The occupiers blew up the Kakhovka HPP at night, and the water level critically rose. More than 80 settlements, including the city of Kherson, came in the zone of rapid flooding.
The Kahovka hydroelectric power station provides electricity to over 3 million people in Ukraine and is a crucial part of the country’s energy infrastructure.
Kherson journalist Kostyatyn Ryzhenko was the first who published footage of the aftermath this morning.
Later, information about the explosion was reported by military officials and the Ministry of the Interior of Ukraine.
Around 06:00 a.m., the spokesman of the “South” operational command, Colonel Vladyslav Nazarov, confirmed that the Russian occupying forces blew up the hydroelectric power station.
“Yes. There is damage to the Kakhovska HPP. It is not destroyed, but still they are. We are looking for information. There is no tsunami,” his first messages read.
Subsequently, he stated that the data on the damage was confirmed, and therefore appealed to the residents of the left bank of the Kherson region with a call for immediate evacuation.
The head of the Kherson regional administration Oleksandr Prokudin said that critical flooding will begin in 1-3 hours, and the population in the Kherson region must be evacuated immediately.
The chairman Oleksandr Prokudin announced the evacuation and that in five hours the flooding will begin.
At 07:10 a.m. the spokeswoman of the Command Center “South” Natalia Humenyuk reports that Rashists blew up a part of the Kakhovska hydroelectric power station. The main flooding will go to the left bank because it is lower. The critical level will come in five hours. People on buses are being evacuated.
It is very dangerous on the left bank of the city of Kherson, in particular for Korabelny district!
Humenyuk also admitted that regarding the Zaporizhzhya NPP, the situation is currently under control, but the impact of the Kakhovskaya HPP will be as water withdrawal was taken for cooling.
That there will be a lack of water for Crimea.
It will flood the positions of the russian occupiers on the left bank.
As for stopping or “patching” the water breakthrough, Natalia Gumenyuk says it will probably not be possible, since it is occurred at the occupied territory.
Meantime, the russian occupiers openly declare, that they have destroyed the Kakhovska hydroelectric plant.
According to the statement of supporters of the occupiers, the hydraulic structure was hitted at 02:45 a.m., “one wing was destroyed and a cascading destruction began under the pressure of the water.” And already at 03:10 a.m. in the imagination of propagandists, “Kakhovka HPP ceased to exist.” Moreover, the Russians even began to publish maps of possible flooding.
This morning, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi has announced the extraordinary meeting of the National Defense and Security Council of Ukraine.
08:00 a.m.: The water in the Kakhovka Reservoir falls rapidly, about 15 cm per hour; According to estimates of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, it will take approximately 5 hours when the water reaches a critical level.
08:30 a.m.: The Ukrainian state nuclear power company Energoatom released the following statement: “The water level in the Kakhovsky reservoir is rapidly decreasing, which is an additional threat to the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. AT the same time, the IAEA reports that it is “aware of damage at Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam; IAEA experts at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant are closely monitoring the situation; no immediate nuclear safety risk at plant.”
09:00 a.m. Nova Kakhovka Zoo was flooded, reports say. All animals died.
10:00 a.m.: the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal announced the following: “As a result of the explosion of the Kakhovska HPP, there is a threat of flooding up to 80 settlements.”
“We are assessing the consequences for the environment and the threat to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. Due to the lack of access to it, such an assessment is difficult,” he said.
Shmyhal also emphasized that the destruction of the Kakhovska HPP is a terrorist act on the part of Russia, which bears full responsibility for it. The destruction of the hydroelectric power station threatens the ecological disaster for the South of Ukraine.
10:30 a.m. The Ministry of Internal Affairs reports that at this moment, 742 people have already been evacuated in the Kherson Oblast.
“The situation is complicated by the fact that some roads are washed away. This makes it impossible to travel to certain settlements. Evacuation groups are looking for other ways,” the report said.
About 80 settlements are in the zone of potential flooding. Most of them are temporarily occupied by the russian forces.
11:00 a.m. No water supply reported in Kerch, occupied Crimea.
Russians blew up the Kakhovka HPP remotely, there are facts and evidence, – Yusov
01:00 p.m. “It is clear that there will be accurate estimates of the power of the explosion, how much explosives it needed. It will all be calculated. But there are irrefutable facts that ruscists moved explosives and equipment to carry out a controlled remote explosion. They have been made public more than once,” said Andriy Yusov, representative of the Defence Intelligence.
04:00 p.m. Ukraine calls on extraordinary UNSC meeting on the Kakhovka HPP disaster.
To remind, water from Kakhovka Reservoir is cooling the 5.7 GW Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and also sent via the North Crimean Canal and Dnieper–Kryvyi Rih Canal to irrigate large areas of southern Ukraine and northern Crimea.
Back to 2022, on 11 November, russian occupation forces undermined part of the Kahovka dam. A large explosion occurred on the dam. The road and rail sections were destroyed, but the dam itself remained mostly undamaged.
Blowing up Dniproges by Soviet troops in the evening of August 18, 1941. Stalin himself gave the decision to blow up the Dnipro GESu dam and blamed the Germans (on the right photo below).
Putin repeated Stalin’s war crime and gave the order to blow up the Kakhovskaya HPP at 02.35 am. On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 the Kakhovskaya HPP was blown up (on the left photo below).
It threatens to flood everything downstream, including Kherson, hundreds of thousands of people will be affected, and Crimea will remain without water for at least 10-15 years.
Tags: Kherson oblast russia ukraine war
