Flooding in Ukraine Following Dam Demolition on Demarcation Line

Ukraine announced that the flooding would deprive hundreds of thousands of people of access to drinking water, submerge tens of thousands of hectares of arable land, and turn others into deserts.

“If the water rises another meter, we will lose our house,” said Oleksandr Reva, in a village on the riverbank, who was moving his family’s belongings to an abandoned neighbor’s house on higher ground.

Mutual Accusations Between Russia and Ukraine

Each side accused the other of continuing to bombard the flooded area and warned of drifting landmines unearthed by the floods. Residents of the flooded area in the south of the country blamed the dam’s rupture on Russian troops who controlled it from their positions on the opposite bank.

Russia imposed a state of emergency in the parts of Kherson province it controls, where many towns and villages are located in lowlands below the dam. Locals told Reuters by phone that Russian troops patrolling the streets in waders threatened civilians who approached.

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Impacts on Agriculture and Energy

The empty reservoir provides cooling water for Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia upstream. The UN’s nuclear watchdog agency said the plant should have enough water to cool its reactors for “a few months” from a separate pond.

The Dnipro River, which runs through Ukraine, forms the front line in the south. The vast reservoir behind the dam was one of Ukraine’s main geographical features, and its waters irrigated large parts of one of the world’s largest grain exporters, including Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.

“The full extent of the disaster will only be realized in the coming days,” UN humanitarian aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council.

The destruction of dams during wartime is explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. Neither party has presented public evidence demonstrating who was responsible.