Emergency NATO Consultation to Address Kakhovka HPP Issue

On Thursday, June 8, an emergency meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission will be held to discuss the collapse of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on his Twitter page.

He discussed the destruction of the dam by phone with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who will also participate in the commission meeting.

“I spoke with Dmytro Kuleba about the catastrophic destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which has left thousands homeless and has triggered an ecological disaster in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg wrote. The NATO Secretary General did not provide further details.

Kuleba himself clarified that the meeting will take place at his request.

“To mitigate the crisis caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam by Russia, Jens Stoltenberg promised to use NATO mechanisms to provide humanitarian assistance,” Kuleba announced.

The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which has been under the control of Russian soldiers for over a year, collapsed on the night of June 6. An uncontrolled flow of water from the Dnipro has begun. Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the disaster. Independent analysts admit that the dam could have collapsed due to a nighttime explosion or shelling, or possibly due to prior damage.

As a result of the dam's destruction, dozens of settlements in the Kherson region and about 5,000 residential buildings have been submerged. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, more than 2,000 people have been evacuated from areas affected by the flood as of the evening of June 7. Kyiv has deemed the incident the largest man-made disaster in the world in recent decades.