Destruction of Kakhovka Dam Raises International Humanitarian Law Concerns [1]
On June 6th, reports suggested a massive series of explosions broke the Kakhovka dam and freed catastrophic levels of water that have flooded Southern Ukraine. According to the United Nations Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, The destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant may constitute the "most significant incident of damage to civilian infrastructure since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine." Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) claims [3] to have intercepted a call [4] in which two Russian soldiers implicated themselves in the catastrophic attack. Russia has denied any involvement in the attack. Regardless, the destruction of the dam, potentially forcing 80 towns and villages to evacuate [5], may be in "violation of international law, notably international humanitarian law," as argued [6] by High Representative, Josep Borrell, and Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič. Customary international humanitarian law suggests [7] that care must be taken around dams, dykes, and nuclear electrical generating stations to prevent the release of dangerous forces. In this case, "dangerous forces" could take the form of the enormous weight of water held behind the dam. In the long term, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, noted [8] that Ukraine should expect a disruption in "farming activities and damage to both livestock and fisheries" and even "unpredictable danger from mine and explosive ordinance contamination” from the flooding.