GENICHESK, June 9. /TASS/. The water level has begun to drop in the towns of Aleshki and Golaya Pristan in the Kherson Region, where an uncontrolled discharge of water from the reservoir was triggered after the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant (HPP), Andrey Alekseenko, head of the Kherson Region government, wrote on his Telegram channel on Friday.

"The water level has just started to go down in Aleshki and Golaya Pristan. We are carrying on with the rescue operation there," Alekseenko wrote.

According to the head of the regional government, a damage assessment commission will go to work in the emergency area on Saturday.

"Of course, only in the locations where the water has receded. Among them are Novaya Kakhovka and some populated localities thereabouts," Alekseenko added.

On June 6, the Ukrainian military launched a missile attack on the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant, which resulted in the destruction of gate sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. There are 35 communities in the flood zone, and residents of the nearby populated localities are being evacuated. According to updates, eight people have died (two of them were killed as a result of Ukrainian shelling of the evacuation point), and more than 60 have been hospitalized.

The destruction of the hydro power plant has caused serious environmental damage, with farmlands along the Dnieper River being washed away. On top of that, there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal may run low and become too shallow.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the strike on the Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant as an act of deliberate sabotage by Ukrainian forces, adding that the Kiev regime should bear all of the responsibility for its consequences.