MELITOPOL, June 7. /TASS/. The Kakhovka Reservoir will cease to exist in two to three days due to receding water levels resulting from the blowing up of the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) by Ukrainian forces, Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the We Are Together With Russia movement, told TASS.
"According to experts’ estimates, today the maximum water level is expected at the Kakhovka Reservoir. From June 10, everything should subside. By June 20, as the water flows into the Black Sea, the Dnieper will naturally form a new riverbed, but one without the Kakhovka Reservoir. It will simply disappear; it will take two or three days for the reservoir to disappear. There will just be the Dnieper River above the Kakhovka HPP," Rogov said.
He pointed out that the new riverbed will be far removed from the city of Energodar and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.
Rogov also noted that Ukraine has increased the discharge of water into the Kakhovka Reservoir from the Dnieper HPP located upstream. "In the city of Zaporozhye at the moment the water has gone 30 meters from the shore. The maximum expected water level in the Dnieper River there should reach 7.5 meters," he said.
On Tuesday night, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), presumably from an Olkha multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). The shelling destroyed the hydraulic sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. In Novaya Kakhovka, the water level exceeded 12 meters at one point, but is now receding. There are currently 15 population centers in the flood zone; residents of nearby towns and villages are being evacuated. The collapse of the hydro plant's dam has caused serious environmental damage. Farmlands along the Dnieper River have been washed away, and there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal will become shallow.
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.