Ukraine war: US intelligence ‘leaning towards’ Russia being behind Nova Kakhovka dam attack
US intelligence is “leaning towards” Moscow being behind the attack on a dam in a Russian-controlled part of southern Ukraine, NBC News reports.
The Biden administration is working to declassify some of its intelligence and share it – with a motive still being assessed, NBC adds.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the bursting of the Nova Kakhovka dam as “an environmental bomb of mass destruction” and said only liberating the entire country could guarantee protection against new “terrorist” acts.
“Such deliberate destruction by the Russian occupiers and other structures of the hydroelectric power station is an
environmental bomb of mass destruction,” Mr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
He said the destruction of the dam would “not stop Ukraine and Ukrainians. We will still liberate all our land”.
“Only the complete liberation of Ukrainian land from the Russian occupiers will guarantee that there will be no more such terrorist attacks.”
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Earlier, a state of emergency was declared around the dam by local Moscow-backed authorities.
Amid nearby flooding, evacuations were being prepared in the Nova Kakhovka, Golo Pristan and Oleshky districts, the latter two across the mouth of the Dnipro river from the Ukrainian-held regional capital Kherson.
The water level in the town of Nova Kakhovka is now up by 11m, according to its Russian-installed mayor, who said the town was now underwater and that around 600 houses had been flooded.
“The water continues to mount. An evacuation is being carried out of civilians from the adjacent flooded zones to preserve all lives … There is no panic in the town,” Vladimir Leontyev said in a video message on Telegram.
An emergencies official alongside him said the water below the dam was expected to keep rising for 72 hours before subsiding and allowing a clean-up operation.
Mr Leontyev added: “This crime cannot be written off. This is a terrorist act directed against civilians, Ukrainians did it”.
Damaged buildings at the dam
TASS said half the span of the 3.2km-long dam had been destroyed and the collapse of the remainder was ongoing.
Ukraine’s state hydroelectric agency said the plant had been “totally destroyed” after a blast in its engine room and could not be restored.
RIA also reported, citing the Kherson region’s head, that 22,000 people in 14 settlements had been affected so far.
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Swans swim through submerged Ukrainian town
Rescue efforts
Evacuations have started on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides of the river.
In Nova Kakhovka residents were told to “collect personal belongings and documents, take food for three days and drinking water. Turn off gas and water before leaving your residential buildings.”
A zoo called Kazkova Dibrova, located on the bank of the Dnipro, was completely flooded and all 300 animals were dead, a representative said via the zoo’s Facebook account.
A local resident gestures near his house, which was flooded after the dam blew Pic: AP
On the northern side of the river, Ukraine’s interior minister said Russia was shelling areas in the southern region of Kherson from where people were being evacuated on Tuesday after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, and that two police officers had been wounded.
“The Russian military continue to shell territory where evacuation measures are being carried out. An hour ago, two police officers were wounded in the area. Shelling continues at the moment,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told Ukrainian television.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry called for residents of 10 villages on the Dnipro river’s right bank and parts of the city of Kherson to gather “essential documents and pets, turn off appliances and leave”.
Ukrainian authorities providing flood relief Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Blame game
Both Ukrainian and Russian officials blamed each other for destroying the dam. Ukraine’s military said Russian forces blew up the dam.
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James Cleverly: Russian invasion led to this crisis
“The Kakhovka [dam] was blown up by the Russian occupying forces,” the south command of Ukraine’s armed forces said on Tuesday on Facebook.
“The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified.”
Andriy Yermak, the head of President Zelenskyy’s administration, said the destruction was an attempt to “raise the stakes” in its full-scale invasion and stoke fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
A satellite image shows the Kakhovka dam in October 2022. Pic: European Union/ Copernicus Sentinel-2 L2A
Russian forces blew up the dam “in a panic”, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency added.
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The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general has started “urgent investigations” into whether the blast is a war crime or could be possible criminal environmental destruction, or ‘ecocide’. Ukraine is one of a small number of states, including Russia, that have criminalised ‘ecocide’.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukraine had sabotaged the dam to distract attention from its faltering counteroffensive and was also intended to deprive Crimea of the freshwater it receives from the reservoir.
