Russian strike 'damaged' dam in eastern Ukraine

Photo: 4th Mechanized Brigade of Ukrainian Armed Forces/Agence France-Presse Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk region

Victoria Lukovenko – Agence France-Presse and Stanislav Doshchitsyn – Agence France-Presse in kyiv

Published at 1:53 p.m.

• Europe

A Russian strike has “damaged” a dam on a reservoir in eastern Ukraine, causing a river to rise and creating “a threat” of flooding for nearby towns, the regional governor said Monday.

“The Russians have damaged the dam on the Kurakhove reservoir,” in Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram. The damaged dam is near the village of Stari Terny.

“This attack poses a potential threat to residents of towns on the Vovcha River in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” he added.

The water level of the river near the village of Velyka Novosilka “has risen by 1.2 meters” but “no flooding has been reported so far,” the governor said.

The reservoir is located near the town of Kurakhove, which had 10,000 inhabitants before the war and is currently in the immediate vicinity of the front, in a sector where Russian troops have been advancing for weeks.

The head of the Kurakhove military administration, Roman Padun, told Ukrainian media that waters had risen in several villages downstream from the reservoir.

“We cannot confirm the type of damage or its severity,” the official added, as quoted by the Suspilne television website. “We cannot examine the dam because of the constant bombing,” he lamented.

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In June 2023, a massive Soviet-era dam in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region was partially destroyed, causing billions of liters of water to flow downstream and flooding dozens of villages on the banks of the Dnieper River.

Strikes on Ukrainian cities

kyiv accused Russia, whose troops controlled the dam at the time, of blowing it up to thwart a planned Ukrainian counteroffensive. Moscow, for its part, has accused Ukraine.

Dozens of people were killed in the floods that followed the rupture of this dam, which also caused significant environmental damage in southern Ukraine.

Russia, which began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, attacked the Ukrainian cities of Nikopol and Kryvyi Rig in the central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region on Monday, according to Ukrainian authorities.

In Nikopol, two people were killed and five others were injured by Russian artillery fire, regional governor Sergei Lysak said.

Earlier in the day, a Russian missile destroyed a section of a residential building in Kryvyi Rig, injuring at least 14 people in the industrial hub and hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, the governor said.

A woman and three children are believed to be under the rubble, Lysak said, adding that rescuers are continuing their work on the site.

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“Certainly it would not be a victory for the American leadership if Ukraine collapses and Putin wins the war,” he said.

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