Ukraine
A week after the collapse of the Kakhovka Dam – for which Kiev blames Moscow – Russia is accused of blowing up a smaller dam in the Donetsk region
Monday 12 June 2023 at 12:11pm BST
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of destroying another dam to slow a counteroffensive by Kiev.
As rescue and relief efforts for the victims of the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station in the Kherson region reached their seventh day, the Russian military was accused of blowing up a much smaller dam along the Mokri Yaly River, which has become the most successful axis to date for Ukraine’s advances in western Donetsk.
Ukrainian troops have advanced south from the town of Velyka Novosilka on both sides of the river and have declared the liberation of a number of villages: Blahodatne on the east bank; Neskuchne, Makarivka and Storozheve on the west side.
The armed forces have released images showing their units waving flags in the villages they say have been recaptured. The claims could not be independently verified, but Russian military bloggers confirmed the Ukrainian advance and reported fierce fighting overnight and Monday morning along the next village, Urozhaine, on the east bank of the river, on the road southeast toward Mariupol.
Valeriy Shershen, a Ukrainian military spokesman for this sector of the front, told Ukrainska Pravda news agency that a dam upstream along the Mokri Yaly was blown up by occupying forces, causing flooding on both banks. Shershen said Russia’s goal was to “slow down Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” but claimed that had failed. The dam was apparently located in the village of Klyuchove, but its destruction could not be independently confirmed.
On Sunday, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar celebrated the announcement of the recent fall of the village of Storozheve, thanked the marines who recaptured it, and added: “It will be the same with every settlement until we liberate the entire Ukrainian land.”
The Ukrainian officials were otherwise cautious about the counter-offensive, apart from small territorial gains around Bakhmut on the northern Donetsk front. The villages along the Mokri Jaly River are the first settlements liberated after a week of counter-offensive, and Kiev has played a big part in capturing these small villages, knowing that Ukrainians are nervous after seeing videos of destroyed Ukrainian tanks and armored personnel carriers Vehicles from failed attacks have seen attacks farther west along the line, in Zaporizhia.
Ukrainian military officials have privately called for patience, noting that they have not yet deployed the bulk of Kiev’s 12-brigade western assault force into the battle.
“By the way, we haven’t moved our main forces yet,” wrote a Ukrainian officer from the Southern Front. “So there’s reason to believe in the best.”
Kiev is frustrated that western capitals have so far failed to issue verdicts on responsibility for the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. Officials have pointed out that it would have been nearly impossible for a structure meant to withstand a tactical nuclear bomb to be damaged enough by outside fire that it must therefore have been blown up from the inside, and that the Russians were in complete control of the time hydroelectric power station Kakhovka. The security service has released an audio clip in which two Russian soldiers are said to be talking about how a Russian sabotage unit was responsible.
Maliar said that after the disaster, Russia moved its troops from the left (eastern and southern) bank of the Dnipro in the Kherson region to other parts of the front line. She suggested that Russian forces blew up the dam to make it difficult for Ukrainian attacking forces to cross the flooded lower reaches of the Dnipro, thus shortening the front line to be defended.
Downstream of the destroyed dam, Ukrainian authorities said floodwaters were beginning to recede at a rate of up to 5 cm per hour. Meanwhile, the reservoir continued to drain upstream, leaving huge tidal flats and dead fish in its wake. According to officials in Kiev, more than 72% of the reservoir’s capacity, 14,395 cubic kilometers of water, had already been lost. In Nikopol, a city on the Ukrainian-controlled right (north) bank of the Dnipro across from the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the water had receded so far that it was impossible to determine its level.
Ukraine’s Environment Minister Ruslen Strilets said that despite the disappearance of the reservoir, the nuclear power plant has enough water to keep its reactor cores and spent fuel cool and prevent a meltdown.
“As for the power plant, the water level in the power plant’s ponds is stable and sufficient to meet the power plant’s needs. The situation is now under control,” Strilets said in a television interview.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will be in Ukraine this week and hopes to tour the nuclear power plant. Grossi said on Sunday that his experts would have to check for discrepancies in the measurements of the reservoir’s water level.
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