Researchers say environmental impact from Kakhovka dam explosion comparable to Chornobyl nuclear disaster The destruction of a large Ukrainian dam in 2023 triggered a “toxic timebomb” of environmental harm, a study has found Lakebed sediments holding 83,000 tonnes of heavy metals were exposed when the Kakhovka dam was blown up one year into Russia’s invasion, researchers found. Less than 1% of these “highly toxic” heavy metals – which include lead, cadmium and nickel – are likely to have been released when the reservoir drained, the scientists found. They said the remaining pollutants would leach into rivers as rains wore down the sediment, threatening human health in a region where river water is widely used to make up for shortages in municipal water supplies. said the scale of the environmental impacts was comparable to the Chornobyl nuclear disaster “All these pollutants that were deposited on the bottom can accumulate in different organisms and spread from vegetation to animals to humans,” said Shumilova a scientist at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries “Its consequences can be compared to the effects of radiation.” The researchers linked on-the-ground measurements with remote sensing data and hydrology models to map the environmental impacts of the dam’s destruction which flooded the region and killed 84 people They estimated water from the breach killed 20-30% of floodplain rodents They said the reservoir released 9,000-17,000 tonnes of phytoplankton each day in the first week after the dam was blown up driving an increase in water turbidity that led to the “probable loss” of 10,000 tonnes of macroinvertebrates The destruction of natural life detailed in the study appears to contrast with the striking images of wildlife that has returned to the reservoir since the dam burst White willows and black poplars have reforested the land and wild boars and other animals have taken over areas that people still avoid The researchers expect that the area will reach a level of biodiversity equivalent to 80% of an undammed ecosystem within five years it’s better to use a word such as re-establish,” said Shumilova “It means that it will develop its own way but not necessarily to the initial conditions.” The Kakhovka dam, which was built in the 1950s on the Dnipro River, was destroyed on 6 June 2023 while under Russian occupation. Its reservoir supplied water to cool the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and irrigate southern Ukraine 1:08Before and after Nova Kakhovka dam collapse in Ukraine – videoUkrainian ecologists have debated whether the dam should be rebuilt after the war – and how much land should be flooded if it is – with some arguing for the new ecosystem to be left alone as part of a growing movement to rewild human-disturbed areas Shumilova said that the unresolved question of heavy metal contamination complicated this approach because it was unclear whether the vegetation was enough to keep the exposed sediments in place “It’s still something that people have to investigate,” she said it’s difficult because of the war – it’s difficult for scientists to go there to take samples and conduct experiments.” Free weekly newsletterThe planet's most important stories Get all the week's environment news - the good Shumilova, a Berlin-based researcher whose home town of Mykolaiv was cut off from water for a full month at the start of the war said the study findings were relevant for peacetime removals of large dams as well as for other wars between industrialised countries Water has repeatedly been used as a weapon of war in Ukraine, with attackers and defenders having blown up dams for military gain. Legal scholars say the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which Ukraine blames on Russia could constitute an environmental war crime a law researcher at the East West University in Bangladesh who has published research on the legal consequences of the Kakhovka dam’s destruction said the new findings “suggest that the damage is ‘widespread fulfilling one of the key requirements for an environmental war crime” But he added that the speed of the ecosystem’s recovery could affect the strength of the case “If the recovery is faster – and if that was anticipated by the perpetrator while attacking – that may compromise the finding of ‘long-term’ damage in the context of environmental war crime.” Last month, a separate study exploring the effects of the Kakhovka dam destruction on the Black Sea ecosystems observed some habitats and species replenishing but found “significant habitat destruction disturbances and pollutant damages remain” an ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution and co-author of the study estuarine and marine species “evolved under conditions of longtime flux” This “may aid their resilience and recovery” This article was amended on 17 March 2025 because an earlier version referred to Shah Maruf as a law researcher at the University of Dhaka; he has now moved to the East West University in Bangladesh Create your free account to receive personalised content alerts and Re:action our weekly newsletter of the top chemical science stories handpicked from a range of magazines journals and websites alongside insight and analysis from our expert editorial team Tell us what you think. Take part in our reader survey By Julia Robinson2025-03-18T09:30:00+00:00 The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine exposed large quantities of heavy metals that pose a ‘largely overlooked’ threat to surrounding ecosystems Researchers who analysed pollution associated with the dam’s destruction say that the protection of dams in military zones should be a priority concern given the potential long-term impact on both people and the environment The Kakhovka dam, located upstream of the city of Kherson on the Dnipro river, collapsed in June 2023 following a suspected explosion. Ukraine and its allies have blamed Russia for blowing up the dam while Russia has denied responsibility. The extensive flooding along the lower Dnipro River that followed resulted in thousands of people being evacuated from their homes and the deaths of at least 58 people The destruction of the Kakhovka dam drained a large reservoir system exposing a large area of sediment containing toxic heavy metals While the economic and societal impacts of the dam’s collapse have been widely reported assessments of the long-term environmental effects and threats to human health have been hindered by ongoing combat in the area remote sensing data and hydrodynamic modelling with insights from dam removal practices flood hazard assessment and analysis of ecosystem reestablishment to understand the scale of the catastrophe The team also outlines possible approaches for reestablishing the damaged ecosystem ‘When the disaster happened a lot of scientists were giving different opinions, and also a lot of myths emerged about what was happening there,’ explains Oleksandra Shumilova a river scientist based at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin ‘The aim of our [research] was to [carry out] a scientifically based comprehensive assessment of what was happening.’ Draining the reservoir exposed sediments covering an area of 1944km2 The researchers found that destruction of the dam had resulted in substantial erosion habitat destruction and the death of large quantities of fish and other organisms. they revealed that before the dam collapsed large quantities of pollutants from industrial and agricultural sources – including heavy metals nitrogen and phosphorus – had accumulated in a thick layer of sediment settled on the bottom of the reservoir The team’s models suggest that when the dam was breached two waves produced a surge of water both up- and downstream rapidly draining the reservoir and exposing as much as 1.7km3 of polluted sediment The researchers estimate that this sediment contains up to 83,300 tonnes of highly toxic heavy metals which they describe as a ‘toxic time bomb’ Less than 1% of the pollution has likely been released into the surrounding areas so far surface runoff during rainfall events and seasonal floods will continue to mobilise the pollutants. Shumilova says that the threats posed by the release of these heavy metals – both ecological and to human health – have been overlooked ‘There are different discussions going on but there is no mention of this issue at all,’ says Shumilova ‘People argue that this area should be left to be colonised by vegetation no one talks about how this vegetation will accumulate heavy metals how it can pass through the foodweb [and] how it can affect human health.’ Several of Ukraine’s dams have been attacked or destroyed the researchers predict that reestablishment equivalent to 80% of an undammed ecosystem could be expected within five years and that biodiversity of the river environment will start to increase within two They note that the heavy metal pollution could be mitigated by bioremediation methods – using plants to absorb the pollutants – and propose building two 15-kilometer-long barriers along the Dnipro to limit the spread ‘Shumilova [and her colleagues] provide an unusually high-fidelity view of the environmental impacts of war,’ says Joshua Daskin an expert on the impacts of war on the environment who serves as director of conservation at the Archbold Biological Station in Florida don’t often work in the hottest conflict zones is just one case of the widespread decline in ecological conditions during and after wars and other periods of bureaucratic instability,’ he adds ‘Government activities may be redirected from ecological concerns to military priorities during a conflict and NGOs may be forced to withdraw program staff for safety reasons – both with often-negative impacts on wildlife and human communities.’ Update: This article was amended on 24 March 2025 to provide additional context on the destruction of the Kakhovka dam O Shumilova et al, Science, 2025, DOI: 10.1126/science.adn8655 Site powered by Webvision Cloud The 2023 breach of the Kakhovka dam drained a huge reservoir and exposed a vast area of toxic sediment creating a debate about how best to rebuild after the Russia-Ukraine war By James Dinneen The 2023 breach of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam caused deadly flooding downstream threatened to disrupt the cooling system of a nuclear power plant and deprived the region of water for irrigation But an analysis almost two years later finds the most lasting consequence may be the huge volume of contaminated sediment left behind in the drained reservoir “The area of the former reservoir served as a big sponge that was accumulating various pollutants,” says Oleksandra Shumilova at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries Exposure to these contaminants across an area almost as large as Luxembourg could pose a long-term threat to local populations and ecosystems and could complicate debates about whether to rebuild the dam when the Russia-Ukraine war ends Read more The ocean is losing its ability to store heat as the planet warms up On 6 June, 2023, a section of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine collapsed after an explosion releasing a torrent of water from one of the world’s largest reservoirs into the lower Dnieper river and Black Sea beyond Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of destroying the dam which was controlled by Russian forces at the time Ukrainian officials immediately anticipated that the flooding and pollutants in the water would destroy ecosystems. A spokesperson for the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory calls the destruction of the dam “the single most environmentally damaging act of the full-scale invasion” But the ongoing war has made a more complete assessment in the area challenging Shumilova and her colleagues reconstructed the flow of water and sediment after the breach using hydrological models satellite images and data collected before Russia’s invasion “Our aim was to give a clear scientific answer: what has happened based on scientific evidence?” she says Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month They found the resulting flood would have carried nearly a cubic kilometre of sediment in the reservoir downstream much of which was contaminated with toxic heavy metals and other pollutants from upstream industry and agriculture The flood would also have picked up around 7 cubic kilometres of sediment downstream of the dam as well as oil and other chemical products from flooded facilities along the river this floodwater formed a plume visible in satellite images across 7300 square kilometres of water Changes in water cover after the Kakhovka dam burst the researchers found the contamination left behind poses a big problem of its own They estimate more than 99 per cent of the contaminated sediment in the reservoir remained These sediments may contain more than 83,000 tonnes of toxic heavy metals such as lead cadmium and nickel – and they are now exposed to the air across nearly 2000 square kilometres of the former reservoir This poses a health hazard to local people still collecting water from ponds that have formed there It may also harm plants and animals that have rapidly moved on to what was the bed of the reservoir It could also complicate arguments from some Ukrainian environmental groups that the dam shouldn’t be rebuilt after the war in order to allow this once-flooded ecosystem to restore itself Huge amounts of rock dust are being spread across farms to capture CO2 Companies around the world are spreading crushed rocks on farms to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a process called enhanced weathering but the hard part is measuring how much is stored Bohdan Vykhor at the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Ukraine division agrees that the contamination poses an issue for restoring the ecosystem more sustainable alternatives to supply the region with water and electricity should be considered “Building of the Kakhovka dam for the first time was a disaster for nature destruction of the dam was a disaster for nature it might be another disaster for nature,” he says Science DOI: 10.1126/science.adt3011 Metrics details The Kakhovka Dam explosion is an example of the far-reaching environmental consequences of warfare The resulting dam collapse released some 14.4 billion cubic meters of water flooding downstream environments and flushing unknown quantities of debris pollutants and sediments into the north-western Black Sea With a combined satellite and hydrological modelling approach we assessed the short-term impact on the north-western Black Sea The dam breach impacted more than 50% of the area of the north-western Black Sea experiencing over 50 times the ambient Chlorophyll-a and suspended sediment concentrations Significant increases of nitrate and phosphate were also observed in the Odesa coastal environment This environmental shock triggered severe algal blooms within one week This event may have impacted the biodiversity of the north-western Black Sea and its ecosystem response Continued monitoring is required to assess the longer-term impacts the environmental impact of the dam breach on the NWBS has The ongoing active fighting on both banks of the Dnipro River and Dnipro-Bug Estuary precluded the collection of samples and in situ data in these regions the ban for civilian vessels accessing the NWBS and restrictions of activities along the Odesa coast restricted any conventional monitoring or assessment of the impact of dam breach on the NWBS water environment the analysis of satellite images and numerical modelling provide the only reliable approach to understand the likely impact of dam breach on the NWBS waters to collectively reveal the impacts of Kakhovka Dam breach on the water quality properties including total suspended solids concentration (TSS) Circles represent the locations of the TSS plume centre after the dam breach The size of each circle indicates the area of the TSS plume while the colour of the circle reflects the mean TSS in the plume area The colour of the map represents the maximum change in TSS (in times) after the dam breach compared to the mean value in the week before the breach a Mean TSS in the week before the Kakhovka Dam breach (30 May to 5 June 2023) triangles indicate the locations of the Odesa coast (Odesa) the centre of the Dnipro-Bug Estuary (Estuary) central NWBS (Middle) and southern NWBS (South) with directions indicated by arrows and magnitudes indicated by the length of the arrows a Spatial distribution of maximum TSS changes b profiles of the mean TSS in the week before the dam breach the maximum TSS between 6 June and 5 July 2023 c spatial distribution of maximum Chl-a changes d profiles of the mean Chl-a in the week before the dam breach the maximum Chl-a between 6 June and 5 July 2023 and the maximum change in Chl-a (in times) e spatial distribution of maximum SDD changes f profiles of the mean SDD in the week before the dam breach the minimum SDD between 6 June and 5 July 2023 f is indicated by the white dashed line in a Chl-a changes occurred over a similar timeline but with different impacts to TSS. Compared with the other three sites, Chl-a concentrations within the Estuary were higher and continued to increase over the study period (Fig. 4b) The highest Chl-a value in the North was 23.7 mg m−3 which was similar to pre-breach concentrations (4.5 mg m−3) A similar peak concentration of Chl-a (22.3 mg m−3) also appeared later on 17 June in the Middle of the NWBS the Chl-a concentration peaked at 4.8 mg m−3 on 27 June Chl-a in the Middle site decreased to 1.4 mg m−3 on 30 June Chl-a in the South was sustained at a higher level (1.4 mg m−3) than pre-dam breach (0.2 mg m−3) until end of July indicating a longer-term impact from the dam breach to the wider Black Sea area SDD decreased to a minimum value of 0.3 m and 0.4 m in the Estuary and North respectively on 9 June (Fig. 4c) These values recovered to pre-dam breach SDD (5.6 m) by the 29 June in the North whilst the SDD in the Estuary only recovered slightly and remained at around 0.6 m SDD decreased to below 1.0 m from the 15 June and reached to a minimum of 0.9 m on 23 June The SDD recovered in the Middle from 25 June and returned to pre-dam breach levels (6.0 m) on 30 June SDD in the South decreased on 24 June and reached to a minimum of 1.3 m on 29 June and recovered to around 6.5 m over the study period compared to 12.5 m before the dam breach In situ measurements of nutrients in the Odesa coastal sea waters showed a significant increase following the dam breach, and demonstrated a similar trend over time to the Chl-a trends observed from the satellite data (Fig. 4d) Over the first days following the plume reached the Odesa coast high concentrations of ammonium were observed which is the initial form of mineral nitrogen resulting from the mineralisation of organic matter from This high concentration of nutrients contributed to a rapid