The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), addressing members Tuesday about the dam break, said the "current assessment" of the U.N. Ukraine's state atomic agency said the dam's destruction put the plant at risk, but the statement from Zelenskyy's office said Ukrainian personnel were "keeping the situation under control and have the tools to deal with any developments." The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is upstream of the dam, but it relies on water pumped constantly from its reservoir to cool radioactive fuel and other key functions. Ukrainian authorities have long warned that the dam's failure could unleash 4.8 billion gallons of water and flood the southern Kherson region and dozens of other areas where hundreds of thousands of people live, as well as threatening a meltdown at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant 93 miles away. One showed floodwaters inundating a long roadway, another showed a beaver scurrying for high ground from rising waters in Kherson. Videos posted online testified to the breach. Press service of the National Nuclear Energy Generating Company Energoatom / Handout via Reuters An image shows Nova Kakhovka Dam from a distance, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in the Kherson region of Ukraine, on June 6, 2023. The statement from Zelenskyy's office following the emergency meeting said the nation's top officials had been "informed that at least 150 tons of machine oil got into the Dnipro River, and there is a risk of further leakage of more than 300 tons" following the explosion. "The terrorists' goal is obvious - to create obstacles for the offensive actions of the armed forces," said Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak, adding that "a global ecological disaster is playing out now, online, and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours." "The only way to stop Russia, the greatest terrorist of the 21st century, is to kick it out of Ukraine." "A global ecological disaster." "This is a heinous war crime," Kuleba said in a tweet. Ukraine's prosecutor general Andriy Kostin said on social media that "over 40,000 people are in danger of being flooded," and more than 17,000 were already being evacuated from flooded areas. The statement said 80 communities were in the "flood zone" and had been ordered to evacuate. Security Council, appealing to international environmental organizations and the International Criminal Court, as such actions of the Russians bear clear signs of violation of the Geneva Convention." This general view shows a partially flooded area of Kherson, southern Ukraine, June 6, 2023, following damage sustained at the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam. Zelenskyy and his senior aids had "agreed on a set of international measures, including convening a meeting of the U.N. A statement released by the president's office following the meeting accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam and hydroelectric power plant it was created for, "from inside," just before 3 a.m. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an emergency meeting of his country's security and defense council following the dam explosion. ![]() The dam break added a complex new element to Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month, as Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 600 miles of front line in the east and south of the country. Russia countered, claiming it was damaged by Ukrainian military strikes. Drone footage obtained by Reuters shows water gushing out of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on June 6, 2023. ![]() Russia claimed it was Ukraine's military that damaged the Nova Kakhovka Dam - something Ukraine's president tersely rejected, arguing it was impossible to destroy the facility, which has been under Russian control for months, from the outside.Ī local Moscow-installed official said there was "no threat" to major population centers from the floodwaters, but Ukrainian officials warned the breach could have broad consequences, flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream, depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe's largest nuclear power plant, and draining drinking water supplies for the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. Ukrainian authorities ordered thousands of residents downriver to evacuate. ![]() Kyiv, Ukraine - Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of blowing up a major Soviet-era dam and hydroelectric power station in a part of southern Ukraine that Russia controls, sending water gushing from the breached facility and risking massive flooding.
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