The destruction in the early hours of June 6 [2023] of Ukraine’s massive Nova
Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River is a dangerous escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia.
It risks massive human and ecological consequences to communities
downstream being hit by vast floodwaters, and also threatens a
potentially catastrophic nuclear accident. World leaders are also
calling it a war crime. ...
Kakhovka Dam, one of the largest in Europe, was built in the late 1950s
to provide hydroelectric power, irrigation water, and improved
navigation on the Dnieper River which flows from Russia through Belarus
and Ukraine before emptying into the Black Sea. When full—and it was
full when it was destroyed—the reservoir contains 18 cubic kilometers
(nearly 5 trillion gallons) of water. That’s around four times the
volume of California’s largest reservoir, the Shasta reservoir, and
about half the volume of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United
States. The reservoir behind the dam also supplies critical cooling
water to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and feeds water into the
North Crimea Canal, delivering nearly 80% of Crimea’s water. ...
Water and water systems have been the targets of attacks from the beginning of this war. Researchers have documented more than 50 such attacks
on dams, water supply systems, city water treatment plants, pipelines,
and other facilities. At the beginning of the war, the Russians
destroyed a small dam blocking water flows to Crimea. And civilian water
treatment and delivery systems have been widely attacked by the
Russians, cutting water supplies and sanitation services for hundreds of
thousands of people. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians cut levees to flood
areas north of Kyiv to halt the initial Russian armored assault on the
capital. But until now, there had been nothing as massive or devastating
as this event.
Attacks on dams are war crimes,
as explicitly noted in Article 56 of Protocol I and Article 15 of
Protocol II of the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. These
international laws prohibit attacks on infrastructure “containing
dangerous forces” including explicitly “dams” and “dykes” if such
attacks “may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe
losses among the civilian population.” Despite these prohibitions,
conflicts over water and attacks on water systems are on the rise, with a dramatic increase in the past two decades.
There is precedent for Russian destruction of dams on the Dnieper River.
In August 1941, during World War II, the retreating Soviet Army destroyed another dam
on the Dnieper at Zaporizhzhia, the Dnieper Dam, to prevent it from
falling into the hands of the advancing Nazis. At the time it was the
largest dam in the world. The subsequent flooding reportedly killed tens
of thousands of people downstream. ...
More.
Trump threatens Iran's water supply in astonishing 'war crime' escalation as defiant Tehran tears up nuclear treaty
Laying waste to Iran would solve a number of problems.