algae bloom The nitrate concentration reached a first peak on 10 June and a maximum on 14 June The phosphate concentrations were high from 10 to 12 June These temporal variations of water quality variables resulted primarily from hydraulic currents before 14 June especially in the Estuary and North of the NWBS and from wind-induced circulation in the sea after 14 June a Marine and coastal protected areas in the NWBS overlaid with the map of maximum chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a) changes in the month after the dam breach Protected area data were sourced from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) b Observed occurrences of genera on the IUCN Red List in the NWBS between 1905 and 2024 overlaid with the map of maximum total suspended solids concentration (TSS) changes in the month after the dam breach Triangles represent critically endangered (CR) genera Biodiversity occurrence data were sourced from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) pollutants that have entered the Black Sea are likely to persist for protracted periods of time Future investigation is needed to assess the impact of the complex cocktail of debris and pollutants such as analysing heavy metals in surface layer of sediments in the NWBS investigating phytoplankton and zooplankton groups and biodiversity in the NWBS and extending the investigation to other parts in Black Sea to assess the wider impacts on the aquatic ecosystem in Black Sea and in the longer term the findings presented here provide a framework to prioritise future investigations to explore the longer-term impact of this catastrophic event The unstructured model grid consists of 23,128 points (22,494 model cells) has a curvilinear topology and variable size of calculation cells and covers the whole Black and Azov Seas the model has 7 levels in the curvilinear σ coordinate system of variable thickness of layers progressively increasing from the water surface to the sea floor The model was run for the dates from 1 to 30 June 2023 The integration time step is dynamically defined by the model using the Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy condition within a user-specified interval the initial time step in the model was assumed to be 1 s we obtained in situ Chl-a (N = 15) measured in waters close to the Yacht Club Ukraine between 7 June and 26 July to validate the accuracy of satellite-derived Chl-a (hereafter In situ Dataset III) In situ Chl-a data were provided by the Ukrainian Scientific Centre of Ecology of the Sea a Comparison between satellite-derived TSS and in situ measured TSS b Comparison between satellite-derived Chl-a and in situ measured Chl-a c Comparison between satellite-derived SDD and in situ measured SDD median absolute percentage error (MAPE) and bias for each plot were calculated using untransformed values a Comparison between satellite-derived TSS and in situ TSS measured on the same day as the satellite overpass b Comparison between satellite-derived TSS timeseries and in situ measured TSS timeseries c Comparison between satellite-derived Chl-a and in situ Chl-a measured on the same day as the satellite overpass d Comparison between satellite-derived Chl-a timeseries and in situ measured Chl-a timeseries The vertical solid line in a and c indicates the standard deviation of values within the 3 × 3-pixel window from the satellite image median absolute percentage error (MAPE) and bias for plots a and c were calculated using untransformed values Chl-a and SDD in a 3×3-pixel window of four locations: the centre of Dnipro-Bug Estuary (Estuary were extracted from all processed satellite images to generate water quality timeseries in May-July 2023 These time series were used to analyse the impacts of the dam breach at different locations in the NWBS and the temporal variations of water quality properties in the NWBS TSS plumes were detected from the satellite-derived TSS maps between 6 June and 5 July in the NWBS using a K-means classification method from the “raster” package in R The area of plumes and the mean TSS in the TSS plume area were then calculated from the detected plumes To quantify the impacts of dam breach on water environment in the NWBS we calculated the maximum changes for each of the water quality variables TSS and Chl-a maximum changes (units: times) were calculated as the maximum values between 6 June and 5 July 2023 dividing by the mean values from the week prior to the dam breach SDD maximum changes were calculated as the minimum SDD values between 6 June and 5 July 2023 dividing by the mean values from the week prior to the dam breach The European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) 9.0 (https://step.esa.int/main/download/snap-download/) was used to process satellite images in this study. R 4.3.2 (https://www.r-project.org) was used to analyse the data and the ggplot2 package from R was used to plot the figures River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters Sustained increase in suspended sediments near global river deltas over the past two decades The impacts of modern warfare on freshwater ecosystems Water in war: Understanding the impacts of armed conflict on water resources and their management Biodiversity conservation and armed conflict: a warfare ecology perspective Managing the environmental impacts of war: What can be learned from conflict-vulnerable communities Russian-Ukrainian war impacts the total environment Environmental and Historical Perspectives 15–25 (Springer North-Western part of the Black Sea: Biology and Ecology (Naukova Dumka Europe’s Biodiversity-Biogeographical Regions and Seas Recent man-made changes in the Black Sea ecosystem Partial recovery of macro-epibenthic assemblages on the north-west shelf of the Black Sea Hydrographic properties and ventilation of the Black Sea Black Sea hydroclimate and coupled hydrology was strongly controlled by high-latitude glacial climate dynamics United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Rapid Environmental Assessment of Kakhovka Dam Breach; Ukraine The destruction of the Kakhovka dam and its consequences Losses in fishery ecosystem services of the Dnipro river Delta and the Kakhovske reservoir area caused by military actions in Ukraine A rapid environmental risk assessment of the Kakhovka Dam breach during the Ukraine conflict Use of water bodies for the defense of Kyiv in the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war In Proc16th International Conference Monitoring of Geological Processes and Ecological Condition of the Environment 1–5 (European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers Rivers and water systems as weapons and casualties of the Russia-Ukraine war Impact of the Russia–Ukraine armed conflict on water resources and water infrastructure Restoring the Garden of Eden: an ecological assessment of the marshes of Iraq United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Environmental Issues in Areas Retaken from ISIL: Mosul, Iraq. Technical report. http://www.uniraq.org/index.php (2017) Characteristics of Black Sea dispersion of freshened and polluted transitional waters from the Dnipro-Bug estuary after destruction of the Kakhovka Reservoir dam Modeling the effects of algal bloom on dissolved oxygen in eutrophic water bodies Effects of suspensoids (turbidity) on penetration of solar radiation in aquatic ecosystems Understanding the influence of suspended solids on water quality and aquatic biota Effects of UV radiation on aquatic ecosystems and interactions with other environmental factors Water transparency affects the survival of the medusa stage of the invasive freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii The impact of the destruction of the Kakhovka reservoir dam on the oceanographic conditions in the north-western part of the Black Sea according to the results of modeling lead and cadmium speciation in Dnieper water-bodies Role of bottom sediments in the secondary pollution of aquatic environments by heavy-metal compounds A review on heavy metal-induced toxicity in fishes: Bioaccumulation Determination of heavy metals in selected black sea fish species Heavy metals: Implications associated to fish consumption Deltares. D-Flow Flexible Mesh, User Manual. https://content.oss.deltares.nl/delft3d/D-Flow_FM_User_Manual.pdf (Deltares Modification of normalised difference water index (NDWI) to enhance open water features in remotely sensed imagery Remotely estimating total suspended solids concentration in clear to extremely turbid waters using a novel semi-analytical method Retrieval of Chlorophyll-a concentration and associated product uncertainty in optically diverse lakes and reservoirs An improved algorithm for estimating the Secchi disk depth from remote sensing data based on the new underwater visibility theory Download references We thank the European Space Agency (ESA) for providing the Sentinel-3 OLCI satellite images the State Ecological Inspection of the Northwest Black Sea Region and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources of Odesa Regional State Administration Ukraine for providing the in situ TSS and nutrient data in Odesa coastal waters the Ukrainian Scientific Centre of Ecology of the Sea for providing the in situ Chl-a data of the Odesa coastal waters We thank Kseniia Zhyriakova and Oleg Kovtun for providing the photos taken from Odesa coast the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) for providing the seabed habitat data the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) for providing the protected area data and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) for providing the biodiversity data Field campaigns for collecting the in situ data in Romanian coastal waters in the Black Sea were supported by the “Developing Optimal and Open Research Support” for the Black Sea (DOORS) project (No We acknowledge the funding from the Universities UK International twinning and capacity building fund between the University of Stirling and Odesa State Environmental University (now Odesa I.I.Mechnikov National University) We thank the editorial team for their time and efforts and the three reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions Earth and Planetary Observation Sciences (EPOS) Department of Oceanography and Marine Nature Management National Institute of Marine Geology and Geo-ecology (GeoEcoMar) Dmytro Kushnir: Writing - review & editing Valeriya Ovcharuk: Writing - review & editing The authors declare no competing interests Communications Earth and Environment thanks Jacob Carstensen and the other reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work Primary handling editors: José Luis Iriarte Machuca and Alice Drinkwater Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02153-z Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research This deliberate Kremlin affront has created a “toxic time-bomb,” releasing tons of heavy metals into the environment Researchers have compared the impact of the dam’s destruction to the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear fallout “All pollutants that settled at the bottom may accumulate in various organisms passing through the food chain and reaching plants and ultimately humans,” said Oleksandra Shumilova the lead author of the study from Mykolaiv “The consequences can be compared to the effects of radiation,” The study analyzed contamination levels before the disaster and modeled the spread of toxic elements afterward “Although media attention has focused on the immediate impacts of flooding on society our results show that toxic contamination within newly exposed sediments of the former reservoir bed poses a largely overlooked long-term threat to freshwater and marine ecosystems,” the study states about the environmental consequences have contributed to the contamination of the Kakhovka Reservoir with nickel Scientists estimate that up to 83,000 tons of these hazardous materials may have accumulated in the reservoir’s sediments the contaminated sediment spread both downstream and upstream due to turbulent water flows mixing different layers While less than 1 percent of the nearly two cubic kilometers of sediment was washed downstream seasonal flooding continues to leach toxic elements from the dried sediment as these elements can accumulate in plants and animals entering the food chain and ultimately affecting people Local residents who still rely on water from lakes formed after the dam’s destruction are exposed to serious health risks due to the toxic contamination Scientists stress the urgent need for measures to minimize the harmful effects on public health and to restore the region’s ecosystem which is considered one of the most significant environmental and infrastructural losses of the Russo-Ukrainian war marking another war crime by the Kremlin in Ukraine [email protected] [email protected] FB: @uwcongress concealed gravesites ― Kakhovka Dam explosion investigationFebruary 27 2025 5:29 PM3 min readAn illustration depicting a flooded house and a silhouette of an older man left sitting on top of it by Olesia BidaRussian-controlled forces in Kherson Oblast have deliberately made it harder for civilians to evacuate the flood zone following the Russian destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023 According to an investigation by the Kyiv Independent, the Russian military interfered with the work of locals who were evacuating people from the flooded areas on their own — their boats were confiscated while the volunteers were threatened and forced to stop the efforts did not have enough resources for the evacuation while the occupation authorities deliberately concealed the magnitude of the disaster As a result of these actions, civilians on the occupied east bank of Kherson Oblast that could have been rescued have died The Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Investigation Unit recorded fifty testimonies from eyewitnesses, relatives of eyewitnesses, and volunteers who stayed in the occupied territories during the flooding following the Kakhovka Dam explosion and were involved in rescuing people The testimonies laid the basis for the Kyiv Independent's investigative documentary, When the Water Screams the water from the Kakhovka Reservoir began to flood settlements located downstream On the Ukrainian-controlled part of Kherson Oblast including from the regional capital of Kherson which saw several neighborhoods being flooded The Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro River The witnesses told the Kyiv Independent that they didn't hear announcements about an evacuation Boats carrying rescuers from the Russian-controlled emergency services did not appear until several days after the explosion The evacuation of civilians fell on the shoulders of the locals who organized and coordinated the rescue themselves Russian soldiers did not allow volunteers to enter all the flooded areas and confiscated their boats under threat of punishment The Kyiv Independent identified a man from the east bank involved in the rescue operation the Russian-installed head of the occupied part of Kherson Oblast the so-called head of the government of the occupied eastern bank Alekseenko is the former mayor of Krasnodar the local rescue service was headed by Ivan Pavlienko — a Russian Major General who had vast experience in dealing with emergency situations in Russia was in charge of the utility services set to deal with the flooding the resources Russia allocated to combat the disaster were inadequate which is almost the same size as the occupied part of Ukraine's Kherson Oblast there were eight times more personnel and 18 times more "special equipment." A year after the Kakhovka Dam explosion Russian-controlled official Saldo reported that over 60 people died due to the flooding According to eyewitnesses and volunteers involved in the evacuation hundreds of people may have died on the occupied eastern bank of Kherson Oblast and the authorities attempted to conceal the extent of civilian casualties doctors at the Oleshky Polyclinic managed to issue six death certificates after which they were forbidden from issuing such documents The bodies of the dead were then taken away The Kyiv Independent recorded five cases in which the relatives of the victims were not informed about the fate of their deceased Olesia Bida is a reporter with the War Crimes Investigations Unit of the Kyiv Independent She used to work as a journalist at Hromadske where she focused on topics of human rights violations Olesia got her Master’s degree in the School of Journalism at the Ukrainian Catholic University Subscriptions An explosion collapsed the Russian-occupied dam on 6 June killed 59 people and unknown amount of wildlife in the largest environmental catastrophe of the war so far Sign up to emails Subscribe to Byline Times Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on ‘what the papers don’t say’ – without fear or favour To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition Mykhailo Mulenko walked along the banks of the Dnipro River watching as the rapidly receding water exposed the river’s riparian zones and aquatic plants to death under the sun’s heat An explosion had collapsed the Russian-occupied Kakhovka Dam the river’s depth in Zaporizhzhia had dropped by around four meters where 40-year-old Mulenko works as the Head of Nature Protection at the Khortytsia National Reserve. “This territory is one of the most important points on the transnational bird migration route,” he explained at the time. “When birds fly from north to south, they stop exactly at these territories; here at Khortytsia, and downstream in the Kakhovka reservoir, there are valuable wetlands where they could nest, fatten their young and fly on. Now this area is completely lost as an object of the emerald network of Kakhovka Reservoir.” almost universally attributed to occupying Russian forces destroyed the hydroelectric plant and released 18 million cubic meters worth of water onto 80 unsuspecting villages and towns downstream Dead fish that were unable to escape into deeper water rotted on the banks of the Dnipro and attached inlets, putting severe stress on delicate ecosystems, some of which are protected as a part of the European Council’s Emerald Network. Mark Temnycky explores the consequences on global food supplies of what appears to be yet another example of the Kremlin’s ecological terrorism more than a year since the initial disaster researchers and biologists like Mulenko have been able to better assess the extent of the ecological consequences Despite the initial toll on humans and the environment remaining extreme some encouraging signs have been observed in the river ecology of the former Kakhovka Reservoir As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues to devastate the environment these developments are inspiring a cautious optimism that nature will be able to overcome the brutal damages of the war. and we didn’t know how this area would develop in the future Whether