The fields of southern Ukraine could “turn into deserts” by next year, the country’s agrarian and food ministry said after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and the draining of its reservoir, which had irrigated one of the world’s breadbaskets.
Ukrainian emergency services and aid organisations carried out a second day of rescue operations to help the 42,000 people estimated to be at immediate risk from flooding downstream of the dam, including making some forays to the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River to save people cut off in flooded towns.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the Russian occupation authorities were “not even trying to help people”.
“This once again demonstrates the cynicism with which Russia treats the people whose land it has captured,” Zelenskiy said.
The president also severely criticised the UN and the Red Cross who he said were not helping the relief effort.
Many hours after the disaster, “they aren’t here”, Zelenskiy told Bild, Die Welt and Politico. “We have had no response. I am shocked.”
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, urged the international humanitarian organisations to provide assistance on the occupied left bank.
“The Russian occupiers don’t even make an effort to help these people, they have left them to perish,” Shmyhal said in English in a video posted on Telegram. “We appeal to you to take charge of evacuating people from the territory of Kherson Oblast occupied by Russia. We must save the lives of people whom the occupiers have condemned to death.”
As Ukrainians along the Dnipro struggled to survive after the dam collapse, Ukraine’s ministry of agrarian policy and food predicted an even greater disaster next year, with global implications, as a result of the loss of the Kakhovka reservoir, one of the largest in Europe, and its impact on some of Ukraine’s most fertile regions.
The ministry said the loss of water in the reservoir and the four major canals it feeds would mean an almost complete loss of irrigation systems in the Kherson region, three-quarters lost in Zaporizhzhia, and one-third lost in Dnipropetrovsk.
“The destruction of the Kakhovskaya [dam] will mean that the fields in the south of Ukraine may turn into deserts as early as next year,” the ministry said in a statement.
The head of Ukraine’s hydroelectric corporation, Ihor Syrota, said the Kakhovka hydro power station had been totally destroyed and it would take five years to build a new one. The first priority, Syrota said, was to block off the dam as soon as the area was liberated, so the Kakhovka reservoir could begin to fill again, and provide the region with drinking water. While that was being done, the Dnipro’s waters would be held back by the dams further upstream.
“We will accumulate water in our upper reservoirs,” Syrota said. “Once we have freed up these areas, we will start damming and filling the Kakhovka reservoir and provide it with all the necessary water to mitigate this environmental disaster that we are witnessing today.”
As well as contamination from sewage systems, flooded cemeteries and industrial waste, Syrota said that the flood waters were carrying “at least 150 tonnes of oil” from the obliterated hydroelectric station alone, further raising the threat to health and the region’s ecology.
Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up the dam and deliberately flooding the lower Dnipro to create a water barrier to the Ukrainian counteroffensive. UN and EU leaders have agreed that Moscow bears ultimate responsibility but have so far not echoed the accusations of mining the structure. The White House has said it is still investigating, but US officials told NBC News they were leaning towards the Ukrainian version.
UK defence intelligence gave a noncommittal account on Wednesday, saying the dam had “partially failed” shortly before 3am on Tuesday, and that by midday “the entire eastern portion of the dam and much of the hydro and utilities infrastructure was swept away”. The wording left unclear why the dam had collapsed, whether it was done deliberately or had succumbed to structural weakness. Satellite photos show it had sustained minor damage four to five days prior to the breach.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to propose the creation of an international commission to investigate the causes of the dam’s collapse.
Callout
The dam was breached on the second day of Ukrainian attacks along the frontline in what is widely seen as the preliminary stages of a potentially pivotal Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The flooding in the lower Dnipro is likely to have stymied any Ukrainian plans to mount a cross-river attack in the Kherson region, but elsewhere fighting raged at multiple points along the frontline.
There were reports from Russian military bloggers of intense Ukrainian attacks on Russian frontline positions south of the city of Zaporizhzhia, around the town of Orikhiv. Mikhail Zvinchuk, who blogs as Rybar, said Ukrainian forces had made two assaults on the village of Lobkove. He said Ukraine had a reserve force nearby, standing by, suggesting it could evolve into a major battle.
The Ukrainian military has been tight-lipped about the fighting but on Wednesday, Oleksandr Syrskyi, the ground forces commander, claimed on Telegram that his troops were making progress on the flanks of Bakhmut, a north Donetsk city taken by Russian forces in May after nine months of fighting. Syrskyi accompanied the claim with helmet video said to be from Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Division, advancing under fire through a wooded area and arriving at a set of, presumably Russian, trenches.
The Russian war journalist and propagandist Semyon Pegov said Ukrainian troops were on the offensive around Berkhivka, north of Bakhmut, and Klishchiivka, on the south side of the city.
In the western Donetsk region, Ukrainian forces reportedly kept up attacks south of the town of Velyka Novosilka, but it was unclear if they had made gains. Alexander Khodakovsky, the head of the Moscow-backed Donbas militia, the Vostok Battalion, said heavy fighting was under way for the village of Novodonetske, which Ukrainian forces took on Monday. According to his account, small-scale Ukrainian forays were being held at bay by Russian artillery.
Kyiv-backed Russian rebel forces still had a foothold inside the Russian region of Belgorod on Wednesday after a week of fighting against army troops. The fighting was centred on the village of Nova Tavolzhanka and the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that the town of Shebekino and surrounding area had come under Ukrainian rocket fire.