“We can state unequivocally that we are talking about deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side,” Mr Peskov told reporters.
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Emergency services at work in a Russian-occupied area Pic: National Police of Ukraine/Reuters
Asked about allegations Russia had destroyed the dam, Mr Peskov said: “We can strongly reject this. We officially declare that here we are definitely talking about deliberate sabotage from the Ukrainian side.”
He said the sabotage could “potentially have very serious consequences for several tens of thousands of residents
of the region”.
Nuclear nightmare
The dam was built in 1956 on the Dnipro river as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and supplies water to the Crimean peninsula and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.
Ukraine’s state atomic agency said the dam’s destruction posed a threat to the nuclear plant but that the situation at the facility was currently under control.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is in Russian hands
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Twitter it was closely monitoring the situation but there was “no immediate nuclear safety risk at [the] plant”.
Nova Kakhovka map
International condemnation
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly warned “the destruction of Kakhovka dam is an abhorrent act [and] intentionally attacking exclusively civilian infrastructure is a war crime”.
World
US ‘destroying’ international rules-based order by trying to meet Russia ‘halfway’, Ukraine’s UK ambassador warns
The United States is “finally destroying” the international rules-based order by trying to meet Russia “halfway”, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK has warned.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi said Washington’s recent actions in relation to Moscow could lead to the collapse of NATO – with Europe becoming Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s next target.
“The failure to qualify actions of Russia as an aggression is a huge challenge for the entire world and Europe, in particular,” he told a conference at the Chatham House think tank.
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“We see that it is not just the axis of evil and Russia trying to revise the world order, but the US is finally destroying this order.”
Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Pic: Reuters
Mr Zaluzhnyi, who took over as Kyiv’s ambassador to London in 2024 following three years as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, also warned that the White House had “questioned the unity of the whole Western world” – suggesting NATO could cease to exist as a result.
It comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scrambles to repair relations with US President Donald Trump following a dramatic row between the two men in the Oval Office last week.
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Mr Trump signalled on Tuesday that tensions could be easing, telling Congress he had received a letter from Mr Zelenskyy saying he was ready to sign a peace deal “at any time”.
Zelenskyy and Trump during their extraordinary Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
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But on the same day, the US president ordered a sudden freeze on shipments of US military aid to Ukraine, and Washington has since paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv and halted cyber operations against Russia.
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Mr Zaluzhnyi said the pause in cyber operations and an earlier decision by the US to oppose a UN resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine were “a huge challenge for the entire world”.
He added that talks between the US and Russia – “headed by a war criminal” – showed the White House “makes steps towards the Kremlin, trying to meet them halfway”, warning Moscow’s next target “could be Europe”.
World
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh being forced to fight for same military accused of genocide against their people
Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh is a sprawling mass of humanity.
It’s a sea of makeshift bamboo shelters, home to more than one million Rohingya refugees – a mainly Muslim minority from Rakhine state in Myanmar.
Some 700,000 fled their homeland back in 2017 – after the Myanmar military massacred thousands.
The army was accused of genocide by the United Nations.
The Rohingya refugees didn’t escape danger though.
Right now, violence is at its worst levels in the camps since 2017 and Rohingya people face a particularly cruel new threat – they’re being forced back to fight for the same Myanmar military accused of trying to wipe out their people.
A child at the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar
Militant groups are recruiting Rohingya men in the camps, some at gunpoint, and taking them back to Myanmar to fight for a force that’s losing ground.
Jaker is just 19.
We’ve changed his name to protect his identity.
He says he was abducted at gunpoint last year by a group of nine men in Cox’s.
They tied his hands with rope he says and took him to the border where he was taken by boat with three other men to fight for the Myanmar military.
“It was heartbreaking,” he told me. “They targeted poor children. The children of wealthy families only avoided it by paying money.”
And he says the impact has been deadly.
“Many of our Rohingya boys, who were taken by force from the camps, were killed in battle.”
Jaker speaks to Sky’s Cordelia Lynch
An aerial view of the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar
The situation in Cox’s is desperate.