it would turn into a desert or become overgrown with weeds—no one could imagine what would actually happen,” Mulenko explained during a recent visit to Zaporizhzhia we see that this area is actively recovering not just through the development of vegetation Wildlife is also returning to this area in large numbers: deer and a significant number of waterfowl and shorebirds.” but much more are abandoned on Russia-occupied territories The Kakhovka Reservoir was formed after the construction of the dam and hydroelectric plant of the same name between 1950 and 1956 as the last in a series of six hydroelectric dams built by the Soviet Union along the Dnipro River supply the cooling ponds for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as well as important canals such as the Northern Crimean Canal the massive reservoir was not without its faults and large amounts of pollution from agricultural and industrial runoff also characterised the reservoir Various indigenous species of fish were blocked by the dam from migrating upstream to spawn a problem common to hydroelectric dams globally the prevalence of industrial and agricultural pollution in the reservoir initially sparked concerns that the bed of the former reservoir could dry up into a desert creating the opportunity for sandstorms to spread toxic sediments throughout the region of all the problems that remain — a lack of drinking and agricultural water for the region’s communities being primary — this fortunately is not one the formerly submerged areas have become green with grasses The speed of regeneration has exceeded many local expectations. it was more of a problem for people than for nature,” explained Tetyana Yarmokhina and hydrogeologist from Zaporizhzhia who is also one of the city’s leading eco-activists Even the Russian state’s propagandists are asking ”What was the point of even starting this whole thing?” Willow is a resilient plant with strong wood and in just one year the forest has grown two-three meters tall The ecologists say that nature has done its homework,” she explained. “In the area where they thought a catastrophe would occur this area was called the ‘Great Meadow’ by the Cossacks.” A semi-nomadic people who flourished in the region during the 15th and 16th centuries the Cossacks were originally composed of those who fled serfdom and the feudal relations that dominated the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy at the time They were known for their semi-democratic society and military skills, a legacy that is often symbolically adapted to the contemporary existential struggle against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. As major Cossack settlements were located in areas that are now present-day Zaporizhzhia and Khortytsia Island one unexpected consequence of the dramatic drop in river depth has been the surfacing of Cossack and other archaeological artifacts a Cossack-era canoe was discovered in the newly exposed river bank of Khortytsia Island the partial skeletal remains of an Ice Age-era mammoth were discovered for the first time in the region As significant as these archaeological finds are perhaps the most encouraging development has been the return of wildlife to the region after so much loss specifically species of fish that had long since disappeared from the reservoir and are now appearing in the river again. which used to inhabit the Dnipro River before the creation of the Kakhovka Reservoir are returning to the riverbed that was exposed after the reservoir and dam were destroyed,” explained Mulenko. very good because the fish population in the reservoir was extremely small as the river has retained its natural course The purifying quality of a river returning to its natural state has been a particularly positive development when considering that industrial pollution continues to plague the Dnipro as it flows through Zaporizhzhia city and infamous heavy industry The Foreign Secretary’s attack on Russian President was in stark contrast to Joe Biden’s final speech at the UN General Assembly on 24 September the river’s banks have been extended by dozens resulting in less water available to dilute the pollution that ends up in the water Signs posted along the city beach warn swimmers not to enter the water though this does not stop people from fishing along the exposed banks. The water has dropped and there is something You can see it and smell it,” explained a 36-year-old local fisherman named Sergei I don’t have any horns on my head yet,” he joked as water with an oily sheen lapped against the rocky bank. Though pollution remains a primary challenge to the health of the ecosystem for the first time in more than 70 years the river is flowing in its natural state between the Zaporizhzhia’s Soviet-era hydroelectric dam and the Black Sea The birds that Mulenko feared would be gone in the immediate aftermath of the disaster are returning rare species typically not seen are making a comeback. “We now more frequently observe bird species that choose this area during migration now that the reservoir is gone,” explained Mulenko. “Some species of shelducks; the ruddy shelduck These are species more typical of northern countries they used to nest in this area and when the reservoir was created to the area that is actively being restored.” Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories shapes the agenda and holds power to account We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund We rely on our readers to fund our journalism the potential for nature to recover often remains the one hopeful aspect of an otherwise very bleak situation. and when even one person dies—and many have died—it’s when we all were alarmed about the reservoir and no one knew what to do — of course no one would have done it by blowing it up — but it happened as it did to remove the dam was the ‘right decision.’” Byline Times is brought to you by a dedicated team of journalists and contributors – producing independent, fearless, investigative and thought-provoking journalism not found in the established media. We are regulated by Impress To find the nearest newsagent stocking this month’s edition, search here. About Contact Subscriptions Complaints Byline Media Holdings Ltd, Byline Times & Yes We Work Ltd Industry and market insights and forecasts Key figures and rankings about companies and products Consumer and brand insights and preferences in various industries Detailed information about political and social topics All key figures about countries and regions Market InsightsMarket forecast and expert KPIs for 1000+ markets in 190+ countries & territories Consumer InsightsInsights on consumer attitudes and behavior worldwide eCommerce InsightsDetailed information for 39,000+ online stores and marketplaces Directly accessible data for 170 industries from 150+ countries and over 1 million facts: Full-service market research and analytics Strategy and business building for the data-driven economy Transforming data into content marketing and design: was more than five meters above the mean sea level on January 28 based on observations using the Sentinel-6 satellite series That was the highest level over the observed period from the beginning of 2020 The Kakhovka dam, which held back the reservoir, was breached on June 6, 2023, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine It is unclear whether the damage was caused by a military attack or high water levels Figures for missing dates were not available Number of civilian casualties during the war in Ukraine 2022-2025 Comparison of military capabilities of Russia and Ukraine 2025 Total bilateral aid allocations to Ukraine 2022-2024 Growth of the global gross domestic product (GDP) 2029 ← → Ukrainian scientists are seeing signs of an ecological recovery the nation should not rebuild its massive Soviet-era infrastructure and instead continue the rewilding by letting nature keep restoring itself The dynamiting of the Kakhovka dam on Ukraine’s Dnieper River just before dawn on June 6 last year rapidly emptied Europe’s largest hydroelectric reservoir Some 14 million acre-feet of water hurtled downstream for more than 100 miles to the sea and more than 40 nature reserves were engulfed the flood delivered a flush of industrial toxins and freshwater that killed fish and unleashed swarms of algae along the coast But now the ecological consequences of this war crime — widely presumed to be perpetrated by the dam’s Russian occupiers — are being seen in a different light The bed of the former reservoir is rapidly rewilding with extensive thickets of native willow trees growing The country’s ecologists are calling for plans for a new dam to be dropped in favor of nurturing the ecological renewal And they argue that some of Ukraine’s short-term wartime environmental catastrophes — on rivers and across the country’s precious steppe grasslands — can be turned into long-term ecological gains “War-wilding” can benefit a country still chained to Soviet-era infrastructure, they say. After the war ends — which Zelensky said during a visit to the U.S in September could be “closer… than we think” — Ukraine could secure its inadvertent ecological gains and ensure that reconstruction puts the environment at its heart Subscribe to the E360 Newsletter for weekly updates delivered to your inbox. Sign Up There is no doubt that the breaching of the Kakhovka dam 16 months ago was a catastrophe for people living downstream The question now is whether and how nature will recover At least in the 155-mile lengths of the drained reservoir Ecologists initially warned that the sediments exposed on the reservoir’s bed would either turn to desert and unleash dust storms laced with toxic detritus who has made three field trips to the reservoir bed during one of which she was shelled by Russian mortars The river has resumed its flow down old channels Sturgeon have made it upstream to old spawning grounds near the dam native willows have grown across the reservoir floor Kuzemko found that the new willow trees had reached an average height of three meters They are growing by a centimeter each day,” she says “At an international symposium of vegetation science in September we concluded that the young forest at the bottom of the former reservoir is now the largest floodplain forest in Europe.” The river below the dam site is on the war’s front line with Ukraine’s forces on the west bank and Russia occupying the east bank but field trips to check out their longer-term impact on ecosystems are currently impossible “downstream floodplains are likely to restore quickly as they are adapted to flooding,” says Eugene Simonov a freshwater ecologist and founder of the activist group Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group (UWEC) local ecologists are sufficiently enthusiastic about the rewilding of the extensive reservoir bed that they want the newly liberated river to remain free It is “a unique chance to learn about the self-restoration capabilities of a major European river,” says Simonov who is currently studying at the University of New South Wales in Australia He anticipates the permanent return of what before Soviet engineers arrived in the 1950s a region of steppe grassland and swamp previously prized for its archaeological remains and Cossack history The restoration of the Velykyi Luh would be “the largest freshwater restoration project ever carried out in Europe,” says Oleksii Vasyliuk head of the Ukraine Nature Conservation Group which works to identify and establish protected areas across the country “Ukraine has a chance to restore its natural and historical heritage,” says Kuzemko The gains from eschewing a new dam would be economic and political Ukraine was a bastion for building inefficient infrastructure that took a heavy toll on nature Engineers installed a cascade of six hydroelectric dams on the Dnieper with much of its reservoir often only a few feet deep Kakhovka took 830 square miles of flooded land to provide just 357 megawatts of generating capacity That is more than three times the land take for America’s Hoover Dam rather than rebuilding this “Soviet monster,” the same energy capacity could be delivered by installing solar panels across fewer than 10 square miles little more than 1 percent of the area flooded by the original dam A further reason for Ukraine not to rebuild large dams is that they would be vulnerable to future sabotage. By approving an aid package providing the country with small energy systems, including solar power, Germany’s minister for economic cooperation and development, Svenja Schulze, said in September that her government was supporting “a decentralized power supply infrastructure as Russia will then not be able to destroy it so easily.” Jared Kushner has big plans for delta of Europe’s last wild river. Read more the inundation of some 6,000 acres of farmland downstream restored the river’s natural floodplain with beavers swimming its length and water buffalo grazing the floodplain While its wrecked hydroelectric dams have attracted the most headlines Ukraine’s forests have also been in the front line of the war They provide much-needed cover against drone surveillance With much of the fighting happening in and around them they are also vulnerable to fires ignited by munitions But they can also benefit from war-wilding UWEC’s scientists estimate that a quarter-million acres have burned during the conflict. That sounds bad, but according to Stanislav Viter a forest ecologist at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine the losses are “significantly smaller than those resulting from logging and various fires in peacetime.” In fact the absence of loggers has meant that “some areas of frontline forests… are increasingly reminiscent of protected areas,” he says The forest war-wilding may continue long after the war is over head of Ukrainian government’s Laboratory for Forest Protection Many forests on the front line are now dotted with minefields that could take decades to clear Mines are bad news for large forest animals such as elk preserving habitat for many smaller mammals and whether it will result in Ukraine holding on to all its former territories But plans for reconstruction are being laid and many of the country’s ecologists argue that if those plans put nature first that will be a valuable credential in the country’s application to join the European Union The EU is committed to achieving massive ecological restoration in the coming decades, but has not yet worked out how or where. As Vasyliuk notes “the only place in Europe where we can see large-scale recovery of nature is the part of Ukraine which has suffered from military action.” With many areas likely to remain off-limits for decades after the war because of mines or munitions contamination he says Ukraine could let nature deliver environmental gains on a scale that “until now had seemed pretty distant and unrealistic.” While many of the country’s forests could be winners in the aftermath of the war there is growing concern that the big ecological losers could be the country’s precious unfenced steppe grasslands Russian forces have dug extensive fortifications there and ignited large fires Fire is a natural phenomenon in steppe regions Ukraine’s foresters are planting trees on these rich steppe grasslands to make up for lost commercial forests in the war zone Viter says almost 27,000 acres were planted in the 22 months prior to the end of 2023 with minefields leaving many forests out of bounds for the foreseeable future the cessation of hostilities will only accelerate the foresters’ annexation of steppe ecosystems How tensions with Russia are jeopardizing key Arctic research. Read more The stakes are high for the ecological future of Europe’s second largest country From its revived river floodplains to the mined forests of the eastern war zone and its prized but perilously under-protected steppes “the potential for war-wilding is huge,” says Humphreys the country will face a choice — whether to build back old Soviet infrastructure and carry on as before or to become a beacon for a greener and more sustainable Europe Never miss an article. Subscribe to the E360 Newsletter → Ukrainian drone operators from the ASGARD unit of the Nemesis 412th Regiment have successfully carried out a precision strike on russian communication infrastructure in the Zaporizhzhia direction The operation targeted antennas installed by russian forces on the left bank of the Kakhovka Reservoir an area heavily used by russian troops to launch drone and artillery attacks against Ukrainian cities russian forces have been using the elevated terrain near the reservoir to position communication antennas enabling long-range control of kamikaze drones and coordination of artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems These attacks have regularly terrorized residents in Nikopol and other settlements in the south of Dnipropetrovsk region as well as the southern outskirts of Zaporizhzhia city Ukrainian defenders have dealt a significant blow to enemy's strike capabilities Without reliable long-distance communication russian drone operations become more restricted and less effective especially when it comes to targeting over extended ranges or in coordinated assaults The ASGARD unit's focused efforts to eliminate such nodes highlight the growing role of small especially in electronic and communications denial missions As Defense Express previously reported, fighters of the Nemesis 412th Regiment are actively targeting and eliminating russian artillery units near Pokrovsk where enemy forces are attempting to sever the crucial roadway linking Pokrovsk to Pavlohrad The russian military has advanced to within dangerous 7 kilometers of the road posing a direct threat to Ukraine's logistics in the area 2024 5:57 PM6 min readA view of a flooded area in Kherson saying it would lead to a “large-scale disaster.” Serving the hydro power and dam construction industries since 1949 A year after the Kakhovka Dam collapse in southern Ukraine, satellite imagery is revealing major environmental changes that emphasize the need for strategic recovery planning. The June 2023 disaster one of Ukraine’s largest environmental crises has severely impacted ecosystems and water resources across the region a company specializing in AI-driven satellite imagery analysis Satellite data shows a significant drop in agricultural productivity and highlights the urgent need for sustainable solutions to help stabilize affected regions The dam’s collapse drained the Kakhovka Reservoir leaving over 1,000 square kilometers of land exposed EOSDA’s satellite analysis documents a significant loss of water content across the reservoir area creating new land features and altering the hydrological balance While this drying has led to severe environmental challenges it has also sparked some natural regeneration in parts of the area The water reduction has also affected the cooling pond of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant