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Ukraine pins blame for dam collapse on Russian sabotage as thousands evacuate

CITY A.M. REPORTER

THOUSANDS of Ukrainian citizens were forced to flee their homes yesterday after a Soviet-era dam collapsed in the south of the country, with Ukraine blaming Russia for what one adviser to the country’s president called “a war crime”.

The Kakhovka dam, upstream from Kherson, fell away overnight with a resulting torrent of water flowing downriver, flooding a number of villages and threatening the city of Kherson.

Neither side was able to present concrete evidence of who was responsible, with Russian authorities eventually blaming Ukrainian shelling.

President Zelenskyy said Russia’s ‘terrorists’ had blown up the dam.

The UN said the dam’s collapse was a result of the Russian invasion, with one theory circulating on social media suggesting the Russians had failed to properly maintain the dam since seizing it last year.

The dam supplies water to much of Crimea, a vital agricultural hub, and also to the cooling tanks of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

Ukraine’s nuclear agency said there was a danger to the plant if water lev- els fell precipitously as water escaped the reservoir next to the dam –though the International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no immediate threat.

The sudden flooding of the region comes just as Ukrainian forces were said to be beginning a long-awaited counter offensive across eastern and southern Ukraine.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg came closest to pinning the blame on Russia, describing the dam collapse as “an outrageous act which once again demonstrates the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine”.

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