Kyiv said Wednesday the destruction of the Russian-held Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine earlier this month caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damages to the environment.
The breach of the dam on June 6 caused devastating floods in the Kherson region under Russian and Ukrainian control, forcing thousands to flee and sparking fears of an environmental disaster.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of “ecocide” by blowing up the Soviet-era dam on the Dnipro River, while Russia has blamed Ukraine.
“Every day Russia is inflicting new losses on Ukraine,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said at a reconstruction conference in London.
He said the overall cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction, estimated at $411 billion by the World Bank, “will grow, especially after the Russians blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.”
He said the “preliminary estimates” of $1.5 billion in environmental damages following the dam breach do not include “losses to agriculture, infrastructure, housing, and the cost of rebuilding the plant itself.”
