• Tens of thousands are at risk from flooding in Russian and Ukrainian controlled areas along the Dnipro River after Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed.

• Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the collapse of the massive dam, which sent floodwaters across a swathe of Ukraine’s war zone and forced thousands to flee.

• The dam breach adds a complex new element to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month, just as Ukrainian forces appeared to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive. 

• Ukraine said Russia committed a deliberate war crime in blowing up the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam, which powered a hydroelectric station. 

• The Kremlin blamed Ukraine, saying it was trying to distract from the launch of a major counteroffensive that Russia says is faltering.

• UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that the dam breach will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the front line through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods.

• The dam supplies water to a wide area of southern Ukrainian farmland, including the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, as well as cooling the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

Strategic location

• The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant is located in the city of Nova Kakhovka, on the left bank of the mighty Dnipro River, in a part of Ukraine’s Kherson region that remains under Russian occupation. 

• It was captured by Russian forces in the early stages of the invasion, along with the nearby Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility. 

• Built in the Soviet-era, Kakhovka is one of six dams along the Dnipro, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.  

• The Kakhovka dam – the one furthest downstream – is the only one under Russian control.

The flooding tactic

• Contemporary history offers many examples of the destruction of dams and floods in Europe for defensive and offensive purposes.

• In 1941, the Soviet Union blew up a huge dam in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia to slow the German advance.

• In May 1943, the British Royal Air Force bombed German dams in the Ruhr valley, the country’s industrial heartland.

• Carried out by the RAF squadron 617, this operation destroyed two of three dams and damaged the third.

• The flooding tactic was also practised in the First World War.

• In the autumn of 1914, during the Battle of Yser, French and Belgian forces unleashed floods to slow the advance of German troops who were attempting to cross the Yser River toward Dunkirk.

• The flooding was orchestrated by tampering with the system of locks in Nieuwpoort, which regulates the influx of seawater and drainage to flood plains.

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