KHERSON, Ukraine (Reuters): A pier in the city of Kherson went under water on Tuesday (June 6) after the Nova Kakhovka dam further up the Dnipro River was breached.
A local resident told Reuters the water level in one of the Dnipro River’s tributaries in Kherson had risen by one meter.
Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up the dam from the inside in a deliberate war crime. Russian-installed officials gave conflicting accounts, some blaming Ukrainian shelling, others saying the dam had burst on its own.
The Nova Kakhovka dam supplies water to Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, both under Russian control.
The vast reservoir behind it is one of the main geographic features of southern Ukraine, 240 km (150 miles) long and up to 23 km (14 miles) wide. A swathe of countryside lies in the flood plain below.
The destruction of the dam creates a new humanitarian disaster in the center of the war zone and transforms the front lines just as Ukraine is unleashing a long-awaited counteroffensive to drive Russian troops from its territory.
Russia has controlled the dam since early in the war, although Ukrainian forces recaptured the northern side of the river last year. Both sides had long accused the other of planning to destroy it.