People are disillusioned by poverty, violence and the plight of their own people and the civil war they ran from is getting worse.
In Rakhine, just across the border, there’s been a big shift in dynamics.
The Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group has all but taken control of the state from the ruling military junta.
Both the military and the AA are accused of committing atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.
And whilst some Rohingya claim they’re being forced into the fray – dragged back to Myanmar from Bangladesh, others are willing to go.
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Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar – where refugees arrive from Myanmar after crossing the Naf River
Some are so aggrieved with the AA, they’re willing to support their former persecutors.
Abu Zar is one of those willing to take up arms.
But not for the military or AA, he says.
Everyone praying in the mosque with him is prepared to go back to protect their own cause he says – not anyone else’s.
“We want to fight for our rights because we have been demanding justice for a long time. But the situation has become unbearable,” he tells me.
Abu Zar has said he is willing to take up arms for his own cause
It’s estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Rohingya have joined armed groups from this camp.
But the fight they are joining has become increasingly bloody.
In a cramped shelter, we meet Safura.
Safura came under fire as she fled Myanmar
Safura’s son Aman had his foot blown off
Five days ago she managed to get out of Myanmar but she had to be carried part of the way.
Her legs are riddled with bullet wounds and the pain is severe.
Her son, Aman, who lies on the floor next to her, has had his foot blown off.
They were injured she said, during an attack on her family home in the middle of the night.
“They entered our house and shot all my family members. My husband and mother-in-law were killed on the spot.”
The military denies forcing Rohingya to the battlefield. But the camps tell a different story- one of surging violence and vulnerability.
US President Donald Trump has told Gazans to hand over Israeli hostages or “you are dead”.
The threat, made over social media, came hours after the White House confirmed that US officials had broken with tradition to hold direct talks with Hamas.
The US has previously avoided direct contact with the group owing to Washington’s longstanding position not to negotiate with terrorists – with Hamas having been designated as a terrorist group in the US since 1997.
In a press conference on Wednesday, White House press secretary Ms Keavitt said there had been “ongoing talks and discussions” between the US officials and Hamas.
File pic: AP
But she would not be drawn on the substance of the talks – taking place in Doha, Qatar – between US officials and Hamas, but said Israel had been consulted.
Ms Leavitt continued: “Dialogue and talking to people around the world to do what’s in the best interest of the American people, is something that the president has proven is what he believes is a good faith, effort to do what’s right for the American people.”
There are “American lives at stake,” she added.
Adam Boehler, Mr Trump’s pick to be special envoy for hostage affairs, participated in the direct talks with Hamas.
A spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas”.
Hours later, Mr Trump warned Hamas to hand over Israeli hostages or “it’s over for you” – adding: “This is your last warning”.
Hamas militants on the day of a hostage handover in Gaza in February. Pic: Reuters
On his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump wrote: “Release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered or it is over for you.
“Only sick and twisted people keep bodies and you are sick and twisted. I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”
Mr Trump met with freed Israeli hostages on Wednesday, something he referenced in his social media post, before adding: “This is your last warning. For the leadership of Hamas, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.
“Also, to the people of Gaza, a beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If you do, you are dead. Make a smart decision. Release the hostages now, or there will be hell to pay later.”
Israel estimates about 24 living hostages, including American citizen Edan Alexander, and the bodies of at least 35 others, are still believed to be in Gaza.
Donald Trump with Benjamin Netanyahu in February. Pic: Reuters
The US has a long-held policy of not negotiating with terrorists – which it is breaking with these talks as Hamas has been designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US government’s National Counterterrorism Center since 1997.
The discussions come as a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire continues to hold, but its future is uncertain.
Palestinians amid the rubble in the southern Gaza strip. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump has signalled he has no intention of pushing the Israeli prime minister away from a return to combat if Hamas does not agree to terms of a new ceasefire proposal – which, Israel says, has been drafted by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
The new plan would require Hamas to release half its remaining hostages – the group’s main bargaining chip – in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
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Israel has made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners, a key component of the first phase.
Fighting in Gaza has been halted since 19 January.
Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli and five Thai hostages for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
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