a critical facility that once depended on the reservoir for cooling Although temporary water sources are currently in use the situation remains unstable and requires continued monitoring a lifeline for farmland irrigation in southern Ukraine and Crimea EOSDA data shows a marked decrease in canal water levels disrupting agricultural irrigation systems The lower water levels are increasing soil salinity and harming crop health a trend visible in satellite NDVI and NDMI indices water levels in the canal significantly dropped disrupting the irrigation systems that ensured crop yields across thousands of hectares of farmland and the impact on agriculture is already visible in satellite images of the Crimean Peninsula,” said Oleksii Kryvobok vegetation health across the Crimean Peninsula has declined pointing to a deepening agricultural crisis with the potential for lasting ecological damage are experiencing an unexpected ecological transformation Ecologist Vadym Maniuk highlights the ecological potential of these emerging ecosystems “Just imagine the scale of the ecosystem services the Great Meadow could provide — from large-scale carbon capture and oxygen production by forests to the region’s potential to supply fish and timber,” Maniuk said emphasizing the need to protect these ecosystems an ecology and sustainable development expert stresses that recovery plans should consider both ecological and human impacts “Instead of restoring old irrigation systems we could apply modern agricultural technologies like drip irrigation to make better use of the available water,” he suggested urging careful planning that minimizes impact on newly forming ecosystems The findings from EOS Data Analytics underline the importance of a coordinated While natural regeneration in the Great Meadow offers some optimism satellite monitoring will be essential in developing sustainable solutions that address both environmental recovery and community needs Give your business an edge with our leading industry insights View all newsletters from across the Progressive Media network © Business Trade Media International Limited Sign up for our daily Newsletter and stay up to date with all the latest news You are receiving this pop-up because this is the first time you are visiting our site You are using software which is blocking our advertisements (adblocker) we are relying on revenues from our banners So please disable your adblocker and reload the page to continue using this site.Thanks The destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in 2023 severely impacted Ukraine's irrigation system which previously watered thousands of hectares of farmland covering over 500,000 hectares between 2018 and 2021 after the collapse of the Kakhovka Reservoir The consequences have been devastating since 78% of the country's irrigated land relied on the Kakhovka system Impact on agricultureThe loss of irrigation caused an 89% drop in agricultural production on irrigated land: Vegetables: down 85% (from 910,000 tons in 2018 to 140,000 tons in 2023).Grains & legumes: down 93% (608,900 tons → 44,400 tons).Oilseeds: down 98% (588,500 tons → 13,100 tons).Potatoes: down 30% (49,700 tons → 34,600 tons) Economic lossesGrain losses: $82.9 millionOilseed losses: $65.7 millionVegetable losses: $217.3 million including $109.3 million from tomatoes and cucumbers Environmental consequencesThe soil structure has also suffered significant changes:Upstream: land is drying out leading to salinization.Downstream: fertile topsoil was washed away and contaminated with heavy metals Long-term recovery challengesDirect losses: $5 millionAnnual long-term losses: $300 million due to lack of irrigationIncrease in dry land: 45% making agricultural recovery difficultOutdated infrastructure: 80% of Ukraine's irrigation systems need modernization major investments and infrastructure upgrades are crucial Source: superagronom.com Frontpage photo: © Shevs | Dreamstime FreshPublishers © 2005-2025 HortiDaily.com Myanmar earthquake: Working to meet the biggest needs 90% of our funding comes from individual donors. Learn how you can support MSF’s lifesaving care with a gift. We need your support to continue this lifesaving work The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine last June devastated communities cutting off the water supply to one million people and making health care harder to access On the banks of the Inhulets River in the Kherson region of Ukraine cows graze on greenery beside ripened fields by the sight of destroyed buildings and “Beware of mines” signs—reminders of the ongoing war A year ago, this part of southern Ukraine suffered one of its biggest disasters since the start of the full-scale war when the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station dam was destroyed, killing 15 people. According to the United Nations and disrupted the provision of drinking water and sanitation services to one million people Some of the territories that flooded are now under Russian military occupation and the international community has been denied humanitarian access. The Inhulets is a tributary of the Dnipro River that flows through three regions: Dnipro After the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station on the night of June 6 18 cubic kilometers of water poured into the Dnipro River within three to four days significantly raising the water level of the river and its tributaries MSF medical activity manager Vladyslav Butskyi remembers that day well he was working as a doctor in one of our mobile clinics we went to Snihurivka in the Mykolaiv region,” he recounts it was impossible to cross the Inhulets River on the bridges." "Covering most communities in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions along the Inhulets presented a significant challenge," Butskiy explains "We encountered two problems simultaneously we were the sole organization offering medical services and medicines at that time." MSF purchased large quantities of water and storage containers and began distributing them to residents reaching the opposite bank of the Inhulets proved to be a much more challenging task our teams sought the support of volunteers which residents transported to the other side by boat Vladyslav particularly remembers the story of a patient from a village with the same name as the river "I got a call from a doctor there and she said that a woman's [blood]sugar was extremely high and rapidly increasing Neither the paramedic nor any of the neighbors had any medicines that could help So we sent everything we needed by boat from the village of Fedorivka the MSF team found a single bridge that had not been flooded This allowed our team to continue seeing patients on the other side of the river the MSF mobile clinic team conducts consultations at the local medical unit Residents are lined up in the corridor; most are elderly women MSF health promoter Olena Lyubarska explains how to avoid cardiovascular diseases as she offers them tea talking and laughing with her friends until it’s finally her turn to see a doctor After MSF doctor Ruslan Shpara checks her blood pressure and blood sugar levels and prescribes the necessary medicines remembering the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station “People left that area and moved to higher ground." "The village was once under Russian military occupation and was partially flooded the patients here do not have access to quality medicine Most of them are middle-aged and elderly people with chronic diseases I have observed a change in their mental state after the events: anxiety and sleep disturbances." The destruction of the Kakhovka dam has had a significant impact on the health care system in southern Ukraine Health care workers in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions work amid poor conditions including destroyed hospitals Only 200 people are left in the village of Virivka in Kherson During the Russian military occupation of the village its medical facility was destroyed and looted Ministry of Health nurse Olha Varenyk initially had to conduct medical check-ups in her home but recently a modular structure was installed in her yard The MSF mobile clinic team regularly visits the village and works with Olha in this structure Varenyk admits that working alone is not easy but she does not want to leave: "This is my home MSF continues to work near the front lines of Ukraine and psychologists who provide medical services and medicines to residents of towns and villages in the Kherson Our teams transport patients to hospitals in our ambulances and support frontline hospitals with medical donations Haiti violence pushes MSF trauma hospital to its limits South Sudan: MSF strongly condemns deliberate bombing of its hospital .. © Médecins Sans Frontières 2025 Federal tax ID#: 13-3433452 Unrestricted donations enable MSF to carry out our programs around the world we will reallocate your donation to where the needs are greatest Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page head of national reserve saysAfter Russia destroyed the Khakhovka dam last year plant and wildlife have returned to its reservoir at levels not seen since the 1950s A general view of dried-up lands of Kakhovka Reservoir overgrown with thick vegetation in Zaporizhzhia Oblast (Yurii Tynnyi/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC "UA:PBC"/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images) by Dominic CulverwellA verdant green forest has sprouted in one of Ukraine’s most unlikely locations — the Kakhovka reservoir left nearly empty after Russia blew up its dam last year Following the destruction of the dam on June 6 last year nearly 20 cubic kilometers of water flooded Ukraine’s four southern oblasts causing a massive humanitarian and environmental crisis The vast reservoir, spanning an area nearly the size of London and New York combined, lost 90% of its water, causing water shortages for 700,000 residents The environmental damage has been catastrophic with pollutants poisoning the soil and natural habitats wiped out 1,600 square kilometers of native poplar and willow trees have sprouted across the former reservoir The landscape hasn’t been so lush since before the Soviets flooded the plain to construct the dam in 1956 “This is a huge coincidence,” Mykhailo Mulenko, acting head of the Nature Protection Sector of the Khortytsia National Reserve, told reporters at a press tour in Zaporizhzhia to mark the anniversary of the explosion A view of dead fish due to the floods following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) in Ukraine (Ercin Erturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)Clamshells are seen in the dried-up lands of Kakhovka Reservoir (Dominic Culverwell/ the Kyiv Independent)The timing of the attack coincided with the pollination of the willow and poplar trees in May with seeds spreading across the stagnant waters of the reservoir and sinking into the mud “If the Kakhovskaya dam had been blown up in March or August the situation would have been completely different and much worse,” Mulenko added the tallest saplings tower up to five meters high and number 20 plants per square meter The trees have guzzled up recent spring floods Mulenko predicts that wild deer and boar could roam the forest in just five years time if conditions remain the same echoing its pre-Soviet life as part of the Velykyi Luh (Great Meadow) Under the trees on the north side of the reservoir and the nearby Khortisya Island in Zaporizhzhia Oblast Ukraine’s Academy of Scientists noted at least 100 species of herbaceous plants and mosses forming a new ecosystem Thick vegetation in the dried-up lands of Kakhovka Reservoir The tallest trees are already three to five meters high (Dominic Culverwell/ the Kyiv Independent)The results are promising for a region that experts previously warned could suffer from desertification as a result of the catastrophe But the sound of crushed shells when walking through the young forest is a cruel reminder of the price of this new ecosystem Ukraine wants to prosecute Russia for what it deems as environmental war crimes, or ecocide. The Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ministry is documenting cases of damage caused by Russia to Ukrainian land and wildlife and plans to take Moscow to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Environmental damage has cost Ukraine $60.5 billion according to Environmental Minister Ruslan Strilets The Kakhovka crisis alone caused $3.8 billion in damages including Hr 1.3 billion ($32 million) from the loss of freshwater and Hr 1.2 billion ($30 million) in soil pollution Calculations are still underway,” said Bohdan Vasyliovych head of the State Environmental Inspection of the Southern District The economic impact on local industries is also large The reservoir was a source of irrigation for farmland designed to cover nearly 6,000 square kilometers Initial calculations from the Agricultural Ministry estimated losses in irrigated land at $800 million Fishermen too have paid a hefty price with freshwater fish swept into the Black Sea and fisheries flooded the Agricultural Ministry said the industry expects losses of Hr 10 billion ($250 million) and will take years to recover close to the village of Malokaterynivka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast Vasyliovych notes that 10,000 fish corpses were discovered The amount of fish amounts to about Hr 1.7 million in losses ($42,300) Around 20 kilometers north of Malokaterynivka lies Khortytsia Island, a sacred place in Ukraine once home to the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks Water levels dropped by five meters around the island adding 1.8 square kilometers of land Nearly a square kilometer of lakes dried up around Khortytsia Island uncovering hidden artifacts including a historic longboat but killing wildlife and rare aquatic plants in the process The lakes that remain have shrunk and are no longer connected to the Dnipro River causing overheating that suffocates aquatic wildlife which serves the upper end of the Kakhovka reservoir in Zaporizhzhia Oblast (Dominic Culverwell/ the Kyiv Independent)The nearby Dnipro Dam which served the upper end of the Kakhovka reservoir gushes out water from the Dnipro River but at a fluctuating rate While this spring saw water levels rise once more displaying rocks and sand previously submerged Okhrimenko says vegetation has also returned to areas around the island but stresses that it is currently impossible to grasp the full extent of the damage as Ukraine doesn’t yet have the capabilities to account for all the small organisms harmed by the catastrophe It will take years before Ukraine has those results Dominic is the business reporter for the Kyiv Independent He has written for a number of publications including the Financial Times Dominic worked with StopFake as a disinformation expert there was an explosion at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant Several pieces of evidence showed that the Russian military who were in control of the hydroelectric power plant at the time The occupied east bank of Kherson Oblast suffered more than the west bank due to its geography Representatives of the Russian occupying forces did not recognize the scale of the disaster and said that there was no need to evacuate civilians The Kyiv Independent's War Crimes Investigations team collected fifty unique testimonies from volunteers and relatives of eyewitnesses who survived the flooding One of the film's subjects is Yaroslav Vasyliev a young man who created a chat in a Telegram messenger to rescue his father from the occupied town of Oleshky volunteers and those who needed help coordinated their actions in Yaroslav's chat found out that Russia actually ignored the evacuation and did not use enough resources to save civilians Those locals who took the responsibility to evacuate people were obstructed by the Russian military The journalists came to the conclusion that there were many more people who were injured and killed in the occupied territory than Russia officially claims The bodies of the dead were buried and could have been taken to at least five settlements in the occupied part of Kherson Oblast the place of their burial is still unknown and grandmother — died in their own home in Hola Prystan a Ukrainian town in the Russian-occupied part of Kherson Oblast They were killed in the aftermath of Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant’s dam The Russian forces controlling the plant blew up its engine room from the inside on June 6, 2023. The dam’s destruction caused severe flooding across dozens of communities in Kherson Oblast The occupied east bank suffered the most damage Viktoriia learned of the explosion from thousands of kilometers away. She and her family had left the occupied territory a few months after the full-scale invasion but her parents and grandmother refused to leave They feared they wouldn’t be able to handle the move to another country and adjust to an unfamiliar place From the day of the explosion onward, Viktoriia clung to her phone, desperate for any updates. She stayed in contact with her mother while frantically searching for someone who could rescue her family. She could hear the water rising inside her parents’ house — but she could do nothing. Rescue services in the occupied territory ignored her pleas for help We’re up to our necks in water,’” Viktoriia told me The day after the dam’s destruction Viktoriia learned that a boat carrying local residents had reached her family’s house But they couldn’t take them — the boat was already full Viktoriia’s mother stopped answering her phone I met Viktoriia in her new home in the Czech Republic almost a year and a half after the tragedy It was clear how deeply her loss had affected her — how raw the wound still was and how unbearable it was for her to accept that her family had died in such a cruel way New satellite images of the Kherson region have been added to Google Maps This was reported by the local edition of MOST maps in the area of the Kakhovka HPP and the Kakhovka Reservoir have been updated The images dated 2020 show a filled reservoir areas that have already been covered with vegetation The Dnipro River in the Kherson region has also changed its appearance significantly The consequences of the hydroelectric power plant explosion are also clearly visible in the images between the right and left banks of the Kherson region which were somewhat wider before the dam was destroyed and some of their areas have disappeared altogether it is currently impossible to see the destroyed Kakhovka HPP itself as Google Maps shows the new landscapes only from a distance As a reminder, at dawn on 6 June, it became known that the dam of the Kakhovka HPP had been blown up villages and towns in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions were flooded water passed through 13 settlements of the Snihurivka community The village of Afanasiivka in Snihurivka district was completely