The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, located on the Dnieper River in the Kherson region, was blown up early this morning. Russian officials are reporting flooding downstream of the dam and evacuations of settlements on the left bank. “At the moment the Kakhovka HPP (Hydroelectric Power Plant) ... continues to collapse, water is being discharged uncontrollably,” Novaya Kakhovka Mayor Vladimir Leontyev told Rossiya 1 TV, reported TASS. Ukrainian forces shelled the Kakhovka HPP in the early morning hours on Tuesday, presumably using missiles fired from an Olkha multiple-launch rocket system (a Ukrainian development of the Soviet-era Smerch system—ed.). Slide gate valves on the plant’s dam collapsed as a result of the shelling, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water.
Imagery published on the Intel Slava Z Telegram channel shows that the flooding downstream of the dam is mainly on the left bank, that is, the Russian controlled side, but the city of Kherson, some 65-70 km downstream from the dam and controlled by the Kiev regime, has also been flooded. Russian authorities are evacuating a number of settlements on the left bank, immediately below the dam. “According to the latest data, six hundred houses in three settlements of the Novaya Kakhovka district are flooded, the state of emergency has been declared,” a source in the emergency services told TASS.