Residents of Kherson - some 73km (45 miles) from the Nova Kakhovka dam - are not panicked over flooding in their city, Ukrainian journalist Yevgeniy Kucherov says.

Kucherov, whose wife is currently in their home town of Kherson, told Radio 4's World at One programme that "some people who were sick were evacuated by our city government" but that there was "no terrifying situation, no panic".

He said that there are some areas without electricity but people are coping with the immediate dangers.

More than 17,000 people are being evacuated from flooded areas after the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam was partially destroyed, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said.

He added: "Over 40,000 people are in danger of being flooded."

Kostin said 25,000 more people should be evacuated on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro river.

This is the moment a building was seen floating down the Dnipro river in the Kherson region earlier today.

Officials have warned of the risk of "catastrophic" flooding after the dam in the Moscow-seized town of Nova Kakhovka was badly damaged overnight.

Matt Murphy
BBC News

Image source, EPA

A local Ukrainian politician in the Mykolaiv region has told the BBC that he expects to receive a large number of refugees fleeing flooding in the coming days, following this morning's dam attack.

Oleh Pylypenko, the head of the Shevchenkivka United Territorial Community, said he was less than 30km (19 miles) away from Kherson and was in the process of establishing points for those impacted by the blast at the Nova Kakhovka dam.

"We have an aid point for refugees, where they are provided with food, medicine, clothing and psychological assistance," Pylypenko said.

He said that civilians would then be taken to temporary accommodation elsewhere in the Mykolaiv region by bus.

He laid the blame for the disaster at Moscow's door, calling Vladimir Putin's regime "terrorists" and saying the situation in many settlements in the affected region was "terrible".

Image source, Reuters

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called the Karhovka dam breach an "environmental catastrophe".

Baerbock blamed Russia's invasion of Ukraine for the destruction of the dam and said Germany was determined to find out exactly what had happened.

"A dam near a nuclear power plant is misused as a weapon of war and human lives are put in grave danger," she tweeted., external

"There is only one thing responsible for this environmental catastrophe: Russia's criminal war of aggression on Ukraine."

Russia has denied it was behind the attack, instead claiming it was an "act of sabotage" by Ukraine.

Jonathan Beale
Defence correspondent

A senior Nato official says “Russian actors” most likely had a motive to damage the Nova Kakhovka dam, but he added that it was still too early to make an assessment. The official ruled out an air strike on the dam, but left open the possibility that explosive charges had caused the damage.

They made clear that Russia “most likely” had a motive - concerned about a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro river in the south. He said the destruction at the dam - with a breakage of a few hundred metres - had made a river crossing by Ukrainian forces harder. He added it would change the terrain further downstream, creating swamp-like conditions.

The official said it was also not clear what impact it would have on Ukrainian forces preparing for the offensive and whether military personnel would have to be diverted to evacuate civilians and to help fill sandbags to limit the flooding, causing “significant environmental damage”.

The official said there would likely be sustained flooding for the next two or three days - all the way towards the city of Kherson (around 73km). Despite saying it was too early to make an assessment of who was responsible, the official described the destruction as “outrageous” and a contravention of the laws of armed conflict because of its impact on civilians.

But he said he did not expect the loss of the hydroelectric plant to threaten Ukraine’s electricity supplies.

Image source, Pavlo

Earlier today our colleagues on Radio 5 Live's Nicky Campbell spoke to people living in Ukraine.

Pavlo in Lviv said he couldn't get hold of his relatives living in Nova Kakhovka because there wasn't "any connection".

"The situation in the city now has become more and more dangerous... the level of the water rises really quickly," he said.

Looking towards the long-term impacts, Pavlo said it was "scary" because the dam held water used for agriculture purposes in the most coastal region in Crimea.

"We will have huge problems with our environment in the future," he added.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says it would have been "physically impossible" for the Kakhovka dam to have been blown up from outside its immediate area. It's not yet been established what caused the dam to be destroyed.

He says in a tweet, external that Russia has controlled the dam and its surrounding region for more than a year, and adds that the dam "was mined by Russian occupiers," and "they blew it up".

Zelensky, who earlier warned that as many as 80 towns and villages were at risk of flooding in the region, says the world must react to Russia's aggression.

The BBC has not been able to verify who damaged the dam yet. However, satellite images show the extent of the damage to the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and the area around it.

Jeremy Howell
BBC News

The Nova Kakhovka dam is not the first to have been targeted since the start of the conflict.

Last September, a missile attack destroyed the dam at Karachunivske reservoir near the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine. This caused widespread flooding and people were told to evacuate.

One month later, there were missile attacks on hydroelectric dams at Zaprorizhzhia, Kremenchuk and on the Dniester river, in the west of the country.

In December and February, the Dnipro hydroelectric dam, near Zaporizhzhia, was also attacked. Ukraine blamed Russia for this.

Image source, .

"This is part of Russia's strategy of destroying Ukraine's energy capacity," says Dr Marina Miron from King's College London. She says the plants now generate far less power than they used to.

