Eight Russian missiles hit the largest hydroelectric plant in Ukraine, located on the Dnieper River, this Friday, March 22, causing “very significant damage” but without causing any immediate danger to the population, stated the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office.
“Eight missiles hit” the DniproHES power plant located in the city of Zaporizhia and caused it to be “dismantled,” Youry Belooussov, an official at the prosecutor general’s office, told television.
“At the moment there is no danger to citizens,” he assured. The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy also assured in a statement that the situation at the plant was “under control” and that there was no risk of “dam failure.”
Located about sixty kilometers from the Zaporizhia power plant.
Images circulating on social media showed flames ravaging the dam early Friday morning, following another massive Russian attack.
A trolleybus traveling along the dam route was destroyed in one of the attacks and its 62-year-old driver was killed, said Zaporizhzhia regional governor Ivan Fedorov.
At least three people were killed and 25 others were injured in these attacks on the city of Zaporizhia, according to the latest report published by the State Emergency Service.
DniproHES is about 60 kilometers upstream from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the Russian invasion began two years ago.
Fear of environmental disaster
The attack on the DniproHES, a legendary facility built almost 100 years ago by the Soviet Union, has revived fears of an environmental disaster similar to the failure in June 2023 of another hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper, the Kakhovka dam, located further down.
This disaster caused enormous flooding and caused dozens of deaths. kyiv accuses Russia of blowing up the Kakhovka dam, while Moscow blames kyiv for this destruction.
The DniproHES dam was partially destroyed in 1941 when the Soviet army, retreating in the face of the Nazi offensive, blew it up. A gigantic wave hit areas downstream, killing thousands, even tens of thousands, according to historians cited by Ukrainian media.
Source: BFM TV
