2023-06-06 21:59:17
The disaster with the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper led to flooding and destruction in territories controlled by both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu called the collapse of the dam the result of a terrorist act by Kyiv. It is known that the HPP was fired upon by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) for many months (see the chronology on vedomosti.ru) and was not the first to be damaged over the past year (see inset).
Kakhovskaya HPP is the fifth largest in the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR. HPP since the 1950s ensured the regulation of the flow of the Dnieper for power supply, irrigation and water supply of arid southern regions and navigation from Kherson to Zaporozhye. From it begins the North Crimean Canal, which provides the peninsula with Dnieper water. The station has not generated electricity since the start of hostilities in 2022.
The current state of emergency at the hydroelectric power station occurred on the night of June 6. As a result, the upper part of the station was destroyed, where there are sandors designed to block the culvert. According to emergency services, in Novaya Kakhovka the water level has risen to 12 m, in the village of Dnepryany – up to 11.2 m, in the village of Korsunka – up to 7.3 m. Korsunka is almost completely flooded.
Cases of destruction of dams since the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine
February 2022 – undermining the dam on the Irpin River in the Kyiv region by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to prevent the advance of the Russian Armed Forces on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. A 40 km long floodplain was flooded.
April 2022 – undermining the dam near Svyatogorsk (near Slavyansk) by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to hinder the offensive of the Russian Armed Forces from the direction of Izyum (at that time – under Russian control).
September 2022 – damage to the dam of the Karachunovsky reservoir (Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk region) by a missile attack by the Russian Aerospace Forces. The Ingulets River overflowed its banks and made it difficult for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to cross for attacks on the then existing Russian bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region.
February 2023 – undermining the dam of the Severny Stavok reservoir by the Armed Forces of Ukraine within the boundaries of the city of Bakhmut (Artemovsk).
The humanitarian consequences of attacks on hydroelectric power plants can be large-scale. In total, 22,000 residents, or 14 settlements, are at risk of flooding due to the destruction of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, said Andrei Alekseenko, head of the government of the Kherson region. At least 16,000 people have already lost their homes due to the destruction of the dam, UN Secretary General António Guterres said on the followingnoon of June 6.
Among the most affected settlements was Novaya Kakhovka. According to the head of the city, Vladimir Leontiev, sewerage stations were flooded in the city, part of the power lines were destroyed. Part of the districts of the city is de-energized. About 900 people have already been evacuated from the coastal zone of the Dnieper. The city of Alyoshki on the left bank of the Dnieper is almost completely flooded.
According to Alekseenko, “all free off-road trucks” (“Urals” and “Kamaz”), as well as rescue swimming facilities of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, were sent there. The department sent an airmobile group of rescuers to the Kherson region following the partial destruction of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station.
Risk area
In addition to flooding of territories, there are indirect risks. The deputy head of the administration of Nova Kakhovka, Sergei Dmitriev, reported that a cemetery was flooded in Nova Kakhovka. “[Это] will already lead to serious, large contamination of water and will create very great difficulties for the civilian population,” he said on the air of Radio Russia.
Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov called depriving Crimea of water one of the goals of the attack on the hydroelectric power station. “The water level in the reservoir is falling, and, accordingly, the water supply to the canal is sharply reduced,” he said.
The North Crimean Canal, where water is supplied from the Dnieper, may begin to shallow as a result of the destruction of the valves of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, but there is no threat of flooding of the Crimea, the head of the republic, Sergei Aksyonov, assured. According to him, at present, the water reserves in the canal are regarding 40 million cubic meters. m, the reservoirs are 80% full.
There is more than enough drinking water, he noted: “Work is underway to minimize water losses in the canal. In the coming days, the dynamics and possible risks will become clear.” The governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, also said that the city has its own sources of water supply, and the destruction of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station will not affect it.
In addition, water from the Kakhovka reservoir is used to feed the turbine condensers and safety systems of the Zaporizhzhya NPP. Ukrhydroenergo and Energoatom believe that flooding poses a threat to the station. The IAEA said that so far there is no immediate threat to the station.
The head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, in turn, promised to keep the Agency’s Board of Governors informed of developments around the impact of the destruction at the Kakhovskaya HPP on the operation of the Zaporizhzhya NPP. He also announced his trip to ZNPP next week. “Now this is important. I will go,” he added.
At the moment, the ZNPP reactors are in the status of a “cold shutdown”, recalls Alexander Uvarov, editor-in-chief of Atominfo. According to him, in this status, heat generation in VVER-type reactors continues and two things are still needed to stop this: power supply and heat removal to the environment through a cooling pond. Uvarov notes that if there are no problems with electricity yet and backup generators are available, then in the event of a drop in the water level in the cooling pond connected to the Kakhovka reservoir, the problem will have to be solved.
Even following the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, the Ukrainian authorities, Gosatomnadzor, Energoatom carried out “stress tests” at the ZNPP in 2012 following the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and found out that even if the hydroelectric dam breaks and the water level drops, the situation will be controlled and the plant has enough alternative options for heat removal, says Uvarov. At least 72 hours, such options can be carried out confidently.
The lack of water for cooling is a problem for any power plant: in the absence of cooling, diesel generators can overheat, Georgy Tikhomirov, deputy director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and Technology at MEPhI, told Vedomosti. At the same time, the volume of water required for cooling diesel generators is small. “Therefore, if there are operational personnel at the nuclear power plant, the shutdown of diesel generators is unlikely. Nuclear fuel storage facilities at nuclear power plants have a closed cycle. The nuclear power plant has a cooling pond with a large volume of water,” the expert reassures.
Version of what happened
“We can already now unequivocally state that we are talking regarding a deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side. This sabotage might potentially lead to very serious consequences for several tens of thousands of residents of the region, environmental consequences and consequences of a different nature that have yet to be established,” Peskov said.
“According to available data, the discharge of water from the Dnieper hydroelectric power station has been significantly increased, which leads to even greater flooding of the territories. This fact testifies to a large-scale sabotage planned in advance by the Kyiv regime,” Shoigu said.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that it is allegedly impossible to destroy the hydroelectric power station by shelling. Both sides announced their intention to raise the issue in the UN Security Council (Ukraine is not represented there).
On the first day of the special operation, on February 24, 2022, Russian troops took control of the Kakhovskaya HPP and its dam, at the same time water was let through the North Crimean Canal to Crimea through the lock. The dam was also used as a road and rail crossing to the right bank of the Dnieper, to Kherson. Since the summer of that year, the dam and the lock of the dam have been subjected to rocket and artillery attacks, according to reports by the pro-Russian military-civilian administration.
Flooding of the territories downstream of the dam makes at least temporarily unusable the bridgeheads of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the islands of Bolshoy Potemkin and others, where reconnaissance and sabotage groups previously operated sporadically, and makes it difficult to cross the river in the event of an offensive attempt, but the flooding of the lower, left bank, controlled by Russian troops , leads to the flooding of part of the fortifications, says military analyst, editor of the Military Russia website Dmitry Kornev. At the same time, lowering the water level in the reservoir upstream theoretically simplifies the forcing of the water barrier in the event that the Armed Forces of Ukraine intend to land at the Zaporozhye NPP and in its satellite town of Energodar.
The consequences of flooding are much worse for the left bank of the Dnieper: if on the Ukrainian-controlled right bank the case was a slight fright, then Russia will have to evacuate 22,000 people, there will be a lot of damage to buildings and other property, says Viktor Murakhovsky, editor of Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine.
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