cut off by water. The two roads leading to the village were flooded after the occupiers blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station On 9 June, it became known that the water had risen by 6 metres. It took several weeks for the water to recede Within the Snihurivka community, 375 houses were damaged due to flooding including Iranian-designed Shahed-type drones located about 70 kilometers northwest of Donetsk remains one of the most fiercely contested sectors of the front where Russia has concentrated its main offensive efforts since March (Updated: May 6, 2025 11:41 am)Ukraine's drones target Moscow second night in a row, Russian official claims, ahead of Victory Day parade. Debris from one of the drones reportedly fell on the Kashirskoye Highway The reported attack comes just days before Russia's Victory Day parade and three-day "truce." Vice President Mike Pence said Putin "only understands power." About 800 million euros ($905 million) will be allocated for the acquisition and installation of anti-tank mines to deter potential aggression (Updated: May 6, 2025 9:36 am)War analysis France is sending Ukraine more AASM Hammer bombs — here's what they can do Polish President Andrzej Duda said the United States has tools that can effectively influence the Kremlin arguing that only President Donald Trump has real leverage over Russian President Vladimir Putin The number includes 1,430 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement" by Benjamin Nathans which covers dissent in the Soviet Union and Russia today Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on May 5 announced they had facilitated Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash's escape from Russia to France after she fled house arrest on April 21 A Russian drone attack on Odesa Oblast on May 5 killed one and caused damage to local infrastructure "We appreciate that Germany plays a pivotal role in supporting Ukraine throughout the years of war Ukraine is also grateful for your personal commitment," President Volodymyr Zelensky said MPs will be able to ask questions and learn more about the details of the agreement in meetings with Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko May 6-7 MP Serhii Sobolev told the news outlet Suspilne The ratification vote is scheduled for May 8 by Martin Fornusek, The Kyiv Independent news deskMaxar satellite imagery of the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power facility after it was blown up by Russian forces on June 7 (Photo: Maxar Technologies)Russian Colonel General Oleg Makarevich the former commander of the Dnieper group of forces is suspected of ordering the destruction of the occupied Kakhovka dam last year the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on June 6 Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and the adjacent dam in Kherson Oblast on June 6 causing a large-scale humanitarian and environmental disaster across southern Ukraine The floods caused by the breach killed over 30 people in Ukrainian-held territories and between dozens and hundreds more in the Russian-occupied areas At least tens of thousands of people were affected by the floods while hundreds of thousands were left without access to clean drinking water The breach also resulted in extensive damage to the environment and agriculture Critical infrastructure facilities were destroyed, and the draining of the Kakhovka Reservoir upstream from the dam threatened the operation of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Makarevich was charged with violating the laws and customs of war and premeditated murder by a group of persons based on evidence collected by the SBU and the Prosecutor General's Office "The SBU is making every effort to identify and bring to justice all those involved in crimes against Ukraine," the SBU's statement read. by Kateryna Hodunova, The Kyiv Independent news deskPlanet Labs satellite imagery of the Kakhovka Dam and hydroelectric power facility after it was blown up by Russian forces on June 6 (Planet Labs PBC)The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant may be restored in six or seven years once the territory where it is located is liberated the head of Ukrainian state-owned energy company Ukrhydroenergo said in a June 6 interview with the company's press service "Then (after the liberation), we will be able to drain the site of the explosion, conduct a survey, and dismantle the destroyed buildings and parts of the Kakhovka hydroelectric complex. And then, we can start rebuilding the station," Syrota said Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and the adjacent dam exactly one year ago In July 2023, the Ukrainian government approved a resolution to start a reconstruction project at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant which will be split into two stages and last two years Ukrhydroenergo has lost $138 million in annual revenue from the sale of electricity and additional services because the hydroelectric power plant was destroyed The draining of the Kakhovka reservoir upstream of the dam resulted in unfavorable operating conditions and periodic power restrictions at Zaporizhzhia's Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant including its two power stations and other hydroelectric power plants connected to the Dnipro River The destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant caused the loss of 343.2 MW of nameplate capacity and 192 MW of regulating capacity which are necessary for the operation of Ukraine's energy system Russia's destruction of the reservoir has also led to problems with water supply to industrial complexes in southern regions of Ukraine In March, Ukrhydroenergo assessed its losses stemming from Russian attacks at 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion). Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam alone has caused over 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in damages At least 32 people died in floods caused by the dam explosion in Ukrainian-held territories, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry Russia, in turn, claimed that 59 people died in the territory it occupies, while an Associated Press investigation discovered that in the town of Oleshky alone residents of the Kherson region in southeastern Ukraine referred to the local reservoir simply as the “sea.” its water irrigated farms and kept hundreds of thousands of people hydrated It was replete with fish that had provided sustenance to the local population for generations which was carried out by Russian occupying forces sent contaminated floodwaters measuring trillions of gallons into the Black Sea It was the worst blow to the environment in a war that has ravaged Ukraine’s ecology and is considered one of the worst human-caused natural disasters of all time ecologists and scientists has been regularly testing the area as part of efforts to build a case against Russia and charge its aggressor with ecocide Kyiv wants this added to the list of international crimes recognized by the International Criminal Court (ICC) I accompanied a small team of investigators to Kherson which Ukraine regained from Russian occupation in 2022 and on the outskirts you could still hear the “bang-bang-bang,” followed by an ominous quiet when not even birds made a sound As our armored car crawled up to one of the checkpoints we showed our entry documents issued by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) With me in the vehicle were Vladyslav Ignatenko a prosecutor specializing in environmental protection a local ecologist from the State Environmental Inspectorate They were on their way to pick up soil samples for the laboratory research requested by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine We were headed toward the city’s most dangerous point a mere 2 miles from the Russian military base on the left bank of the Dnieper River Named Karantynnyi Ostriv (Quarantine Island in English) after the sailors in the 18th century who were placed there when coming from abroad Nowadays it is an industrial district with multistory buildings When the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant was destroyed “Each sample-taking trip could be the last,” Kaidashov told New Lines while the soldiers checked our documents “The Island is usually attacked with Grads Russians sometimes drive a tank to the bank and fire from there.” The three of us inside the vehicle were wearing body armor Kaidashov listened carefully but did not hear any gunshots We had been told that the air raid sirens only sound when there are potential air strikes or incoming missiles But artillery shelling happens too quickly This was Kaidashov’s first visit to Karantynnyi Ostriv he would regularly return to collect water samples from rivers and ponds The floodwaters contained heavy metals and nutrients that had built up in the dam’s sediments Soil samples were sent to Kyiv for a large investigation in a state-run modern laboratory Kaidashov needed to collect soil from over 40 places near Ostriv and within Kherson The prosecutor general had provided coordinates of the locations to sample They were mostly the coordinates of former storage facilities for petroleum and engine oil The car stopped in front of the Koshova River which separates Ostriv from the rest of Kherson Kaidashov jumped into the ravine with a shovel in one hand and a phone showing him the coordinates in the other everyone needed to be able to get to the nearest shelter as soon as possible — though The men marked five holes and took soil from each Then they packed the samples in airtight bags inscribed with the words: “National Police of Ukraine.” “We take 3 kilograms [6.6 pounds] of soil from each coordinate One hundred twenty kilograms [265 pounds] of Kherson land will be sent to a Kyiv laboratory,” Kaidashov said He pointed to traces of fuel oil still visible on the wall of a high-rise building showing how contaminated water reached the third floor during the floods The surface of the water was still covered with oil How the samples make their way to Kyiv is kept confidential for security reasons each bag is anonymized with a code so that the analysts are also kept in the dark as to its origin the deputy director for specialized activities who has worked in the laboratory for 20 years said this is to eliminate any potential bias the results were handed over to the prosecutor general Since this is evidence for a criminal investigation In May a bomb exploded near the laboratory in Kyiv The water that Kakhovka kept was about half the amount in Lake Mead in the United States a remarkable testament to nature’s ability to heal But the damage is immense: According to the Wilson Center the attack on the dam rendered unusable more than 3,800 square miles of land in Ukraine’s southern regions of Kherson Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk for the next few years because of the lack of water supply flooding an area of what was home to more than 100,000 people prosecutors from the ICC came to Kherson to see the scale of the disaster for themselves President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that The Hague-based court had begun its own investigation into the tragedy “It is very important that representatives of international justice saw firsthand the consequences of this Russian terrorist attack and heard for themselves that Russian terror continues,” he said in a televised public address Ukraine is now home to the ICC’s largest field office outside of The Hague an adviser to the prosecutor general of Ukraine focused on environmental issues Since Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022 thousands of Ukrainian investigators have documented tens of thousands of war crimes in the country in a sprawling effort involving experts from the United States They range from the willful killing of civilians torture and the forced deportation of children there are more than 400 Ukrainian investigators and prosecutors working on it the Ukrainian government recognized the destruction of the environment differentiating it from other global conflicts Zelenskyy has included environmental protection in his 10-point peace plan And while the prosecutor general’s office will not disclose details of the ongoing Kakhovka Dam investigation it has enlisted the help of dozens of specialists and scientists who have already registered land mines in forests contaminated water and loss of biodiversity across huge swathes of the country “We no longer want nature to be a silent victim in this war,” Popov said water and hair samples from the local population to check whether they contained heavy metals Ukrainian laboratories were not capable of conducting all the required research so the prosecutor general looked for laboratories abroad The office also contacted Turkey and Bulgaria with a proposal to investigate how the Black Sea was affected International humanitarian law already protects dams and nuclear power plants from attack and considers their destruction a war crime And while Ukraine has long had the crime of ecocide as part of its legal code it is hoping this will expand to the global level Popov said that the investigation may last for many years and some of the trials may take place in Ukrainian courts and in other countries on the principle of universal jurisdiction Ukraine is also counting on the ICC’s Rome Statute hoping that if ecocide is not incorporated into it the lesser version of “long-term and severe damage to the natural environment,” which already falls under war crimes Ukraine is trying to activate the norms of international humanitarian law dedicated to protecting the environment,” Popov said “We are setting a precedent not so much for ourselves as for the world.” When the states that have signed the Rome Statute met for their annual assembly in December last year “There was no doubt among the participants,” said Volodymyr Hryshko a lawyer at the Ukrainian civic organization Truth Hounds which has been documenting war crimes in Ukraine since 2014 “[They asked] If the Kakhovka Dam destruction was not an ecocide International experts have concurred with Ukraine’s assessment that Russia deliberately blew up the plant as Ukraine commemorated one year since the attack the prosecutor general named the Russian general who gave the order to blow up the plant: Oleg Makarevich the commanding officer of the “Dnepr” Russian unit that controlled this territory with combat experience in Chechnya and Syria He was also in charge of Russian troops in southern Ukraine throughout most of last year he left his post and is now retired and living in Russia Moscow has blamed Kyiv for the dam’s destruction stated that just before the dam’s destruction The series of explosions at the dam occurred at approximately 3 a.m The explosions were registered by both Ukraine’s and Romania’s seismographs and the water spewed forward at a rate of 9 miles per hour The Ukrainian rescue workers and soldiers could only help the residents of the right bank of the Dnieper where thousands were evacuated and dozens were left dead or missing But the worst damage was on the left bank of the river We do not know much about what happened there: Neither Ukrainian rescuers nor international humanitarian mission representatives have had access to the area Popov said the other names of the Russian soldiers who took part in the destruction would be revealed eventually The decision to destroy such a huge dam could only have been made at the level of Russian leadership Popov did not know whether Russia would conduct its own investigation the Russian government adopted a resolution prohibiting internal investigations of accidents at hydrotechnical structures “occurring as a result of military actions sabotage and acts of terrorism.” When the Kakhovka Dam erupted the Russian military blew up two more dams in the Donetsk region “The areas of those dams are only a fraction of the size of the Kakhovka reservoir hence why the consequences weren’t as tragic,” Popov explained Popov said that Ukrainian and Western dam design and operation engineers confirmed that the explosion occurred in the middle of the dam It was impossible to destroy such a dam from the outside with missiles Popov recalled that even six months before the disaster the Russians announced several times that the Kakhovka Dam could be destroyed claiming that the Ukrainian military would carry it out he didn’t consider those statements to be real plans He was more concerned about Russia’s potential use of nuclear weapons or whether they would provoke an accident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which the Russian military seized in March 2022 So when Popov received the call on the morning of June 6 For about the first five decades of the Soviet Union’s existence a cascade of six dams was built on Ukraine’s largest river This construction of dams led to the first ecological disaster: forests which could not swim through the Kakhovka dams for spawning Nuclear power plants emerged all around Ukraine in the 1970s and began producing it The dam hydrated the steppe and the arid southern region of Ukraine the project’s paperwork must be stored somewhere in Russian archives Those who planned and trained for the destruction of the dam must have understood the scale of the disaster “The dam destruction led to disaster,” ecologist Maksym Soroka explained and together with other ecologists had been studying the consequences of the Kakhovka Dam destruction for his region the sediment that had been accumulating for 70 years rose from the bottom of the reservoir Chemical plants and oil warehouses were flooded Dangerous substances were carried away by water for hundreds of miles and polluted the land Kaidashov did not hear it but was awakened by a call from his son in the early hours We started filling up buckets and barrels with water the lack of clean drinking water is the biggest problem,” he recalled Kaidashov and his father went to the riverside to watch the water coming Kaidashov felt an attack from the Russia-occupied left bank He saw exploding missiles surrounding the rescue boats it stopped just a couple of streets down.” The environmental inspectorate where Kaidashov worked did not stop operating during the disaster They took water samples several times each day checking them for pathogens and toxic substances Kaidashov recalled a sense of devastation that befell him as he wondered to himself what worse calamity could happen to his hometown Kaidashov was born and raised in Kherson in a family of sailors and has been an environmental inspector almost his entire adult life his wife and their two sons stayed in Kherson hoping that the world would stop the Russian invasion and spare Kherson from Russian occupation But the Russian army entered the city on March 1 we would have insisted on taking the children out,” Kaidashov said the Russian army arrested Kaidashov’s sons They were held in the largest and most violent torture chamber in Kherson subjected