Moscow and Kiev exchange blame for widely condemned dam attack

Russia and Ukraine blamed each other following an explosion that destroyed a major dam on the Dnipro River on Tuesday, with world leaders warning of a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe as the war took a major turn.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated and Russian authorities in occupied southern Ukraine have declared a state of emergency after the explosion at the Kakhovka dam and adjacent hydroelectric plant, but many in the West have blamed Moscow.

“This is obviously, by all accounts, an aggression on the part of Russia to stop the Ukrainian offensive to defend its country,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told RTL broadcaster in the strongest comments by a world leader.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the explosion of the Kakhovka dam was “another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.

He called the explosion a “monumental humanitarian, economic and ecological catastrophe” in a statement, but avoided blaming Russia directly.

An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council has been called and Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office in Kiev, has called for Russia to lose its seat on the body. Ukraine has also accused Russia of state terrorism before the highest court of the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of having destroyed the Kakhovka dam shortly before the meeting.

“The incident is a terrorist attack directed against deeply civilian infrastructure,” he said in a statement released on Tuesday.

He said Russia initiated the UN Security Council meeting to condemn the grave “humanitarian and ecological disaster” unleashed by Kiev. For its part, Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the dam.

The destruction of the dam in southern Ukraine was expected to occupy the United Nations Security Council in New York during an emergency meeting from 16:00 (2000 GMT), diplomatic sources told dpa.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had initially asked to be able to speak at the event via the Internet, but there was later mixed information as to whether it was still planned.

According to Moscow’s Foreign Ministry, the blast was a planned and targeted action by the Ukrainian military as part of its own counter-offensive.

Not only had Kiev fired at the dam, but it had also raised the water level to a critical level by opening a lock on the upper reaches of the Dnipro River ahead of time, he said. The rupture of the dam would damage agriculture and the ecosystem of the Kherson region and affect the water supply of the Crimea, according to Moscow’s indictment.

Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, gets its water from the Dnipro through a canal. While this was temporarily dried up after 2014, Russia also reopened the canal to Crimea for irrigation of the peninsula following the occupation of the Kakhovka dam.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg condemned the dam’s destruction as “an outrageous act”.

Zelensky likened the dam explosion to using a weapon of mass destruction.

“This is the largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe for decades,” he said remotely at a security conference in Bratislava.

Zelensky has rejected Kremlin claims that Ukraine destroyed the dam.

“Russia has controlled the Kakhovka dam with hydroelectric power station for more than a year and it is physically impossible to destroy it from the outside, by bombing,” he said.

About 17,000 residents of the Ukrainian-controlled bank of the Dnipro River alone needed to be rescued, Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General Viktoria Lytvynova said on television.

In addition, some 25,000 people on the south bank of the river, occupied by Russia, are also at risk.

Little information is currently available about their fate and the wider situation, with water released from the reservoir behind the dam cascading down the river.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the flood threatened as many as 80 cities. The dam is located about 30 kilometers east of the city of Kherson, which is held by Ukrainian forces.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said there is no immediate danger to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.

The Kakhovka dam explosion also caused at least 150 tons of machinery oil to spill into the Dnipro River, Ukrainian officials said, adding another 300 tons of oil was threatening the waterway.

The US government predicts “significant damage” to the Ukrainian people and the region following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.

“We know there are casualties, including likely many deaths, although these are early reports and we cannot quantify them at this time,” National Security Council communications director John Kirby said at the White House on Tuesday. “We can’t say definitively what happened at this point,” he added.

US President Joe Biden had been briefed on the events, he said.

The US government also stressed on Tuesday that Russia was in control of the hydroelectric plant during the explosion. “We’re doing our best to evaluate those reports,” Kirby clarified.

In addition to the loss of life, the destruction of the power plant could have a devastating impact on Ukraine’s energy security, he warned.