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June 6, 2023 went down in history as one of the largest tragedies for Ukraine and the biggest man-made disaster since the explosion at the Chornobyl NPP. On this day, the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) was destroyed by russians. A year later, Ukraine has to deal with consequences and losses that will take years, and possibly even decades, to overcome, the General Director of Ukrhydroenergo Ihor Syrota said in a statement.
“Around 02:50, the russian military blew up the station. My colleagues immediately called me. Shock, I couldn’t believe that this was really happening. Later it became known that the russians damaged the structures of the Kakhovka HPP with explosives planted in several places, which gradually led to the destruction of the entire hydroelectric unit and the uncontrolled discharge of water from the Kakhovska reservoir. On the same day, early in the morning, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, called an emergency meeting. All the attention of Ukraine and the world was focused on this disaster – representatives of the media called, went on a video call, everyone was waiting for comments. We at the company updated the data every few hours and gave operational information so that people knew how catastrophic this explosion had become,” Syrota said.According to him, his colleagues told him that during the entire time russians were at the station, explosives were brought in and lowered by the russian troops into the lower parts of the power plant. Therefore, we had no doubt that the station was destroyed by internal detonation. “Moreover, let me remind you that the seismic station in Romania, which is part of the Norwegian seismic group Norsar, recorded pulses that were localized in the area where the Kakhovska HPP is located and indicated explosions,” Syrota said.
“Unfortunately, we did not receive an adequate response from the world community to the terrorist attack by russians. Ukrhydroenergo has repeatedly publicly called and continues to draw the attention of the international community to the adoption of quick and decisive actions aimed at preventing new man-made disasters at critical infrastructure facilities. However, the reaction of the world is insufficient, so we have a situation where the enemy feels that he can continue his further attacks on the energy sector in general and on hydroelectric power generation facilities in particular. We are already feeling the consequences. Currently, the situation in the energy system is difficult: we have capacity losses, electricity shortages and forced disconnections from electricity for the population and industry,”Syrota explained.
