Zelensky: Kakhovka Dam’s Destruction Leaves Many Without Access to Drinking Water

KYIV (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine had left hundreds of thousands of people without normal access to drinking water.

Floodwaters in southern Ukraine were expected to crest on Wednesday and tens of thousands of civilians were fleeing areas affected by the dam’s collapse on Tuesday, which Zelensky blamed on Russia. Moscow blamed it on Ukraine.

“The destruction of one of the largest water reservoirs in Ukraine is absolutely deliberate… Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without normal access to drinking water,” Zelensky wrote.

Officials said that parts of the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions in the south and southeast of Ukraine would suffer from disrupted water supplies.

“The top priority now is to provide water to the regions affected by the Russian terrorist attack,” Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov wrote.

Ukraine’s Agency for Restoration and Development of Infrastructure said the government had decided to provide 1.5 billion hryvnias ($41 million) for construction of a pipeline with a capacity of about 300,000 cubic meters of water per day.

The total length of the new water pipeline would be 87 kilometers (54 miles), the agency said.

The Health Ministry warned of potential health hazards because of chemicals in the water, and urged residents to drink only bottled and safe water, and to use safe water when cooking.