MOSCOW, June 20. /TASS/. It will be easier and cheaper to build a new dam at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP) than to try to repair the one that was destroyed, acting governor of the Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo said on Tuesday.
"The dam will have to be built from scratch. It is cheaper. It will save money, it will be faster and, more importantly, it will restore the environmental balance along one of the major [European] rivers," he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
Saldo emphasized that people living on the right bank of the Dnieper River also need this dam.
In his opinion, rebuilding the dam "is not that far off."
"We have precise calculations that are being kept in archives, we even have engineers who know what needs to be done," the official added.
Russian Construction and Utilities Minister Irek Faizullin said that in about a week, water levels at the Kakhovka Reservoir will subside enough so that the dam’s present condition can be properly assessed.
On the morning of June 6, the Ukrainian military launched a missile attack on the Kakhovka HPP, which resulted in the destruction of gate sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. Water levels in Novaya Kakhovka rose to 12 meters, but now the water is subsiding. There are 35 communities in the flood zone. People are being evacuated from flooded areas. According to the latest data, thirty-eight people have died and 115 have been hospitalized. The destruction of the hydropower plant has caused serious environmental damage with farmlands along the Dnieper River being washed away. Additionally, there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal may run low and become too shallow.
Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the strike on the Kakhovka dam as an act of deliberate sabotage by Ukrainian forces, adding that the Kiev regime should bear full responsibility for its consequences.