank of the river, the water level had risen by more than six feet, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. He warned residents that the flood could wash up Russian mines.

Vladimir Leontyev, the Russian-installed mayor of occupied Nova Kakhovka, said water levels have risen by 16 feet, flooding several downstream settlements. Those in the immediate vicinity of the water were being moved to dry places, he said, but “large-scale” evacuations were not expected.

“The situation is under control,” Leontyev said. “The Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant was built in such a way as to be able to withstand a nuclear strike.” He said the upper part of the hydroelectric plant has been destroyed but that the dam was only partially damaged.

The Russian-installed authorities of Kherson region later announced the evacuation of residents of three districts, urging them to pack personal belongings and documents, carry food and drinking water for three days, and turn off gas and water in their homes before leaving. Earlier, the head of the Russian occupation administration of Kherson Region, Vladimir Saldo, said that there was no need for mass evacuation

Even as the floodwaters rose, Russian forces continued bombing Kherson city, which is controlled by Ukraine, and the surrounding areas. Two policemen from Kherson were wounded by shrapnel during evacuation measures in the city, according to Ukraine’s Internal Affairs ministry.

Abbakumova reported from Riga, Latvia and Korolchuk reported from Dnipro and Mykolaiv, Ukraine. Kamila Hrabchuk and Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv and Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia contributed to this report.

Sources: Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, OpenstreetMap, Openinframap. Brady Africk, who analyzed satellite imagery from Copernicus Open Access Hub, provided fortifications data, which does not include all fortifications in Ukraine; some defenses predate Russia’s full-scale invasion.