One Year of Russian Ecocide in Ukraine: How Blowing Up of Kakhovka Dam Destroyed the Region's Nature and Economy
The biggest environmental impact of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station dam in June 2023. This resulted in the release of 18 cubic kilometres of water overover three to four days, flooding at least 80 settlements located downstream on the banks of the Dnipro River.
In the government-controlled territory of Kherson region alone, 31 people died. The number of casualties on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro is unknown, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs suggests that there could be many more, as the Russians were in no hurry to launch a rescue operation. People in the disaster area lost their homes and property.
When the Kakhovka Reservoir dried up, more than 1.5 million people in four regions of Ukraine were left without drinking water, and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, whose cooling ponds were connected to the Kakhovka Reservoir, was threatened.
Dehydration led to serious losses for farmers. Many businesses that used the reservoir's resources closed down, and farms were forced to reduce the area of cultivated land or abandon crops that require irrigation.
In total, the UN has estimated Ukraine's direct losses from the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP by the Russian occupiers at $14 billion.
The details of the consequences of the Russian ecocide are described in the report of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission, published following two years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to a joint assessment by the Government of Ukraine and the UN, the flooding caused by the dam breach damaged more than 37,000 homes, 37 educational institutions and approximately 11 medical facilities, and disrupted the supply of drinking water and sanitation services to one million people, affecting their rights to housing, education, health and water.
The UN report notes that the disappearance of the reservoir, which was the source of water for a large agricultural irrigation network, will drastically reduce food supplies and farmers' incomes in the long term.
The flooding destroyed more than 11,000 hectares of forest land and damaged natural habitats, causing chemical contamination of these areas and irreversible impacts on biodiversity.
The damaged areas include critically important ecosystems:
five areas included in the Ramsar List (List of Wetlands of International Importance),
12 areas of the Emerald Network (according to the Bern Convention on the Conservation of Wild Flora and Fauna and Natural Habitats in Europe).
‘All of these impacts will seriously violate the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, both in the short and long term,’ the UN report says.
Other effects of the war also had negative consequences for the environment. In particular, air pollution was caused by the burning of fuel and lubricant depots set on fire as a result of attacks using explosive weapons.
In addition, explosive remnants of war contaminated the soil and threatened people's livelihoods, especially farmers.
On the night of 6 June, Russian troops blew up the structures of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station. The plant's turbine room is beyond repair. At the time, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin reported that more than 40,000 people needed to be evacuated.
Equipment, rescuers and law enforcement officers were sent from Poltava region to Kherson region to help thousands of people evacuating due to the Russians' explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.