Emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the dam failure in Ukraine – NRK Urix – Foreign news and documentaries

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The meeting started at 22 Norwegian time.

The summons came this afternoon, at the request of both Ukraine and Russia.

But the two countries have very different views on what caused the dam to be damaged.

Debts and uncertainty

Ukrainian authorities claim Russians have blown it up from the inside, while Russia has blamed Ukraine for blowing up the dam with a rocket launcher.

The US’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, says that they are not sure who is behind the dam failure.

– But it does not make sense that Ukraine should do something like this against its own people, and on its own territory, he said on the way to the meeting.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasilij Nebenzia, claims the dam failure is the result of a sabotage operation, and calls this operation extremely dangerous. Nebenzia further calls it a war crime.

Several thousand happened

According to the Ukrainian president, water started flowing out of the reservoir at 03.50 Norwegian time.

Videos on social media, including one shared by Zelenskyj, show extensive damage to the dam, which lies across the Dnipro river together with a hydroelectric power station.

– Only the liberation of the entire country can prevent new terrorist attacks, he said this evening.

Ukrainian authorities claim that 16,000 people are in the “critical evacuation zone”, and that several villages have been damaged.

Nova Kakhovka, in the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region, has declared a province-wide state of emergency as a result of the flu.

Around 600 houses in the town of Nova Kakhovka will be flooded, reports Russian emergency data in the area.

The dam contained just over 18 cubic kilometers of water. That is a third of the quantity found in Mjøsa, and enough to supply the entire Norwegian people 50 years from now.

It is 3.2 kilometers long and 30 meters high, damming the Kakhovka reservoir.

The Ukrainian military says that the breach will not hinder the Ukrainian offensive, even in the area where resistance has risen.

– Unmanageable nuclear safety situation

The dam is located at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is the largest of its kind in Europe. The facility has been occupied since March 2022.

Just before the emergency meeting began, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that the need for cooling is less than if the power plant had been in full operation, and that the cooling pond at the power plant has been filled.

The IAEA is still concerned, and the use of cooling water at the power plant is now limited.

– The collapse of the Kakhovka dam makes an already very difficult and unpredictable nuclear safety situation even more difficult, writes the nuclear agency.



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