Scientists are watching a Ukranian dam collapse

Russia’s Dnieper River is an environmental disaster, with serious consequences for agricultural and agricultural communities – a comment on Strilets’ post on the Kherson dam breach

In a Facebook post, Ruslan Strilets said that the dam’s collapse left one national park completely submerged, drained rivers and lakes in other protected areas, and could lead to groundwater rising in parts of the Dnieper delta occupied by Moscow, creating the risk of further flooding.

The ministry says a survey will have to be done to determine if the dam should be rebuilt. But a complete assessment of the flood’s impact is unlikely at present: Russian forces currently control the south side of the river, where the majority of the flooding has occurred. “Nothing can be done to minimize the consequences,” says Vasyliuk. “This is a zone of both an environmental disaster and active hostilities.”

More than 20,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, including in Russian-held areas of the lower left bank, since the breach occurred in Kherson, which peaked at 5.8 metres on June 8. The weather is expected to get worse over the next week.

The Kakhovka was home to more than 19 hectares of water before it was destroyed. There are only 11 centimetres of water left in Ukraine, said the country’s deputy minister of environmental protection and natural resources at a press briefing on 8 June.

There are more than one million people in southUkraine who have access to drinking water. The Dnieper River has water supplies that are insufficient, according to the United Nations.

Roger Falconer, who specializes in modelling dam failures, said there will not be enough water for irrigation canals when the water level in the reservoir drops. “So it could affect crops both downstream and upstream.”

Floodwater has inundated tens of thousands of hectares of farms and arable lands, washing away their topsoil layers, according to Ukraine’s environment ministry. We will not have the ability to cultivate plants there for a long time. The floods could wash the pesticides used on the land into the river and disrupt the aquatic ecology.

The impact of the sudden rise in water downstream has been swift and wide-ranging. More than 130,000 animals and 20,000birds are in danger because of the catastrophe, said Krasnolutskyi.

The Kakhovka Reservoir: Inundated and Dryed-Up Zones at the Ukranian Emerald Network, a World-wide Conserved Area

Some of the species concerned are rare, or found only in this area. The UcG report stated that these include the globally-endangeredNordmann’s Birch Mouse (Sicista loriger).

There are a lot of fish species at the Kakhovka reservoir. Many fish can be either washed away to the sea or stranded in shallow, dried-up zones, because of the rapid draining of its water.

There are nine sites within the Ukranian Emerald Network, a European-wide conserved area, as well as five internationally important wetlands that have been flooded. According to the environment ministry, a large amount of forest has been flooded with water and is predicted to remain stagnant for 20 days.

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is located around 150 kilometres upstream of the Kakhovka dam. The IAEA says that the reactor is shut down because it needs water to cool the rest of the reactor, but it is still pumping cooling water from the lake.

If the water level in the Kakhovka lake drops too low, Zaporizhzia can switch to other water supplies. There are also two cooling towers that can be used for atmospheric cooling, and require only a small amount of water to operate, says Malte Jansen, an energy scientist at the University of Sussex, UK.

The baseline level for the river will be returned to if the water level in the dam continues to go down.

Vasyliuk said that it would be needed to plant the area with a forest or cultivate meadow grasses in order for the wind to not blow the silt away at the bottom of the dried lake.

Zelenskyy and the Russian Army in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia Industrial Region. The Last Ukrainian Embassy Visited by Putin

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims that his top commanders are in a positive attitude and that they’re fighting on the front line against Russian forces.

Trudeau, the first foreign leader to visit Ukraine since devastating floods caused by a breach in a Dnieper River dam, offered up monetary, military and moral support. He said that Canada would provide 500 million Canadian dollars in new military aid as well as 10 million Canadian dollars for flood relief.

“I am in touch with our commanders of different directions every day,” he added, citing the names of five of Ukraine’s top military leaders. “Everyone is positive. Pass this on to Putin.”

“Heavy battles” were ongoing in the country’s industrial east with 34 clashes over the previous day, according to the General Staff. It said that Russian forces were fighting back in the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Some Western analysts say the Ukrainian authorities might have started a full-blown counteroffensive, but they have stopped short of saying so. Some of the high-tech and top-of- the-line military equipment that the West has poured into Ukraine is sparking new expectations about when it would be used and what effect it would have on Russian lines.

For months, Ukrainian commanders in the eastern city of Bakhmut — which was largely devastated in a months-long fight that has been one of the bloodiest battles of the war — have used the language of counteroffensive and defensive operations to describe the activity there.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Friday that the epicenter of the fighting has been in the east, particularly in the Donetsk region, and cited “heavy battles” in Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka.

Valerii Shershen, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s armed forces in Zaporizhzhia, told Radio Liberty that they were searching for weaknesses in Russia’s defense in that region, to the west.

Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear agency, said in a statement late Friday that there was “no direct threat” to the Zaporizhzhia plant due to the breach of the Kakhovka dam further down the Dnieper River, which has forced thousands of people to flee flooding and also sharply reduced water levels in a reservoir used to help cool the facility.

The site’s power units have not been operating since September last year. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to visit Ukraine in the coming days.

The Ukrainian air force shot down 20 out of 35 Shahed drones and 2 out of eight missiles launched by the Russians during the night.

The Black Sea port of Odesa had an attack overnight that killed three people and wounded more than two dozen. Two children and a pregnant woman are among the wounded, according to a spokeswoman for the southern operational command.

In the Poltava region further west, there was damage to a military airfield struck overnight during a Russian drone and missile attack, local Gov. Dmytro Lunin reported. Lunin said no one was hurt. As of Saturday morning, there was no additional comment from the Ukrainian army or officials on the extent of the damage.

The fighting and civilian casualties took renewed attention as authorities in southern Ukraine said water levels have been declining in a vast area beneath the ruptured dam.

Nearly one-third of protected natural areas in the Kherson region could be obliterated by flooding following the breach of the Kakhovka dam, the Ukrainian environment minister warned Saturday.

In the city of Kherson, whose outskirts were among the flood-hit areas, the average water level decreased by 31 centimeters (12 inches) during the night, but remained over 4.5 meters (15 feet) higher than usual, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin reported Saturday.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/10/1181512637/zelenskyy-ukraine-counteroffensive

The U.N.’s humanitarian aid chief: a “positive” message for the “fair” end of the Ukrainian-Russian war

The U.N.’s humanitarian aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said in an Associated Press interview Friday that an “extraordinary” 700,000 people were in need of drinking water.

The German Chancellor says he wants to keep speaking with Putin, who ordered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and plans to do so soon. Scholz has spoken several times by phone with Putin since the invasion.

The chancellor said the basis for a “fair peace” between Russia and Ukraine is the withdrawal of Russian troops. “That’s needs to be understood,” he said.

The U.K. has provided 4.5 billion pounds in military aid to Ukraine since the war began, according to the government.