Damage to Russian-occupied dam submerges Ukrainian reservoir island community

By LORI HINNANT and VASILISA STEPANENKO
Associated Press

LYSOHIRKA, Ukraine (AP) — Damage that has gone unrepaired for months at a Russian-occupied dam is causing dangerously high water levels along a reservoir in southern Ukraine. The rising waters came as a relief at first, for both the tiny community living on the islands in the southern Kakhovka Reservoir and for everyone who had feared the low levels risked a meltdown at the nearby Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro River. The last dam — the one furthest downstream in the Kherson region — is controlled by Russian forces, who sabotaged it last November. The river runs from Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus to the Black Sea and a functioning dam system is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.