Floodwaters from bombed Ukrainian damn are 'detonating Russian mines and washing them into Russian lines'
7 June 2023, 12:24
Waters continue to swell in southern Ukraine after dam breach
Residents in southern Ukraine are braced for a second day of swelling floodwaters as authorities warned that a Dnieper River dam breach would continue to unleash pent-up waters from a giant reservoir.
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Officials said the waters are expected to rise following Tuesday's dramatic rupture of the Kakhovka dam, about 44 miles to the east of the city of Kherson, but are not flowing with the same speed and intensity.
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam and adjoining hydroelectric power station, which sits in an area Moscow has controlled for more than a year.
Russian officials blamed Ukrainian bombardment in the contested area, where the river separates the two sides.
Speaking to Martin Stanford on LBC News, New Zealand-based journalist Tom Mutch warned of some unexpected fall-out.
He warned the rising water level was also “damaging Russian positions” as well as Ukrainian ones.
He praised the Ukrainian evacuation efforts saying they appeared to have gone well but warned on the Russian side the flooding was close to a minefield.
“The flooding is detonating a bunch of mines, in other cases it’s carrying live munitions down the river which could easily wash into Russian fortifications.”
Residents sloshed through knee-deep waters in their inundated homes as videos posted on social media showed rescue workers carrying people to safety, and an aerial video of waters filling the streets of Russian-controlled Nova Kakhovska on the eastern side of the river.
In Ukrainian-controlled areas on the western side, Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of Kherson Regional Military administration, said in a video that water levels are expected to rise by another 3ft over the next 20 hours.
"The intensity of floods is slightly decreasing; however, due to the significant destruction of the dam, the water will keep coming," he said.
The UK's Ministry of Defence, which regularly issues updates about the war, said the Kakhovka reservoir was at "record high" water levels before the breach.
While the dam was not entirely washed away, the MoD warned that its structure "is likely to deteriorate further over the next few days, causing additional flooding".
Together with the power station, the dam helps provide electricity, irrigation and drinking water to a wide section of southern Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Government and UN officials have warned of a human and ecological disaster whose repercussions will take days to assess and far longer to recover from.
The dam break, which both sides had long feared, added a new dimension to Russia's war, now in its 16th month.
Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 621 miles of front line in the east and south.
