Retreating Russian army condemned for dam blast that risks N-plant disaster
VLADIMIR PUTIN’S retreating army was condemned for its ‘reckless’ attack on a large dam near the liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson last night, amid fears it could damage Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
Dramatic footage showed the moment fleeing Russian troops detonated explosives at a bridge that runs along the top of the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam.
Ukrainian experts last night warned that if the dam were destroyed, it would drain the huge Kakhovka reservoir, which supplies cooling water for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and the deluge would flood hundreds of thousands of homes. The nuclear plant is still under Russian occupation.
Russia’s retreat means the new front line is across the Dnipro river, and the attack on the dam was a grim reminder of the realities of war as residents of Kherson celebrated their new-found freedoms amid the ruins of the strategically important port city.
The chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, said that the dam, which was built in 1956, had been rigged up with explosives by Russians and the structure’s integrity was ‘inextricably’ linked to the safety of the nuclear power station.
A member of the Kherson regional government, Serhiy Khlan, said that the dam’s destruction threatens the reactor’s coolant system and could lead to catastrophe.
Yuriy Kostenko, a former Ukrainian government minister responsible for his country’s nuclear power, warned that without water from the dam’s reservoir the plant would face disaster. He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘When a tsunami wrecked the reactor cooling system at a large Japanese nuclear power station some years ago, disaster was only averted by bringing in a huge, mobile pumping facility, which used sea water for cooling.
‘I know that the Russians have explosives already in place at the dam. I believe that Nato has such a mobile pumping facility as was used in Japan and it should prepare to transport it here.’
Ukrainian government sources said many of the occupation forces and their families near the dam have been evacuated.
Mr Kostenko said that flooding would also destroy the pipeline that provides water to the mostly barren Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. He said: ‘If the Russians blew the dam they would harm their own people.’
The road over the dam was obliterated in Friday night’s attack. Water appeared to be seeping through yesterday but the dam is in an area still occupied by Russian forces and Ukrainian engineers said they were unable to access it to assess the full scale of the damage yesterday.
Benjamin Strick, a London-based analyst, said satellite images showed damage to ‘sections of the northern extent of the dam and sluice gates deliberately destroyed’. Breaching the dam would release a devastating tidal wave that authorities warned would kill hundreds or thousands and sweep away scores of villages. But intelligence chief Maj-Gen Budanov said it would need ‘tens of tons of properly placed explosives’ to destroy it.
Russian forces also blew up several bridges as they retreated to the east bank of the Dnipro river.
Some reports said desperate Russian soldiers drowned trying to swim across the Dnipro while others fired guns at comrades as they fought over the small boats.
Meanwhile, jubilant residents celebrated their new-found freedom amid the ruins of the strategically important port city. Phone and internet connections were restored, allowing people to phone worried relatives living outside the city for the first time in months.
A man called Andrew speaking to Sky News correspondent Alex Rossi described life under occupation as ‘horrible’, adding: ‘You never knew what to expect from them [the Russians] because one day they give you humanitarian aid and the next day they kill people and they arrest people and these people disappear.’
Ukrainian authorities warned that the Russians had left thousands of booby traps behind. Sappers were going house to house to disable them. Russian soldiers had scrawled ‘from Russia with love’ and ‘from a pure heart’ on two of the devices.