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Russian and Ukrainian officials hurled blame at each other over the collapse Tuesday of a major dam in southern Ukraine — an incident that quickly triggered floods, threatened drinking water and added a vexing new dimension to the war amid signs that a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive to Russia’s invasion is underway.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy charged that “Russian occupiers” controlling the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper River had deliberately destroyed both, unleashing the “largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.”
“It was mined by the Russian occupiers and they blew it up,” Mr. Zelenskyy tweeted, after the collapse sent water surging through towns and villages and into the city of Kherson about 20 miles downstream from the dam.
“Russia has detonated a bomb of mass environmental destruction,” the Ukrainian president said.
Moscow denied the allegation, with the Russian-installed head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, accusing Ukrainian forces of striking the facilities with a missile attack. He claimed the strike had triggered a “large but, but not critical” amount of water to flow down the Dnipro river.
It was not possible to reconcile the conflicting claims. The dam is situated in one of the most territorially contested areas of the war and provides water to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, as well as to the cooling systems of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
In Kherson, a woman who gave her name only as Tetyana waded through thigh-deep water to reach her flooded house and rescue her dogs. They were standing on any dry surface they could find, but one pregnant dog was missing. “It’s a nightmare,” she kept repeating, according to The Associated Press.
A satellite photo by Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press showed a nearly 2,000-foot section of the dam’s wall missing.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation a “monumental humanitarian, economic and ecological catastrophe” and “another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
The collapse, long feared by both sides, adds fresh complexity to Russia’s war, now in its 16th month.
Ukrainian forces have widely been seen during recent days to be moving ahead with a long-anticipated counteroffensive, focused on patches of territory along more than 621 miles of front line in Ukraine’s east and south.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu charged Tuesday that Ukraine had destroyed the Kakhovka dam to prevent potential Russian attacks in the Kherson region after what he alleged was a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Mr. Shoigu claimed Ukraine had lost 3,715 troops and 52 tanks since Sunday, and — in a rare acknowledgment of Russia’s own losses — said 71 Russian troops were killed and 210 wounded. Ukraine followed its standard practice of not commenting on its casualties.
For months, Ukrainian officials have spoken of plans to launch the counteroffensive to reclaim territory Russia has occupied since invading the country on Feb. 24, 2022, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
