Russia-Ukraine war live: dam near Kherson destroyed by Russian forces, says Ukraine, sparking evacuations | Russia

Ukraine’s National Police force are asking people in affected villages to evacuate.

The Police said on Telegram a moment ago:

Units of the National Police and the State Emergency Service of the Kherson region were alerted to alert and evacuate the civilian population from potential flooding zones on the right bank of the Dnieper River, namely: the villages of Mykolaivka, Olhivka, Lyovo, Tyaginka, Poniativka, Ivanovka, Tokarivka, Poniativka, Prydniprovske, Sadove and partly the city of Kherson – Korabel Island.

The water level is rising and everyone who is in the danger zone must:

🔹turn off all electrical appliances

🔹take documents and essentials

🔹take care of loved ones and pets

🔹 follow the instructions of rescuers and policemen.

Here is a summary of what we know so far, via Reuters:

• A vast Soviet-era dam in the Russian controlled part of southern Ukraine was blown on Tuesday, unleashing a flood of water across the war zone, according to both Ukrainian and Russian forces. Both sides blamed the other for destroying the dam.

• The dam, 30 metres (yards) tall and 3.2 km (2 miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnieper river as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. It holds a reservoir of about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and also supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.

• Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces blew up the dam. “The Kakhovka (dam) was blown up by the Russian occupying forces,” the South command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Tuesday on its Facebook page. “The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified.”

• Russian news agencies said the dam, controlled by Russian forces, had been destroyed in shelling while a Russian-installed official said it was a terrorist attack – Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.

Why is Kakhovka Dam significant?

Jonathan Yerushalmy

The dam traverses Ukraine’s enormous Dnieper River, holding back an enormous reservoir of water. The dam itself is 30 metres tall and hundreds of metres wide. It was built in 1956 as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.

The enormous reservoir that it contains holds about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Bursting the dam could send a wall of water flooding settlements below it, including Kherson, which Ukrainian forces recaptured in late 2022.

Water from the reservoir supplies the Crimean peninsula to the south – which was annexed by Russia in 2014 – as well as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – Europe’s largest – to the north.

It also helps power the Kakhovka hydro-electric plant. Destroying the dam would add to Ukraine’s ongoing energy problems, after Russia spent weeks earlier this year targeting vital infrastructure.

It would also wreck the canal system that irrigates much of southern Ukraine, including Crimea.

The large Nova Kakhovka Dam in the Russia-controlled parts of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine was destroyed and the territory is flooding, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed source close to the matter.

A second state news agency RIA cited the Moscow-installed Mayor of Nova Kakhovka as saying that the upper part of the dam was destroyed by shelling.

The mayor earlier denied that that the dam had been blown up. Tass then quoted him as saying that the destruction of the dam was a “serious terrorist act”.

Neither Reuters nor the Guardian were able to independently verify the reports.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson region, has posted a video to Telegram in which he says that as a result of the damage to the Nova Kahhovka dam, “water will reach a critical level in 5 hours” and that evacuations have begun.

The translation of the video was obtained via Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

Gerashchenko posted the video from Prokudin’s Telegram, with the text:

The water will reach a critical level in 5 hours, the evacuation has begun – the head of Kherson OVA

As Alexander Prokudin reported, local residents have already begun to be evacuated from potential flood areas. He confirmed that the [Russians] had blown up the Kakhovskaya HPP and called for them to leave the dangerous places as soon as possible.

The Nova Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine’s Kherson region was blown up by Russian forces, the South command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Tuesday.

“The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified,” the command said on its Facebook page.

Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.

In breaking news: Ukraine’s Southern Military command has accused Russia of “blowing up” the Nova Kakhovka dam near Kherson, “likely” causing flooding. The Guardian has not been able to verify the claim.

Unverified video footage shared on social media on Tuesday morning appeared to show a large amount of water flowing out of the dam.

The mayor of Nova Kahhovka, a city in Russia-controlled parts of the Ukrainian region of Kherson, denied social media reports that the dam was blown up, Russia’s state RIA news agency reported early on Tuesday.

Russian and Ukrainian social media reported widely in early hours on Tuesday that the dam was destroyed. Neither Reuters nor the Guardian have been able to independently verify the reports.

We’ll have more information shortly.

Here are the other key recent developments in the war:

• Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has confirmed that in some areas Kyiv’s forces are moving to “offensive actions”, heightening speculation that a counteroffensive is close to launch.

• Russia claimed to have repelled a “major offensive” in the Donetsk region and to have killed hundreds of Ukrainian troops, but the claims could not be independently verified. The defence ministry in Moscow said Ukraine had attacked with six mechanised and two tank battalions from two brigades.

• The ministry claimed 250 Ukrainian troops had been killed, and 16 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armoured personnel carriers destroyed. It also claimed that Valery Gerasimov, the Russian chief of general staff, had been near the frontlines when the attack was repelled. The Russian defence ministry has consistently made exaggerated claims about the casualties its forces have inflicted.

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed on Monday what he called “the news we have been waiting for” from troops in Bakhmut, but gave no further details. “I am grateful to each soldier, to all our defenders, men and women, who have given us today the news we have been waiting for. Fine job, soldiers in the Bakhmut sector!” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

• The US imposed sanctions on members of a Russian intelligence-linked group for their role in Moscow’s efforts to destabilise democracy and influence elections in Moldova, the Treasury department said. The sanctions target seven individuals, several of whom maintain ties to Russian intelligence services, the department said. They include the group’s leader, Konstantin Prokopyevich Sapozhnikov, who organised the plot to destabilise the government of Moldova, which borders Ukraine, earlier this year.

• The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, met with Zelenskiy in Kyiv. They discussed preparations for the Nato summit in Lithuania next month and Ukraine’s plan for ending Russia’s invasion. During the meeting, Cleverly said: “Ukraine will win this war and can count on our support.”

• Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, said three people were killed in the region yesterday as a result of Russian attacks.

• Two drones have fallen on the M3 Ukraine highway, in the Russian region of Kaluga, just south of Moscow, the region’s governor has said. There was no detonation and the sites have been cordoned off by investigators, said governor Vladislav Shapsha.

• Poland’s agriculture minister has received a draft regulation from the European Commission extending a ban on Ukrainian grain imports until 15 September, he said on Monday.

• Belgium will ask Ukraine for clarification on reports that rifles made in Belgium had been used by pro-Ukrainian forces to fight Russian troops inside Russia’s western border, Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo said on Monday.