A dam and a hydroelectric energy plant in a Russian-controlled space of southern Ukraine had been destroyed Tuesday, placing hundreds of lives in danger in what President Volodomyr Zelenskyy stated is the “largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.”

Moscow and Kyiv have accused one another of inflicting an explosion on the Kakhovka hydroelectric energy plant that despatched a torrent of water gushing by means of broken sections of the power situated on the Dnipro River.

Mr. Zelenskyy stated Russian troops have been controlling the dam and the complete energy plant for greater than a yr following the invasion of Ukraine.

“It is physically impossible to blow it up somehow from the outside, by shelling. It was mined by the Russian occupiers and they blew it up,” he tweeted. “Russia has detonated a bomb of mass environmental destruction.”

Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the Kherson area, accused Kyiv of hitting the facility station with a missile assault. He stated the strike led to a “large, but not critical” quantity of water flowing down the Dnipro.

“It will not prevent our military from defending the left bank. However, fields along the coast have been washed away, and peaceful infrastructure has been disrupted,” Mr. Saldo stated on his Telegram social media account.

He stated a significant evacuation within the space received’t be essential, with most native residents nonetheless remaining of their properties.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been receiving common experiences on the scenario on the Kakhovka energy plant, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters in Moscow.

“We can already say unequivocally that this is deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side,” Mr. Peskov stated, based on the official TASS Russian information company.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg blamed Russia for the assault, calling it an “outrageous attack, which demonstrates once again the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

In addition to offering water for ingesting and agriculture, the reservoir created by the dam helps cool the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant, the biggest in Europe. On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency stated it was conscious of experiences of damages to the dam.

“IAEA experts at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant are closely monitoring the situation; no immediate nuclear safety risk at the plant,” the UN atomic watchdog company tweeted.

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