to electric torture and beatings Kaidashov described how his sons’ captors also burned them with cigarettes and threatened to shoot them forcing them to strip naked under threat of rape but they refused to give the confession demanded from them about this because she still has not recovered before heading farther west to an undisclosed location Ukraine’s armed forces liberated Kherson in November 2022 but the Russian army retreated to the left bank and from there continued to attack the right bank One of the first and most tragic attacks on Kherson was before New Year’s Eve that year when Grad missiles struck near a produce market Tetiana saw it happen but managed to run underground before one of the Grads struck the apartment She and Kaidashov now live with Kaidashov’s father in a basement a small and decrepit property that they have outfitted with a kitchen so we live underground,” Kaidashov explained especially in winter when it gets dark early There are no streetlights or lights in people’s windows.” The flooding also deprived Kaidashov of his summer house it was a place to rest and renew their strength Tetiana grew flowers there for more than 20 years the couple does not know what happened to the house during the flooding All they know is that the flooding lifted their neighbors’ houses off their foundations and carried them into the open sea Tetiana says that even if the land where her summer house was liberated today she would be cautious about growing vegetables and trees or restoring the vineyard: The water poisoned the soil with toxic particles The bottom of the reservoir is now covered with trees and bushes; a forest has appeared in less than a year This is primarily because of the high amount of phosphorus and nitrogen a dangerous indigenous plant that can cause asthma It is impossible to control its reproduction when it is growing at the bottom of a body of water as well as the Dnieper River of the Kherson region are now considered front lines in the ongoing war Residents of coastal villages and towns are not allowed to come near the waterfront because Russian drones are constantly spotted there and daily shelling prevents ecologists from taking soil and water samples Some areas cannot be explored even one year after the flooding three aerial bombs fell in the center of Kherson damaging the office of the State Environmental Inspectorate Kaidashov and his wife took a trip to see their sons for the first time in a year and a half calmed our nerves and returned to Kherson to continue working.” This story was produced in partnership with The Reckoning Project Become a member today to receive access to all our paywalled essays and the best of New Lines delivered to your inbox through our newsletters Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy by Kateryna Hodunova, The Kyiv Independent news deskHouses flooded in the aftermath of the Kakhovka dam breach that took place on June 6 (President Volodymyr Zelensky/Telegram)Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam was "one of their most serious crimes against the environment and people in our entire region," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 6 marking the one-year anniversary of the event "It was a deliberate and premeditated crime," Zelensky wrote on Facebook Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and the adjacent dam in Kherson Oblast exactly one year ago The floods caused by the breach killed at least 32 people in Ukrainian-held territories, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry At least tens of thousands of people were affected and hundreds of thousands were left without access to clean drinking water which supported the stability of Europe's largest nuclear power plant The direct consequences of this crime were felt in neighboring countries in the Black Sea region," he added The president thanked those who helped save lives and restored the drinking water supply in the region Zelensky also stressed the importance of bringing Russia to justice for the destruction of the power plant and other war crimes Please check your email and enter your one time pin below: Open in Gmail Sorry there was an error loading the audio In June 2023, the Russian military detonated the walls of the massive Kakhovka Dam known colloquially as the Kakhovka “reservoir” or “sea” in the war-ravaged regions of Zaporizhzhia The reservoir spanned more than 2,000km², was 240km long and contained more than 18km³ of water. By comparison, South Africa’s largest dam, the Gariep, is tiny, having a surface area of about 370km² when full, is less than 100 kilometres long and has a capacity of just more than 5.3km³. advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads The resultant flood had catastrophic consequences for the villages in the area Tens of thousands of people were displaced crops and livestock were flooded and washed away a particularly disturbing aspect of the damage caused was the destruction of the source of water for the cooling pond of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant A sad irony is that there was minimal military advantage to Russia gained by this destructive act The extensive environmental damage and loss of biodiversity was investigated by experts from UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) They reported that the breach of the dam in June 2023 was a far-reaching environmental disaster that goes beyond Ukraine’s borders Much of the damage to ecosystems in and around the Kakhovka reservoir is highly likely to be irreversible and at least some badly damaged habitats will take 30 to 40 years to be restored by nature. advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads A response to such an environmental calamity is to explore the notion of “crimes against the environment” or “damage to ecological systems” as a crime recognised in international law The seeds of this idea are in the Statute of Rome which established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002 This had the overall intent to deal with international war crimes committed by individuals The ICC must be distinguished from the International Court of Justice based in the Hague which by and large deals with interstate disputes The consequences of the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam including the possibility of indicting the perpetrators for a “war crime” before the ICC was the focus of discussion at a recent colloquium held at the Global Environmental Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape The seminar was convened by the Friends of Ukraine Association and attended by South African and Ukrainian environmental activists and lawyers Satellite images of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam before and after its destruction Under discussion was the fact that the Rome Statute is underpinned by the foundation of four core international crimes: genocide The definition of each is expanded on in the statute The notion of damage to the environment being a “war crime” is referred to in article 8 of the Rome Statute which elaborates on a war crime as: advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads “Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would clearly be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.”advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads Environmental crime has not been prosecuted before in the ICC prosecutorial teams at the ICC are investigating individuals allegedly responsible for committing the war crime of “directing attacks at civilian objects resulting in environmental damage” A further article of the Rome Statute holds that “wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health” may amount to a crime against humanity Academics and experts have in the meantime been toying with the related notion of “ecocide” While this is not yet a generally accepted legal term it loosely means “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of either severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment caused by those acts” This aptly describes the Kakhovka Dam case Read more: War in Ukraine The notions of “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” were unknown to the international law community after the ravages of World War 2 resulted in these definitions being accepted and invoked at the Nuremberg Trials Perhaps it was not a coincidence that these two men studied at the Iwano Frankovsk university which today is in Ukraine with the assistance of other legal experts will continue to forge the international judicial path and put the notion of “environmental crime” or “ecocide” on the international judicial map In this way it is hoped that the destruction of the dam will at least have a positive outcome Emeritus Professor Jan Glazewski was in the Institute of Marine and Environmental Law at the University of Cape Town He played a significant role in the inclusion of environmental rights in both the Namibian and South African constitutions Do the same with China for ecological damage in Zambia I would not say a “sad irony with minimal military advantage” but a THANKFUL irony May this case of ecocide proceed as strongly as possible ' + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.webview_notification_text + ' " + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.redirect_overlay_title + " " + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.redirect_overlay_text + " A blog of the Kennan Institute 2023: Ukrainian police evacuate people from a flooded area after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam "На Херсонщині триває рятувальна операція: залучено 694 поліцейських", Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0) The June 6 destruction of the Kakhovka dam by the Russian occupiers was a catastrophe not only for Ukraine but for the entire Eurasian region What are the consequences of one of the worst human-caused disasters of our time for the region's residents and the environment When the previously mined dam in Nova Kakhovka the waters released from the huge Kakhovka reservoir rushed downstream and other villages along the left bank of the Dnipro river the water flowed into small rivers to the West of Dnipro and began to flood remote settlements far from the Kakhovka reservoir small villages along the Ingulets in Mykolaiv oblast became inundated At the same time, in the wake of the massive water exodus, river levels south of Zaporizhzhia, above the dam, dropped, exposing the riverbed. A massive fish die-off ensued, and rescuers found unexploded shells from missiles that Russia had earlier launched toward Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro city. Some number of landmines have also been dislodged by the floodwaters and swept downstream where their locations can no longer be tracked The collapse of the dam reduced the volume of water available to the North Crimean Canal the main source of freshwater to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula The water level in the reservoir has dropped below the intake level and water will soon stop flowing to occupied Crimea The destruction of the hydroelectric power plant has also reduced the freshwater supply in the southern part of Kherson oblast and northern Crimea Official figures indicate that the Kakhovka reservoir has lost more than 72 percent of its former store of water local authorities have urged residents to limit water consumption because the dam had fed water to the reservoirs in these regions one of the biggest industrial cities in Ukraine a large part of the city may be left without water for the next month Though residents of Ukraine were immediately informed of the dam’s collapse many were unaware of the potential for massive flooding or did not think it would reach the scale it did in the village of Vasylivka in Mikolaiv oblast a fifty-three-year-old man did not leave his house for a safer place because he thought nothing would happen; he went to bed and drowned The leader of the local community (starosta) told me that because people did not believe that the dam breach in Nova Kakhovka would lead to flooding far beyond the Dnipro river household appliances—everything was ruined by water both on the Russian-occupied left bank and in Ukrainian-controlled towns and villages on the right bank The sudden surge of water caught many people by surprise Agricultural animals and domestic pets trapped in the flood zone without an escape route also died rescuers and volunteers were able to evacuate more than 4,000 people according to official figures from the Ukrainian emergency services more than 3,100 homes remained under water Most of them will probably be uninhabitable when the water finally recedes Many houses in the villages of Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts are built of brick and clay and the walls are literally disintegrating as they become waterlogged External Humanitarian Aid Slow to Arrive and Misdirected As soon as the dam breach and water spill were recognized and prominent figures began collecting money and organizing humanitarian relief for the affected areas Many went to Kherson to help in the evacuation of residents and pets. food and cash to people affected by floods in Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts in partnership with the local authorities since the first day of this disaster most of the early international aid went to Kherson Much less humanitarian aid and volunteer support went to remote settlements and districts in the flooded areas many of which have lost road connections that would allow residents to leave executive director of the Bright Deeds Foundation the largest local charitable foundation in Mykolaiv which has been collecting and delivering humanitarian aid throughout the region from the start of Russia's invasion international support has dropped significantly over the past few months the foundation's warehouses were overflowing with goods and products and most of the prominent international organizations were among the donors and the humanitarian aid is sponsored mostly by Ukrainian citizens The Kakhovka dam collapse is being called a new Chernobyl This is one of the biggest human-caused disasters of our time and unusable agricultural lands are just some of the costs of a degraded environment Agricultural Sector. The loss of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant means that more than one million hectares of land in three southern oblasts of Ukraine—Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts—will be unusable for the next three to five years for lack of a water supply. Environmentalists predict that over the next twenty years this will have a critical impact on the agricultural sector: farmland in the South will dry up and reclamation systems will be damaged without water Before the Kakhovka Reservoir and the reclamation system were created most of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia was arid land These oblasts were settled over the past 150–200 years following the introduction of new crop cultivation technologies that permitted successful irrigation The reclamation system helped spread the cultivation of grain crops—wheat Without artificial irrigation from the Kaniv Reservoir on the Dnipro in Cherkasy and Kyiv oblasts, however, the entire agricultural industry would collapse, Vitalii Selyk, an energy history expert, said in an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet Zaborona it will be impossible to provide water to the entire southern region and the agricultural sector will lose a significant amount of grain and other crops Selyk also says that Ukraine is not in danger of famine as before the start of the full-scale war the country held a record for grain production and harvested about 50 million tons while the domestic need was 20 million tons the problem of drought in southern Ukraine threatens the food security of African and Asian countries reliant on Ukrainian exports The Kakhovka dam disaster could lead to higher grain prices This is happening in the context of the existing grain crisis caused by Russia's blocking the Black Sea trade routes and stealing grain from Ukrainian territories a lot of waste would likely have been washed toward and into the Black Sea Such a large amount of organic pollution will significantly degrade water quality It is already known that at least 150 tons of machine oil have leaked into the Dnipro and there is a risk of further leakage of more than 300 tons all the wells in the flooded area will be unusable even after the water recedes Another problem is that not all farm animals have been evacuated and their corpses could pose an epidemic threat the steppe areas where many rare Red Data Book animals live are flooded Most likely the world has already lost a large number of rare animals as a result of the flood Experts also say that the destruction of the dam will affect the drainage of the Dnipro riverbed with possible consequences including sandstorms and potential desertification of neighboring regions These effects are most likely to be felt in Kherson where they will add to the largest desert in Europe Because of the enormous consequences for the environment of the dam breach a partial rehabilitation of nature is one of the key tasks for the coming years A comprehensive treatment of the South will require the efforts of possibly hundreds of specialists from around the world and the deoccupation of the territories captured by Russia The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute The Kule Folklore Centre is pleased to present their Folklore Lunch: Nature and Nation: the Dnipro Wetlands and Kakhovka Reservoir in the National Narrative Presented by Anna Olenenko, Graduate Student MLCS November 22, 2024 | 12pm MST | Kule Folklore Centre In 2023 the world was shaken by the news of the disruption of the Kakhovka HPP It was called the largest environmental war crime since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine This event found a wide response in Ukrainian society and revived the discussions about the reasonableness of the construction of the Kakhovka Reservoir in the 1950s and culturally important landscape - the Dnipro wetlands I argue that in the search for national identity the image of the Dnipro wetlands shrouded in Cossack legends and oral stories of the local population was resuscitated as a national symbol after gaining the independence which has intensified after the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP and emerging the possibility to revive the Dnipro wetlands Anna Olenenko is a graduate student (Media and Cultural Studies) at the University of Alberta a Regional Representative of Ukraine and member of Board of the European Society for Environmental History a cofounder of the EnvHistUA Research Group She graduated from Zaporizhzhia National University in 2007 and got her Candidate of Sciences in History degree from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2013 Anna’s research interests are related to the environmental history of Ukraine The latest publication is a chapter (co-authored with Stefan Dorondel) “In Quest of Development: Territorialization and the Transformation of the Southern Ukrainian Wetlands 1880–1960” in A New Ecological Order Development and the Transformation of Nature in Eastern Europe and a chapter “Camels in European Russia: Exotic Farm Animals and Agricultural Knowledge” in Thinking Russia’s History Environmentally This is an in-person event, however, the presentation will be available on our Youtube channel and our website after the event See the full presentation on our Youtube Channel or below: Folklore Lunch Series | Folklore Lunch Recordings labs and research stations are primarily located on the territory of the Néhiyaw (Cree) Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Anishinaabe (Ojibway/Saulteaux) lands that are now known as part of Treaties 6 The University of Alberta respects the sovereignty knowledge systems and cultures of all First Nations Tuesday World Subscribers only Israel prepares large-scale Gaza offensive to achieve lasting occupation World Subscribers only Romania enters government crisis amid election World Subscribers only In Zurich the leaf blower war or the anti-'woke' backlash World Subscribers only Germany's Friedrich Merz is embracing pragmatism World Subscribers only Founder of Sant'Egidio community fears next pope could undo Francis's legacy Opinion Subscribers only 'Russian gas and Europe is an old story that ended badly Economy Subscribers only Europe's steel industry flattened by crisis World Subscribers only How European countries plan to fund defense efforts France Subscribers only Macron announces citizens' convention on school schedules France Subscribers only 21 charged over French prison attacks as investigation narrows in on drug traffickers France Subscribers only French mosque stabber was driven by 'morbid fascination,' prosecutor says France Subscribers only At the trial of Kim Kardashian's robbers Videos World expos: From Paris 1855 to Osaka 2025 Videos How the Trump administration is attacking scientific research in the US Videos Tesla cars set on fire in Las Vegas as calls to boycott Musk's company grow worldwide Videos Can France's nuclear deterrent protect Europe Opinion Subscribers only 'The American dream is dying' Editorial European call to aid foreign researchers is too modest Opinion Subscribers only John Bolton: 'The term chaos is commonly used to describe the top of the Defense Department' Magazine Subscribers only Tracking down the pianos taken from French Jews during the Nazi Occupation Magazine Subscribers only Eve Rodsky the American helping couples balance the mental load Magazine Subscribers only Desecration or more glory Joan Didion's private diaries are revealed Magazine Subscribers only For Jewish cartoonist Joann Sfar 2025."