A huge Soviet-era dam in a Russian-controlled region of southern Ukraine was blown up on Tuesday, causing flooding in the war zone, Ukrainian and Russian forces said.

Russian soldiers at Kakhovskaya HPPPhoto: Olga MALTSEVA / AFP / Profimedia

Both sides blame each other for the destruction of the dam.

Unverified videos on social networks show a series of powerful explosions around the Kakhovskaya Dam. Other videos show water flowing through the remains of the dam as bystanders express their shock, sometimes using crude language.

The dam, 30 meters high and 3.2 km long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro River as part of the Kakhovskaya HPP.

It also owns a reservoir that supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, also controlled by Russia.

The Ukrainian military said that Russian troops blew up the dam.

“The Kakhovka (dam) was blown up by the Russian occupying forces,” the Southern Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on its Facebook page on Tuesday.

“The degree of destruction, the speed and volume of water, the likely areas of flooding are being clarified.”

Russian news agencies said the dam, controlled by Russian forces, had been destroyed by a bombardment, while an official working in Russia said it was a terrorist attack – Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.

Reuters could not immediately verify accounts from the battlefield from both sides.