Ukrainian military: Russian forces blow up Kakhovka dam.

Ukraine's Southern Operational Command reported[1] early on June 6 that Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. "The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified," the military said on their official Facebook page. Earlier, a few monitoring Telegram groups started sharing video of what looked like damaged Kakhovka dam. Moscow-installed official in the city of Nova Kakhovka in the Russian-controlled parts of the Kherson region denied it.

"Everything is quiet and calm, there is nothing at all," RIA Novosti, one of Russia's state-owned news agencies, cited the mayor, Vladimir Leontiev as saying. He later said that only "the upper part of the power plant" has been damaged, but the dam itself is intact. In November 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky said[2] that any attempt by Russian forces to blow up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, flooding Ukrainian territory and dewatering the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would mean that Russia is "declaring war on the whole world."

Zelensky's warning then came after General Sergey Surovikin, head of Russian forces in Ukraine, said Kyiv planned to flood the area below the Kakhovka power plant. On Oct.

22, the Institute for the Study of War reported that Russia would likely try to blow up the dam[3] at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant to cover its withdrawal and "prevent Ukraine's forces from pursuing Russian forces deeper into Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast." The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine was captured in the initial push of Russia's 2022 invasion.

It has strategic importance, supplying the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula with water. Located on the Dnipro River, the dam is one of the biggest facilities of its kind in Ukraine.

Russia reports Ukrainian ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast in possible launch of counteroffensive In the early hours of June 5, the first announcement of what looks like it could be the start of a large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive came from an unusual source.

At 1:31 a.m. Kyiv time, the Russian Defense Ministry, which famously floundered in silence in response to Ukraine's

Development manager, Canadian correspondent

Olena Goncharova is a development manager and Canadian correspondent for the Kyiv Independent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper's Canadian correspondent in June 2018.

She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master's degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months.

The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

References

1. ^ reported (m.facebook.com)
2. ^ said (kyivindependent.com)
3. ^ try to blow up the dam (kyivindependent.com)
4. ^ Russia reports Ukrainian ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast in possible launch of counteroffensiveIn the early hours of June 5, the first announcement of what looks like it could be the start of a large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive came from an unusual source.

   At 1:31 a.m.

   Kyiv time, the Russian Defense Ministry, which famously floundered in silence in response to Ukraine's (kyivindependent.com)