> Pixels Subscribers only Golden Owl solution is revealed but leaves players of 31-year hunt disappointed Pixels Subscribers only Secrets of decades-long Golden Owl treasure hunt to be revealed Lifestyle Inside Chanel's French leather workshops Culture Subscribers only The marvelous bronzes of Angkor on display at the Musée Guimet in Paris an explosion destroyed a huge dam on the Dnipro river Flooding and then drought have continued to traumatize the population By Thomas d’Istria (Kyiv which has since dried up after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on June 6 GENYA SAVILOV / AFP A resident of the small village of Kapulivka on the right bank of the immense Dnipro River that crosses Ukraine from north to south Serhi Karnaoukh has spent his whole life fishing in the water reservoir formed by the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam an explosion was heard dozens of kilometers away spilling the reservoir's waters over dozens of coastal towns and villages downstream of the dam Located opposite Karnaukh's fishing cooperative leaving behind a barren expanse as the only landscape "We knew that there would be no going back," explained the 69-year-old man on the phone from his village shelled by Russian forces deployed on the left bank of the Dnipro the explosion meant the end of our activity in this area." Since then which specializes in investigating war crimes and the American foundation Project Expedite Justice You have 77.56% of this article left to read Lecture du Monde en cours sur un autre appareil Vous pouvez lire Le Monde sur un seul appareil à la fois Ce message s’affichera sur l’autre appareil Parce qu’une autre personne (ou vous) est en train de lire Le Monde avec ce compte sur un autre appareil Vous ne pouvez lire Le Monde que sur un seul appareil à la fois (ordinateur En cliquant sur « Continuer à lire ici » et en vous assurant que vous êtes la seule personne à consulter Le Monde avec ce compte Que se passera-t-il si vous continuez à lire ici Ce dernier restera connecté avec ce compte Vous pouvez vous connecter avec votre compte sur autant d’appareils que vous le souhaitez mais en les utilisant à des moments différents Nous vous conseillons de modifier votre mot de passe Votre abonnement n’autorise pas la lecture de cet article merci de contacter notre service commercial Metrics details the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine experienced a catastrophic breach that led to the loss of life and substantial economic values the supporting structures downstream of the spillway had shown signs of being compromised and dam design criteria to document the dam’s pre-failure condition We find that anomalous operation of the Kakhovka Dam began in November 2022 following the destruction of a bridge segment which led to persistent overtopping from late April 2023 up to the breach contributing to the erosion of the spillway foundation our findings also highlight safety and risk-reduction measures pivotal in avoiding such scenarios we advocate for greater transparency in the design parameters of key water structures to enable risk management and conclude that remote sensing technology can help ensuring water infrastructure safety comprehensive case studies that demonstrate emergency response application on actual events remain scant These reports warrant an in-depth analysis to elucidate the factors contributing to the dam’s pre-failure condition which may have exacerbated downstream flood damage post-breach with the ultimate aim of identifying preventive measures to avoid such dangerous states we synergized multi-sourced remote sensing data and the dam design parameters to detect anomalous reservoir operation and identify signs of potential structure compromise We outlined possible safety checkpoints and proposed potential risk-mitigation strategies Our objective is to underscore the utility of remote sensing data for water infrastructure monitoring by proposing new technical standards to effectively identify operational anomalies and irregularities This approach bolsters the early warning capacity for water hazards particularly in regions with limited access to traditional monitoring systems Upon meticulous examination of multi-sourced optical images during the period from 2017 to 2023 we pinpointed the inception of the Kakhovka Dam’s anomalous operations starting on November 11 a Non-regulated outflow hypothesis test metrics measured by the coefficient of determination The upper subplot presents the boxplot of metrics for 2017–2022 while the lower subplot depicts the same for 2022–2023 The start date for all tests is November 11 b Storage change and outflow simulation for the period from November 2022 to June 2023 $\bigtriangleup {V}_{{balance}}$ and $\bigtriangleup {V}_{{HA}}$ represent the simulated and remotely sensed storage change of the Dnipro cascade while $\bigtriangleup {V}_{{upstream}}$ corresponds to the remotely sensed storage change for five upstream reservoirs the estimated outflow exceeded the design capacity of the spillway that was activated with the risk of persistent hazardous conditions pegged at 79% in the absence of corrective measures The final checkpoint presented itself on May 28 when visible structural compromises were confirmed with a predicted likelihood of 45% of the dam remaining in an overtopping state in June in the absence of action The proposed mitigation strategy for the early stages (from November 2022 to February 2023) is of minor to moderate intensity Restorative actions such as repair of the damaged sluice gates or maintenance of others could have ensured the functionality of flood reduction implementing control mechanisms such as the deployment of management personnel or preemptive water release by partially activating more spillways in March 2023 could have curtailed the likelihood of overtopping Opportunities for mitigating overtopped conditions also remained contingent on the operational state of the spillway during the later stages (from April to May 2023) preventative actions should be implemented in the potentially affected regions commencing with flood warnings and subsequent evacuations yet no effective countermeasures were implemented to mitigate the risk as the dam began to show signs of impending structure damage there was a conspicuous absence of a hazard warning implying a possible violation of safety procedures and disaster prevention protocols and assuring the maintenance of flood protection facilities Although these measures might reduce the water supply of irrigation and civil usage as well as the power generation the trade-offs are indispensable in avoiding disasters Such a conservative strategy not only enhances the system’s resilience to hydrological extremes but also markedly reduces the risk of overtopping when operational norms may be impacted by external forces Our study highlights the value of remote sensing in identifying operational anomalies and predicting early warning signs in water resource infrastructure which can enable the development of effective mitigation strategies paving the way for a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of water system behaviors and vulnerabilities Beyond our technological advancements lies an urgent societal call: the imperative of transparent data sharing especially concerning public water infrastructure As our study on the Kakhovka Dam underscores this transparency is pivotal at the watershed scale where potential cascading impacts arise from interconnected systems not only accelerates the development and refinement of scientific methodologies but also ensures more accurate predictions of water system behavior this fosters the establishment of proactive water hazard mitigation strategies safeguarding the longevity and safety of our water systems The activation of a spillway is a key measure for flood mitigation in reservoirs the activation of its top flow-type spillway is effectively monitorable using remote sensing data we tracked the percentage of spillway activation by analyzing multisource optical images from 2017 to 2023 it is still valuable for confirming when gates are fully closed The dynamic nature of water splash poses challenges for precise measurement and its width may also correlate with the outflow rate these uncertainties do not impede the identification of operation anomalies in this case as the same spillway activation condition remains consistent for over 6 months where $N$ is the number of functioning gates ${c}_{d}$ is the contraction coefficient and H is the head difference between the upstream and downstream water levels Where ${H}_{{design}}$ is the design water head we assumed that the water head difference is proportional to water level of the reservoir thus utilized the water level from altimetry product to approximate $H$ meaning ${H}_{{design}}$ is a parameter in need of calibration we could pinpoint the estimated start date of spillway overflow from reservoir water level time series We validated the hypothesis based on water balance of the Dnipro cascades where ${V}_{{balance}}^{t}$ is the estimated cascade volume in time t and ${Q}_{{usage}}$ represents water usage including irrigation and civil water usage which is also a parameter in need of calibration We further calculated the remotely sensed cascade storage time series as: Where ${H}_{i}^{t}$ and ${A}_{i}^{t}$ is the water level and surface extent area of the ith reservoir of the Dnipro cascade at time $t$ We set the initial storage values to zero for both the estimated and remotely sensed storage time series at the starting step we test the unregulated outflow hypothesis by computing the coefficient of determination between the two time series To ensure the reliability of our conclusions we also incorporated a sensitivity analysis by varying the spillway activation percentage from 10% to 20% and evaluating the implications for both the storage time series and the overflow start date indicating that the principal challenge stems from its relatively low temporal resolution which could influence the accuracy of the reservoir storage retrieval reservoir storage is more influenced by water levels than by surface area reducing the effect of area measurement errors Although G-REALM captured water level for every 7–10 days and the trapezoidal cross-section assumption introduced some level of uncertainty the extended test period and high monthly R-squared values lend credence to our results despite the inherent uncertainties from multisource input data the assumption of unregulated outflow remains a valid and well-supported hypothesis Where ${H}_{o}$ is the water level that triggers overtopping ${A}_{o}$ is the corresponding water extent and Q is the current maximum available outflow capacity We investigate the probability of overtopping in the subsequent time step, considering two scenarios of outflow capacity: the actual capacity without any mitigation, as estimated from remote sensing imagery, referred to as the “probability of overtopping” (PO), and the capacity after applying proposed minimal mitigation measures, termed “PO after MM”, as detailed in Table 1 We designate the 99th percentile of the historical water level, excluding the years 2022 and 2023 as the ${H}_{o}$(equal to 16.56 m), and we retrieve ${A}_{o}$ using the A–E relationship from “Outflow hypothesis test”. Consequently, Eq. (5) simplifies to: We then evaluate the possibility of overtopping at two scales ${Q}_{{mean}}^{t+1}$ and ${{Q}}_{\max 7}^{t+1}$ denote the mean streamflow and maximum average streamflow within a 7-day window for the subsequent month We employ a Gaussian copula function53 to determine the correlation of streamflow between successive months: Where $C(u,v,w)$ represents the three-dimensional copula function with variables $u,v,$ and $w$ denoting the transformed values obtained by applying the inverse of the cumulative distribution function to the observed data series of ${Q}_{{mean}}^{t}$ ${Q}_{{mean}}^{t+1}$ and ${{Q}}_{\max 7}^{t+1}$ thereby strengthening water resource management and hazard mitigation strategies By harnessing these advanced satellite products and synchronizing them with engineering design parameters the establishment of a globally comprehensive remote sensing-based monitoring system becomes a tangible prospect The computer code for the main methods described in this manuscript is available and can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25403698 Inundation extent mapping by synthetic aperture radar: a review A high-resolution flood inundation archive (2016–the present) from Sentinel-1 SAR Imagery over CONUS Near-real-time non-obstructed flood inundation mapping using synthetic aperture radar Satellite imaging reveals increased proportion of population exposed to floods Brief communication: western Europe flood in 2021 – mapping agriculture flood exposure from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Brief communication: Hurricane Dorian: automated near-real-time mapping of the ‘unprecedented’ flooding in the Bahamas using synthetic aperture radar Predicting flood property insurance claims over CONUS Satellite remote sensing for water resources management: potential for supporting sustainable development in data‐poor regions Toward Fine Surveillance: a review of multitemporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar for infrastructure health monitoring Monitoring dam structural health from space: Insights from novel InSAR techniques and multi-parametric modeling applied to the Pertusillo dam Basilicata New insights into the 2020 Sardoba dam failure in Uzbekistan from Earth observation Russia is draining a massive Ukrainian reservoir Рогов. В Запорожье заявили об угрозе прорыва дамбы из-за уровня воды в водохранилище. lenta.ru https://lenta.ru/news/2023/05/04/voda_voda/ (2023) Erosion of concrete in hydraulic structures A cascading risk model for the failure of the concrete spillway of the Toddbrook dam Seismic signature of turbulence during the 2017 Oroville Dam spillway erosion crisis Український гідрометеорологічний журнал 10 Joint operation and dynamic control of flood limiting water levels for mixed cascade reservoir systems Reservoir flood season segmentation and optimal operation of flood-limiting water levels A pre-release concept for reservoir management and the effect analysis on flood control In ICDSME 2019 556–566 (Springer Singapore Deriving optimal operating rules for flood control considering pre-release based on forecast information Внешний водообмен на днепровских водохранилищах в проектных и современных их параметрах с учетом водности года Khilchevskyi, V., Grebin, V., Dubniak, S., Zabokrytska, M. & Bolbot, H. Large and small reservoirs of Ukraine. J. Water Land Dev. https://doi.org/10.24425/jwld.2022.140379 (2022) Real-time reservoir operation using recurrent neural networks and inflow forecast from a distributed hydrological model Identifying effective forecast horizon for real-time reservoir operation under a limited inflow forecast Inversion of river discharge from remotely sensed river widths: a critical assessment at three-thousand global river gauges Extending global river gauge records using satellite observations Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage Turning lakes into river gauges using the LakeFlow algorithm Monitoring inland water quality using remote sensing: potential and limitations of spectral indices Diminishing storage returns of reservoir construction Global monitoring of large reservoir storage from satellite remote sensing High-temporal-resolution monitoring of reservoir water storage of the Lancang-Mekong River Reservoir Assessment Tool 2.0: stakeholder driven improvements to satellite remote sensing based reservoir monitoring Correction of river bathymetry parameters using the stage–discharge rating curve A framework for estimating global river discharge from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite mission GloFAS-ERA5 operational global river discharge reanalysis 1979–present Improving reservoir outflow estimation for ungauged basins using satellite observations and a hydrological model Discharge characteristics of rectangular thin-plate