Ukraine: Critical dam on Ukraine frontline damaged, thousands evacuating

A huge dam in southern Ukraine collapsed Tuesday, triggering flooding, endangering crops in the nation’s granaries and threatening drinking water supplies as both sides in the war scrambled to evacuate residents.
Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up Nova The Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River in willful war crimes. The Kremlin said it was Ukraine that had sabotaged the dam, to distract from launching a major counteroffensive that Moscow said was faltering. Neither side is offering direct evidence as to who is to blame. The Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits the targeting of dams in war, because of the danger to civilians.
as water content rose South of the dam, residents in the town of Antonivka, about 64km downstream, recounted in horror as flood waters swept away carrying trees and debris from washed away houses. Ukrainian emergency crews rushed to evacuate the most vulnerable on the west side of the river, while conservationists warned that a long-term environmental disaster was unfolding. It is more difficult to assess what is happening on the east bank of the river under Russian control. The disaster came one day after US and Russian officials said a planned Ukrainian counteroffensive may have started east of the Dnipro in the Donetsk region.
The Kazkova Dibrova zoo on the banks of a Russian-controlled river was completely flooded and 300 animals died, a representative said. The dam supplies water to a wide area, including the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, as well as cools the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Russia has controlled the dam since the start of its 15-month invasion, although Ukrainian forces recaptured the Dnipro’s northern bank last year. Both sides have long accused the other of plotting to destroy the dam. “Russian terrorist,” President Zelensky said.
Russia had “detonated the structure internally”, he claimed. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called it an “outrageous act”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed “deliberate sabotage: by Ukraine. Previously, officials stationed in Russia had given conflicting reports, some saying the dam was hit by a Ukrainian missile overnight, others saying it exploded on its own due to previous damage.