A Russian strike “damaged” a dam on a reservoir in eastern Ukraine, causing water levels to rise on a river and creating “a threat” of flooding to neighboring communities, the governor said Monday regional.
“The Russians damaged the Kurakhové reservoir dam” in the Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram. The damaged dam is located near the village of Stari Terny.
“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 “rose by 1.2 meters” but “no flooding has been reported so far,” the governor said.
This reservoir is located near the town of Kurakhové, which had 10,000 inhabitants before the war and is currently located in the immediate vicinity of the front, in an area where Russian troops have been advancing for weeks.
The head of the Kurakhové military administration, Roman Padoune, told Ukrainian media that the waters had risen in several villages downstream of the reservoir.
“We cannot confirm the type of damage, nor their seriousness,” added this official, however, quoted by the Suspilné television site. “We cannot examine the dam due to incessant bombing,” he lamented.
In June 2023, a huge dam dating from the Soviet era located in the Kherson region (southern Ukraine) was partially destroyed, leading to the spilling of billions of liters of water downstream and the flooding of dozens of villages on the banks of the Dnieper River.
Strikes on Ukrainian cities
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.
Russia, which began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, attacked the Ukrainian towns of Nikopol and Kryvyi Rig, in the Dnipropetrovsk region (center-east), on Monday, according to Ukrainian authorities.
In Nikopol, two people were killed and five others were injured by Russian artillery fire, regional governor Serguii Lysak said.
Earlier in the day, a Russian missile destroyed a section of a residential building in Kryvyi Rig, injuring at least 14 people in this industrial center, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the governor.
A woman and three children are probably under the rubble, Mr. Lyssak said, adding that rescuers are continuing their work on the site.
These strikes occurred during the visit to Ukraine by the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, who himself had to go into a bomb shelter in kyiv due to an attack on the capital.
“I start my day in kyiv in the shelter, as Russia launches another missile attack. This is the daily reality of the Ukrainian people,” he wrote on X.
Donald Trump’s victory in the American presidential election has caused concern in Ukraine and Europe, the Republican having been very critical of Washington’s aid to kyiv.
A victory for Russia in the war against Ukraine would represent a failure for the United States, Josep Borrell warned on Monday in an interview with AFP.
“Certainly it would not be a victory for American leaders if Ukraine collapses and Putin wins the war,” he said.
The American newspaper New York Times for its part affirmed that Moscow had massed 50,000 soldiers including North Koreans to try to dislodge the Ukrainian troops controlling part of the Russian border region of Kursk for three months.