weirs G-REALM: a lake/reservoir monitoring tool for drought monitoring and water resources management Abstract [H23P-02] presented at 2017 AGU Fall Meeting Automated water extraction index: a new technique for surface water mapping using Landsat imagery Enhancement of a global lake and reservoir database to aid climate studies and resource monitoring utilizing satellite radar altimetry Application of a logical-probabilistic method of failure and fault trees for predicting emergency situations at pressure hydraulic facilities (the case of Kakhovka hydroelectric complex) Восточно-Европейский журнал передовых технологий 4 A quantitative model for danger degree evaluation of staged operation of earth dam reservoir in flood season and its application Use of a Gaussian copula for multivariate extreme value analysis: some case studies in hydrology Conditional path sampling of SDEs and the Langevin MCMC method A high-resolution bathymetry dataset for global reservoirs using multi-source satellite imagery and altimetry The impact of multi-sensor land data assimilation on river discharge estimation Download references The authors are grateful to Sergey Kravtsov from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for his help in looking up the requisite Kakhovka Dam design parameters in Ukrainian and Russian scientific literature This study is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) NA22OAR4050676I and NA22OAR4320150 have supported Qing Yang NA22OAR4320150 and Wisconsin Sea Grant 90-2_R_RCE-22_Shen_XS and National Science Foundation (NSF) 2225076 have supported Xinyi Shen and NA19NES4320002 have supported Qingyuan Zhang The manuscript’s contents are solely the opinions of the authors and do not constitute a statement of policy or position on behalf of NOAA or any US government The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable support of Planet Labs PBC in providing the high-resolution images used in this study The authors thank the editor and the reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments to help us improve this study Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center Center for Satellite Applications and Research National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies and supervision; K.H.: data analysis and manuscript revision; Q.Z.: data interpretation and manuscript editing; J.M.K.: data analysis and resource facilitation; E.N.A.: supervision Communications Earth & Environment thanks Yusupujiang Aimaiti and the other Primary Handling Editors: Carolina Ortiz Guerrero Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01397-5 Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science 2023: Flooded streets a day after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam "Kherson after the destruction of Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, 2023-06-07" by State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0) In the early morning hours of June 6, an explosion destroyed the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station on the Dnipro river. Seismic data collected by Norway show clear signals of an explosion at the time of the dam’s collapse The event has far-reaching consequences that cannot be adequately tabulated but will be massively harmful into the foreseeable future though foremost the lives and livelihoods of Ukrainian people These consequences are worsened by the Russian occupation Russian forces captured the plant on February 24 and in the fall of 2022 the Russian military mined the dam Kyiv intelligence had learned of the Russians' intention to blow up the dam and issued warnings to international community It is already obvious that the dam explosion in conjunction with summer heating of the land which has produced spontaneous combustion of mines will be one of the biggest disasters in Europe of the past few decades The Kakhovka hydropower plant became operational in 1956 after a few years of construction New cities sprang up on the periphery of the service area as the plant was under construction The reservoir created by the dam subsequently supplied drinking water water for reclamation of agricultural land and even the water in the cooling ponds of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant The destruction of the dam and the flooding of territories is expected to have long-lasting effects on ecosystems The actual number of people who died or are missing is unclear and may never be known because wartime conditions hinder accurate tallies making it risky to consume any water below the dam Scientists also warned that there could be toxic substances and pathogens at the bottom reservoir So the flows of poisoned water can contaminate groundwater aggravating the problem of drinking water shortage in the surrounding territories Many hectares of the protected sites that are important for fish spawning and provide habitat for birds and animals have been destroyed. A mass die-off of fish was observed in a few areas These losses are likely to have knock-on effects on the ecosystems of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov which produced four million tons of grain and oilseeds Fisheries and animal husbandry operations will also be affected by lack of a water supply, as has already happened with the only state-owned sturgeon farm in Ukraine The water deficit has already affected the operation of key metallurgy plants in the country's south The biggest metallurgical plant in Ukraine has limited water use and some production processes The Zaporizhzhia ferroalloy plant and the Nikopol ferroalloy plant were also affected by water shortages Ukraine's power sector has been greatly affected by Russian air strikes during the war Destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant did not have much of a direct effect on Ukraine’s power system operation but still will The Russians disconnected the Kakhovka plant from the Ukrainian power system in October 2022 But all other hydroelectric power plants in Kakhovka had to change their operating regime to decrease water usage and this will have an impact on the power system some energy facilities were simply flooded with water including the cogeneration thermal power plant in Kherson and this has also meant a reduced power supply 20,000 customers remained without power after the disaster and Russia is expected to try to use this factor to blackmail the whole world by threatening a possible nuclear accident at the plant Speculation about the party responsible for the disaster began immediately. Some media outlets expressed skepticism that the Russians were behind the explosion. However, Russia has controlled the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant since the war began and mined the dam and some plant units in October 2022 Ukrainian personnel were removed from plant operations These actions had the earmarks of a planned false-flag operation by which Russia would try to shift blame for some future catastrophe to Ukraine appealed to the international community to send mine sweepers and the IAEA monitoring mission to the plant Just a week before the explosion, the Russian government allowed investigators not to follow up on accidents occurring to high-risk objects as a result of "military actions" and terrorist attacks This order applied to all the territories and sites occupied by Russia including the Kakhovka dam and power plant The full extent of the losses caused by the dam's explosion is unclear Renovating affected areas and restoring budget components lost to the dam breach and subsequent flooding will take years and billions of dollars part of what has been lost can never be recovered Home page » Topics » War » To escape from occupied Oleshky after the attack on Kakhovka dam This is a report about two people who managed to flee the occupied town of Oleshky amidst the chaos following the Russian explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant Residents of the flooded left bank of the Dnipro River were trapped — the occupiers were blocking the evacuation shooting at those who wanted to get out on their own in Kherson the day after they arrived in the Ukraine-controlled area from occupied Oleshky The couple planned to go to the west of Ukraine to visit their daughter and grandchildren Andrii and Yulia showed me a video of them eating ice cream in Kherson for the first time in a year and a half they recalled the horrors they had experienced and started crying Oleshky is a town on the left bank of the Dnipro River which has been under occupation since the beginning of the full-scale war After Russian troops retreated from Kherson in November 2022 and blew up the Antonivskyi Bridge communication between the town and the right bank of the Dnipro River became impossible As a result of a large-scale Russian terrorist attack on 6 June which blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam dozens of settlements in the lower Dnipro River area were flooded or completely covered with water “The dam has been blown up,” a friend told Andrii by phone It’s about 50 kilometres from Oleshky to the Kakhovka power plant so the sound of the explosion did not reach the town The locals learned about the impending big water from friends who called The occupation administration didn’t inform the locals about the coming flood for the first time since the beginning of the occupation contemplating the disaster he and his wife would soon face their life under the occupation of the Russian Federation They had not dared to evacuate their hometown before as they believed they were too old They did not want to leave their beautiful two-story house with a magnificent garden and believed that the Ukrainian military was to arrive soon lowered it from the carriage and put two oars and a tarpaulin inside then threw the rope into his room through an open second-floor window and secured the other end to prevent the boat from being swept away by the water as they had a fireplace on the second floor To stay updated on the latest news about the flood they relied on Ukrainian television broadcasts accessed via a satellite dish They were trying to understand whether their house would be completely flooded Andrii hopped on his bike and went to investigate the situation It was important to find a hill to escape to he came across an elderly couple standing in the middle of the street The woman was crying and the man was trying to calm her down we’re going to be flooded!” the woman cried out Then Andrii and Yulia watched the news on the TV again: “…the explosion of the dam and the machine room…” “…the disaster occurred at around three in the morning…” “…a particular threat to the lower-lying left bank…” Information about the expected flooding level varied So the couple stayed at home for the rest of the day He opened the window and could hear dogs barking and people shouting in the distance He and his wife went outside and saw the road was flooding a woman with a flashlight stood watching the waves wash over the street The couple decided to return to their house while they could still walk on dry ground — the water was rising too fast and the water in Andrii and Yulia’s yard was already a metre high Andrii went down to the basement to save a few more cans of preserves and retrieve the pumping station the sewer pipe running through the room burst and there was a noise coming from below — water and all the contents of the sewer were washing away the first floor and other appliances were being swept away Andrii made notches on the wall of the house with a knife to mark the water level the water had been rising by five centimetres every five minutes and the boat tied to the house was already drifting Andrii untied the boat and wanted to swim to rescue his neighbours but he could not get out of his own yard as the gate was locked with two bolts submerged under water and while he could already turn on the motor he continued to paddle instead: the Russian military was looking for motor boats and would confiscate either the engine or the entire boat Watercraft without motors was not suitable and inflatable boats could be easily punctured Andrii was busy transporting people from smaller houses to houses with two or more floors and many people were sitting on their roofs without any shade the shelling continued: Russian artillery on the outskirts of Oleshky was firing on Kherson Then he heard a woman’s voice come from an old house The man saw a grandmother looking out from the attic from the triangular cut-out of the mansard and the woman jumped out of the door on the other side of the attic Andrii started rowing to the neighbouring house the house was too high for Andrii to transfer the grandmother there safely he suggested placing her on another nearby tall building where the ascent would be easier then it’ll be in my house,” she said and agreed with Lyuba that some man would come by boat and take her from the attic having neither the strength nor the time to argue Andrii primarily saved women with children or the elderly waiting for them to gather their belongings and finding a way to safely disembark all took up precious time there was no time to discuss rescuing animals even though many people pleaded to save their cats and dogs Andrii swam past the tall rose hedge that lined the road It was then Andrii saw two boats with Russian soldiers sailing past the drowning people in Oleshka One guy made a raft by tying empty plastic bottles to a pallet he even managed to pull a hedgehog out of the water Residents of the city called their relatives friends and acquaintances directly from the rooftops and begged to be rescued Andrii sat at home with Yulia and the neighbours again illuminating the front wall with a flashlight He was looking at the last mark he had placed a few hours ago He looked again and at half past one in the morning he shouted: and in the morning it fell by 50-60 centimetres There was no thought that dry areas could still remain in Oleshky because it seemed as if water had flooded the entire city Andrii swam in the direction opposite the Dnipro River and discovered that there was still land near the hospital starting with the neighbours who had been in his house only the crowns of trees and the roofs of houses protruded above the surface others clinging to bits of land or any objects that had accumulated One of the neighbouring houses was torn loose and drifted out to the open sea Andrii noticed that the current had carved out a wide corridor leading to the river due to the one-metre difference in water level Yulia was terribly afraid of water and even before the war hardly ever got into a boat so she didn’t want to entertain her husband’s suggestion of getting out of Oleshky using the newly emerged path saying they just needed to cross the riffle “It’s like we’re in Venice!” he joked After looking at the faeces floating among the children’s toys The final decision was made on Friday morning Andrii launched the backup inflatable boat into the water and tied it behind the motorboat with a sturdy television cable there were still two neighbours left in the house Two people could fit into the inflatable boat But they categorically refused — it was too dangerous They asked to be dropped off near the hospital he and Yulia hastily gathered their belongings and toy dog that their grandchildren used to play with into the rubber boat Andrii grabbed the branded box from his phone — in the chaos it was difficult to rationalise the decision we’ll use them as beacons,” joked Andrii Their drinking water wasn’t in bottles so Yulia wrapped them in white towels and handed them down to Andrii from the window The towels could serve as white flags if needed They also took three guns with ammunition as a “gift” for a Russian patrol Yulia sat in the boat wearing a pink t-shirt adorned with plastic pearls and jeggings Both of them wore wide-brimmed beach hats on their heads They set sail around half-past seven in the morning Beach hat in which Yulia travelled from Oleshky to Kherson Yulia and Andrii put walnuts in a bag and took them on their way and we’ll live,” Andrii said in case they were washed out to sea On the roof of one of the buildings they were passing by Yulia looked at her and silently pointed towards the Dnipro River “I understand,” the woman’s expression shifted between understanding and despair and the channel itself widened by 20 metres Andrii grabbed onto an electric wire stretched between two poles and slowly descended downstream — away from the whirlpool This caused the inflatable boat to collide with its thorny top But Andrii couldn’t help but think that if they had taken two more people with them Andrii swam into the forest and moved further between the trees so that Russian patrols or snipers would not see them Now Yulia realised that no one was waiting for them near the riffle — Andrii reassured her to convince her to get into the boat Then they had to paddle to the other side on their own And the fear of water completely disappeared To make it more difficult for the Russian military to shoot them and the second boat began to drift downstream Yulia grabbed the television cable to hold the boat with the belongings there were islands with summer cottage communities including two-story houses visible from the water The couple feared that Russian military personnel might be lurking there While Andrii attempted to hold onto the motorboat “The land is floating!” Both of them watched as the entire island began to drift with the current Andrii tried to steer away from the whirlpool that swept the entire island away the land continued to float along with trees and rocks – straight into the sea But in a minute it turned out that it was not the island floating but the boats being carried in the opposite direction but the current turned out to be so strong that it still carried them downstream They looked to see if it was armed with a grenade but they could not see clearly — the “iron bird” hovered against the sun Andrii steered the boats further towards Kherson they encountered a swift current that began to carry them away along with the rapids They had to turn back and anchor near a concrete pillar with a blue and yellow flag They anchored and waited for rescuers to notice them Andrii untied the ship and began to slowly drift between the trees hiding in the bushes: if the drone came with a grenade A snake fell from one tree directly into the boat while Andrii threw it overboard with a light swing they spotted a military boat heading toward a concrete pillar with a flagpole Identification marks were not visible from afar Another “bird” flew up from the Kherson side and hovered over the pole with the flag It turned out to be a Ukrainian military boat “This is what freedom looks like,” he said looking at the green slope of the port city Involved in the preparation of the material 13 volunteers Project support: Fundacja Euromaidan-Warszawa Use of materials is only permitted upon providing the source: Ukrainer.net Дизайн — Артем Зубкевич Розробка — Deluxcode