A satellite image shows a roadway and section of Nova Khakovka dam in south Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will urgently convene his Security Council on June 7, 2023 after an explosion at the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in the south of the country. Photo: AFP
A vast Soviet-era dam in the Russian controlled part of southern Ukraine has been blown up unleashing a flood of water across the war zone, according to both Ukrainian and Russian forces.
The dam holds an 18 km3 reservoir, which supplies water to Russia's Crimean peninsula and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.
Russian news agencies said the dam, controlled by Russian forces, had been destroyed in shelling while a Russian-installed official said it was a terrorist attack – Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.
There was no "critical danger" to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia facility - Europe's largest nuclear plant - Russia's TASS state agency cited a Moscow-backed official in the Zaporizhzhia region as saying.
A Russia-installed head of the Kherson region said evacuation near the dam had begun.
Ukraine's military said that Russian forces blew up the dam.
"The Kakhovka (dam) was blown up by the Russian occupying forces," the South command of Ukraine's Armed Forces said on Tuesday on its Facebook page.
"The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified."
Unverified videos on social media showed a series of intense explosions around the Kakhovka dam. Other videos showed water surging through the remains of the dam with bystanders expressing their shock, sometimes in strong language.
The dam, 30m tall and 3.2km (two miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro river as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
Moscow has repeatedly blamed Kyiv for attacks on the dam and the threat of it being blown up was cited as one of the main reasons for an eventual pullout of Russian forces from the city of Kherson to the left bank of the Dnepr River.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold an emergency meeting over the Nova Kakhova dam blast in southern Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said on Twitter on Tuesday.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify the battlefield accounts from either side.
New air strikes, reports of counter-offensive beginning
Meanwhile, Russia launched a new wave of overnight air strikes on Kyiv and Ukraine said its air defence systems downed more than 20 cruise missiles on their approach to the city.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports and it was unclear whether any of the latest fighting marked the beginning of Ukraine's long-anticipated counter-offensive.
Ukrainian officials have made no mention of any broad, significant new campaign, although in his nightly address on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was enigmatic, hailing "the news we have been waiting for" and forward moves in Bakhmut in Donetsk.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24 last year in what the Kremlin expected to be a swift operation, but its forces suffered a series of defeats and regrouped in the country's east.
Tens of thousands of Russian troops dug in over the winter, besieging Bakhmut for months and bracing for an expected Ukrainian counter-attack to try to cut Russia's so-called land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula.
Russia said it thwarted a major Ukrainian attack in the Donetsk region over the weekend and on Tuesday the defence ministry said a fresh Ukrainian assault had also been repelled.
Russian forces inflicted huge personnel losses on attacking Ukrainian forces and destroyed 28 tanks, including eight Leopard main battle tanks and 109 armoured vehicles, it said. Total Ukrainian losses amounted to 1500 troops.
"Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganised the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate consolidated units, which continued offensive operations," the ministry said on Telegram.
"A complex fire defeat was inflicted by army forces, assault and operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery, as well as heavy flamethrower systems."
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv about Russia's assertions. Russia and Ukraine have often made claims of inflicting heavy human losses on each other which could not be verified.
The Washington Post reported that some US officials thought Ukraine's counter-offensive was underway, but White House national security spokesperson John Kirby declined to comment on whether this was the case.
"I'm not going to be talking for the Ukrainian military," he told a briefing, adding that the United States had done "everything we could ... to make sure that they had all the equipment, the training, the capabilities to be successful."
The success or failure of a counteroffensive, expected to be waged with billions of dollars worth of advanced Western weaponry, is likely to influence the shape of future Western diplomatic and military support for Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Reuters on Monday that Ukraine now had enough weapons for a counteroffensive but declined to comment when asked whether it had begun.
In its evening report on Monday, Ukraine's General Staff made no mention of any large-scale offensive, nor did it suggest any deviation from the usual tempo or scope of fighting along front lines that have not changed significantly for months.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram that Ukraine was "shifting to offensive actions" along parts of the front but dismissed suggestions of a major operation.
Writing on Telegram, Russia's Wagner militia leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said Moscow's claims of huge Ukrainian losses were "simply wild and absurd science fiction".
Russia now controls at least 18 percent of internationally recognised Ukrainian territory and has claimed four more regions of Ukraine as Russian territory after annexing Crimea in 2014.
- Reuters
* This story was edited inappropriately and has been corrected. RNZ is concerned and takes this matter extremely seriously. We are investigating and have taken appropriate action.
A previous version referred to the “Russian-speaking head of the Kherson region” instead of “A Russian-installed official”.
It also previously said: “Russian news agencies said the dam had been destroyed in shelling, while the mayor of Russia-controlled Nova Kahhovka city was quoted as blaming an act of terrorism by Ukraine.” This has now been changed back to the words supplied by Reuters: “Russian news agencies said the dam, controlled by Russian forces, had been destroyed in shelling while a Russian-installed official said it was a terrorist attack – Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.