DOHA/KHARKIV — Explosions struck the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River for the second time in three days, and structural engineers have now detected new fractures in the spillway, raising the spectre of catastrophic downstream flooding, regional officials confirmed Thursday.
Ukrainian officials denied any involvement in the strike, which they attributed to Russian forces controlling the dam from the east bank. Russia’s Defence Ministry, in turn, blamed Ukrainian drones. Both sides have accused each other of deliberately targeting critical infrastructure throughout the conflict.
UN emergency coordinators issued an alert to communities downstream, warning that if the dam fails — or is deliberately breached — floodwaters could reach Kherson city within four to six hours. Authorities estimate up to 300,000 civilians live in the potential flood zone. Local officials in Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts have begun voluntary evacuation advisories for riverside neighbourhoods.
The Nova Kakhovka dam, a Soviet-era structure completed in 1955, holds approximately 18 cubic kilometres of water. A full or partial failure would inundate tens of thousands of homes and agricultural land across a wide stretch of southern Ukraine. The structure has been a flashpoint throughout the war: its hydroelectric station has changed hands twice, and both sides have repeatedly warned the other against destroying it.
Ukrainian military spokesman Colonel Andrii Kovalenko said the strikes appeared designed to “create panic and force troop redeployments” rather than achieve immediate structural failure. “They are testing the structure, looking for the weak point,” he told a briefing in Kyiv. Russia accused Ukraine of “ecoterrorism” and said it would raise the strikes at the UN Security Council.
The renewed assault on the dam follows a period of relative quiet along the Dnipro front, where the two sides had largely settled into positional warfare following the collapse of ceasefire talks earlier this month. Western military analysts said the strikes represented a dangerous escalation in the conflict’s pattern of targeting civilian infrastructure.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called the strikes “deeply alarming” and said alliance members were consulting on next steps. European foreign ministers are expected to discuss additional sanctions related to infrastructure attacks at an emergency session in Brussels next week.
Written by Layla Hassan, Middle East Correspondent
Layla Hassan
Layla Hassan covers Middle East politics, conflict, and diplomacy from the Gulf to the Levant.