INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A Russian-controlled dam near the frontline that supplies southern Ukraine and annexed Crimea with drinking water was significantly damaged
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meteorologist who monitors the dam, David Helms.The water is expected to reach "critical
levels" within hours, said the Ukrainian governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, as he urged residents to await evacuation
Volodymyr Zelensky has summoned an emergency national security council session in connection to the Kakhovka dam collapse.An unnamed source
denials from the Moscow-installed authorities.But Russian-installed officials provided conflicting claims on whether the Kakhovka dam failed
the plant."The IAEA is aware of reports of damage at Ukraine's Kakhovka dam; IAEA experts at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant are closely
monitoring the situation; no immediate nuclear safety risk at plant," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a tweet.Andrei
Alexeyenko, head of the local government in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region, said there was there was "no threat" to major
population centers but added that more than 22,000 people were at risk."The increase of the water level downstream from the hydroelectric
power station is between two and four meters which is no threat to major population centers," he said.Vladimir Leontyev, the
Russian-installed mayor of the town of Nova Kakhovka where the dam is located, said residents of "around 300 homes" had been evacuated."We
are proceeding with the evacuation," he was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.He said Ukrainian forces, which Russia has accused of
striking the Kakhovka dam, were continuing bombardment in the area."The town is still being targeted by missile strikes," Leontyev
said.Water levels have reached a 30-year high at the Kakhovka reservoir in recent months, according to satellite measurements.Experts told
The New York Times in May it appeared that Russian forces allowed too much water to enter the reservoir during winter snowmelt and spring
rains.Destroying the dam and its hydroelectric station, which provides electricity to tens of thousands of Ukrainians, would align with
the flooding would likely be worse on the Russian-held left bank of the Dnipro, making a detonation of explosives on the dam an unlikely
divided over the flooding's implications for Ukrainian forces' anticipated counteroffensive to reclaim territories captured by Russia
during its 15-month invasion.AFP contributed reporting.
