GENICHESK, July 6. /TASS/. The Kakhovka Reservoir has ceased to exist a month after the major dam breach at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), Vladimir Saldo, the acting governor of the Kherson Region, told Channel One television on Thursday.

"The Kakhovka reservoir does not exist as of today," Saldo said.

He added that the Dnieper River has returned to its natural course and "flows without accumulating water," which the region needs. The acting governor reiterated that before the dam at the hydroelectric power plant was destroyed, water from the reservoir had been supplied to Krivoy Rog, Nikopol, Marganets, Ordzhonikidze and Dneprodzerzhinsk. "This is an ecological and humanitarian disaster. From a military point of view, the Ukrainian command and those in Kiev have got nothing from it," Saldo noted.

In the early morning hours of June 6, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike on the Kakhovka HPP. The shelling destroyed the hydraulic sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. The collapse of the hydro plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage, with farmland along the Dnieper River being washed away. According to emergency services, 53 people were killed and 139 were hospitalized.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the attack on the Kakhovka HPP as a deliberate act of sabotage by Ukraine. He added that the Kiev regime should bear full responsibility for the consequences.