Damascus-SANA

The Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in the Kherson region is of great economic and strategic importance, as it provides water to a large part of southern Ukraine, regulates the river's water and forms an artificial lake to irrigate the region and maintain the temperature of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant reactor, as well as contribute to the transfer of water to the Russian Crimea.

The operation of the dam dates back to the fifties of the last century, when the construction of the Kakhovka station began in September 1950 and began operating at full capacity in 1959 as one of the largest infrastructure projects established by the Soviet Union in Ukraine.

The dam is 3850 meters long and 447 meters wide, and consists of 28 gates and the total production capacity of the plant is 334.8 megawatts, while the capacity of the dam reservoir is about 18 cubic kilometers of water.

The dam of the city of Kakhovka, which was liberated by Russian forces on the first day of their military operation on February 24, 2022, topped the headlines and interests of the global media after it was attacked yesterday that caused the destruction of its upper part, where the valves are located, and Russia confirmed that the targeting was carried out using Ukrainian rocket launchers of the (Olkha) type.

October 18, 2022, General Sergey Surovikin, commander of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, warned of threats by Ukrainian forces to bomb the Kakhovka dam that feeds the hydroelectric power plant.

On October 21, 2022, Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, sent a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in which he pointed out the plans of the Ukrainian authorities to destroy the Kakhovka station and called on the Security Council to prevent them from doing so.

November 9, 2022, Surovikin informed the Russian Minister of Defense that one of the gates of the drainage channel at the station was damaged by the shelling of Ukrainian forces, and said that the continuous rocket attacks on the dam and on the drainage gates confirm the Kiev authorities' quest to cause a flood at the bottom of the station that threatens with serious consequences.

December 29, 2022, Andrei Kovalchuk, in charge of commanding the Kherson counterattack, admitted in a statement published by the Washington Post that Ukrainian forces had tested launchers to make three holes in the body of the dam.

The newspaper reported that US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to Andrei Yermak, Zelensky's chief of staff, about plans for a large-scale counterattack in the south, where the Ukrainians accepted what it called "advice."

June 6, 2023, the head of the administration of the city of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leonev, announced that the upper part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station where the valves are located was destroyed as a result of the shelling of the Kiev regime forces at two o'clock in the morning, while the dam itself was not destroyed.

Leonev: The scale of the destruction of the plant is very large and it will not be easy to restore it, returning it to its original form would be like building it from the beginning.

Kherson District Prime Minister Andrei Aleksienko: 14 communities of 22,<> people in Kakhovka are threatened by floods caused by the destruction of the dam, as the water level has risen dramatically, a state of emergency has been declared and evacuations have begun.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov: Russia strongly denies the accusations of the Kiev authorities that it bombed the Kakhovka station, this is deliberate sabotage by the Kiev authorities, who bear responsibility for this sabotage linked to the failure of the large-scale attack of its forces two days ago.

Peskov: One of the Kiev authorities' goals for bombing the plant is to deprive Crimea of water, and this act of sabotage could lead to serious consequences for tens of thousands of residents of the region and environmental and other consequences.

Russian Foreign Ministry: We strongly condemn the terrorist act of Ukrainian forces and call on the international community to condemn it because it has caused serious damage to agriculture in the region and the ecosystem of the mouth of the Dnieper, and because it will lead to an inevitable decrease in the water level of the Kakhovka basin, which will impede the water supply to Crimea and disrupt the reclamation of agricultural land in Kherson.

Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations during an emergency session of the Security Council yesterday: The Kiev authorities and their supporting countries bear full responsibility for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam station, and the United Nations should not repeat the same mistake it made in the case of the Bucha massacre and the Northern Stream bombings when investigating the station bombing.

IAEA: There is no "immediate nuclear danger" at the Zaporozhye plant after the explosion and our experts are on site closely monitoring the situation as the plant uses river water to cool the reactor core fuel.

June 7, 2023, the authorities of the Kherson region declare a state of emergency after the Kiev authorities destroyed part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which according to the rules of international law is a war crime, a "terrorist act" and an internationally prohibited methods of warfare.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova: The West's campaign to accuse Moscow of the attack is part of the Western media war against Russia with the aim of increasing funding for the Kiev regime, and the terrorist act must be part of an international investigation.

Zakharova reminded the UN chief of Russia's letter last October about the Kiev authorities' plans to destroy the Kakhovka station and said: "What have you done to prevent this?"

Russian President Vladimir Putin: The destruction of the Kakhovka station is a barbaric act carried out by Kiev at the suggestion of Western curators, which led to a large-scale environmental and humanitarian catastrophe, and it continues to bet dangerously on the escalation of hostilities, the commission of war crimes, the openly use of terrorist methods and the organization of sabotage operations on Russian territory.

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