A Russian strike ‘damaged’ a dam on a reservoir in eastern Ukraine. The damage is causing a significant rise in water levels on a river, creating ‘a threat’ of flooding for neighboring communities, the local governor said on Monday.
‘The Russians damaged the Kurakhové reservoir dam,’ Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram. ‘This attack potentially threatens residents of localities located on the Vovcha River in the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions,’ he added.
The water level of this river near the village of Velyka Novossilka ‘has risen by 1.2 meters’ but ‘no flooding has been reported so far,’ the governor said. This reservoir is located near the town of Kurakhové, in the immediate vicinity of the front, in an area where Russian troops have approached from the east in recent weeks.
Attack on another dam in 2023
In June 2023, a huge Soviet-era dam in the southern Kherson region was partially destroyed, spilling billions of liters of water downstream and flooding dozens of villages along the river. banks of the Dnieper River.
kyiv accused Russia, whose troops controlled the dam at the time, of blowing it up to thwart a planned Ukrainian counter-offensive. Moscow, for its part, accused Ukraine.
Dozens of people were killed in floods following the dam failure, which also caused significant environmental damage in southern Ukraine.
/ATS
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