In May, Kyiv said Russian missile attacks "destroyed" the Karlivskyi reservoir near Donetsk, in the east of Ukraine. The damage resulted in flooding in nearby villages along the Vovcha river and many had to be evacuated from their homes.

Ukraine's interior ministry has accused Russia of shelling the southern region of Kherson, where people are being evacuated from after the Kakhovka dam attack.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said two police officers working in the area had been injured.

About 1,000 people were evacuated and "24 settlements" had been flooded by the dam waters, Klymenko told Ukrainian television.

He also issued a warning about the dangers posed by mines being exposed by the rising water levels.

Image source, .

Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, says it has launched a criminal investigation following the Kakhovka dam breach.

The alleged attack in the Russian-controlled town of Nova Kakhovka, in Ukraine's Kherson region, has been condemned by both Russia and Ukraine. They have blamed one another for it.

Image source, Reuters

The Russian-installed governor of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region says the water level has risen to more than 11m (36ft) in the city of Nova Kakhovka - in the immediate vicinity of the breached dam, according to Russia's state-owned news agency Tass.

Yevgeny Balitsky said some residents in the city had been taken to hospital following the dam blast - Russia and Ukraine have both blamed each other for the damage.

The governor says the turbine room at the hydropower plant is now "under water".

He added the water level near the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has dropped by 2.5m - and is expected to fall by up to 7m.

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog has said a lack of cooling water at the nuclear plant - which lies about 100 miles (160km) upstream from Kakhovka dam - could disrupt its emergency diesel generators.

Vitaly Shevchenko
BBC Monitoring

The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the Dnipro river is contaminated with 150 tonnes of industrial lubricants after the Kakhovka dam breach.

The dam is one of six that sits along the river, which stretches all the way from the very north of the country into the sea in the south.

Jake Horton
BBC News

Communities downstream from the damaged dam are now facing the possibility of widespread flooding.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said some 80 towns and villages could be affected.

We’ve verified several videos from places in the Kherson region which are already being flooded, as seen on the map below.

This includes areas immediately downstream, as well as parts of the city of Kherson some 85km (52 miles) from the dam.

In one video we’ve verified, taken in the Neftehavan district of Kherson, a beaver is seen wandering flooded streets.

Extensive flooding can be seen in areas closer to the dam, and the administrative square in the town of Nova Kakhovka is full of water.

Kasra Naji
Special Correspondent, BBC Persian, in Vienna

The Russian ambassador to Vienna, Mikhail Ullyanov, speaking on the sidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting today in Vienna, has told the BBC he was sure Russia was not behind the attack on Nova Kakhovka in Ukraine.

"I am sure it was not Russia. As a matter of fact, it [has been] the subject of Ukraine shelling since last summer. But I hesitate to blame Ukraine as I am not fully aware of what happened," Ullyanov told me.

Russia and Ukraine have both blamed one another for the damage done to the dam. The BBC has not been able to verify either's claims.

First satellite image of damaged dampublished at 12:36 British Summer Time 6 June 2023

12:36 BST 6 June 2023

Image source, Planet Lab PBC

Satellite images are slowly being uploaded, showing the extent of the damage to the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.

This image, acquired at 09:00 BST today and analysed by BBC Verify, shows extensive damage to the central part of the dam and to a section of the hydropower plant building on the east bank of the Dnipro River.

Water is running downstream from two breaches. A third breach is also moving water south in the so-called North Crimea Canal.

More detailed satellite images will be available in the next hours. BBC Verify will continue to monitor them.

Jeremy Howell
BBC News

Earlier, EU Council President Charles Michel accused Russia of attacking the dam in Nova Kakhovka, saying this amounted to a "war crime".

Dams are civilian infrastructure and are generally not valid military targets, says Prof Tracey German, an expert in conflict and security at King's College London.

"Let's say there was a Ukrainian military unit based around a dam. In the law of armed conflict, Russian forces could treat it as a military target. But as far as I am aware, that has not been the case."

"An attack on a civilian target like a dam has to be done out of military necessity," Dr Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association adds.

"But if the military advantage gained is small, and the damage done to civilians is catastrophic, then that would be a violation of international law."

Dr Ellis says that by this measure, no attacks on dams for which Russia has been held responsible can be justified.

However, he says, when Ukrainian forces destroyed the Irpin dam in February 2022 to flood land north of Kyiv and impede the Russian advance on the capital, that was justified because of military necessity.

Ukraine's foreign ministry has called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council following the damaged caused to the Kakhovka dam.

The ministry claimed the damage was the result of a "Russian terrorist attack" and that the Kremlin should face new international sanctions.

Kyiv's allies have strongly condemned the attack. However, Russia has claimed the dam breach was a "deliberate act of sabotage" by Ukraine.

The European Union has blamed Russia for attacking the Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine.

"This is a new sign of escalation, bringing the horrific and barbaric nature of Russian aggression against Ukraine to unprecedented levels," EU Commission spokesman Peter Stano said.

Earlier, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, also blamed Moscow, describing the attack as a war crime.

Moscow has denied attacking the dam, instead claiming Ukraine damaged it in a "deliberate act of sabotage".