Russia undercounted casualties of floodings after Kakhovka dam explosion – AP investigation

Hundreds of people in occupied Kherson region died in the Kakhovka dam aftermath on June 7.

This number is way higher than the casualties reported by the Russian-controlled authorities on south, according to АР.

"Over six months since the catastrophic explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka Dam in the southern Kherson region, an AP investigation has found Russian occupation authorities vastly and deliberately undercounted the dead in one of the most devastating chapters of the 22-month war.

Russian authorities took control of the issuance of death certificates, immediately removing bodies not claimed by family, and preventing local health workers and volunteers from dealing with the dead, threatening them when they defied orders."

Russian authorities claimed that 59 people drowned in the territory under their control.

However, in the occupied Oleshky alone, the number of people drowned is at least hundreds, the investigation says. According to the Ukrainian military, the town housed 16,000 residents at the time of the flood.

The investigators talked to three medical workers who kept records of the dead in Oleshky, one volunteer who buried the bodies, and two Ukrainian informants who passed intelligence from the area to the military.

The mass graves were dug up, and unidentified bodies were taken away, so no one saw them again.

The AP conducted almost a dozen interviews with other residents, rescue volunteers, and people who had left the occupation. They also gained access to a closed Telegram chat group of 3,000 Oleshky residents who reported dead bodies on the streets.

According to the investigators, this indicates a deliberate attempt to conceal the true events that took place after the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dams were blown up.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stated that the undermining of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam by Russian troops in June 2023 was made to influence the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Aftermath of the Kakhovka dam explosion

After the explosion on June 6, 180 settlements in Kherson, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions, with a population of almost 900,000, were put in the emergency zone.

31 people died on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.

Rubryka journalists have analyzed whether it is possible to adapt to the new realities without the Kakhovka HPP.

Back then, the floodwaters from the Kakhovka disaster receded, but Ukraine will be dealing with the consequences for years to come.

In addition to thousands of tons of agricultural products in southern Ukraine being destroyed by flooding, many areas were left without irrigation.

This will have a significant impact on farmers on the right bank of the Kherson region, who only this year made their first attempts to recover from the occupation, and on farmers in Mykolaiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Is it possible to adapt to new realities without the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant? Rubryka analyzes the pros and cons of restoring the reservoir the Russians destroyed.