Russia-Held Ukraine City 'Novaya Kakhovka' Flooded After Dam Blown Up: Report

The Russian-occupied city of Nova Kakhovka in southern Ukraine -- home to the dam that Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of targeting -- is "flooded", officials told Russian media Tuesday.

"The city is flooded," Vladimir Leontyev, the Russian-installed head of the city administration, told Russian media. Leontyev said residents of "around 300 homes" had been evacuated. 

The Russian-occupied city of Nova Kakhovka in southern Ukraine -- home to the dam that Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of attacking -- is "flooded", officials said Tuesday.

Russian television showed images of the city that lies on the Dnipro river with its central square entirely flooded and swans swimming near the main Soviet-era house of culture.

"Water is rising," Vladimir Leontyev, the Russian-installed head of the city administration, said on Telegram. 

He said 53 buses were being sent by authorities to take people from Novaya Kakhovka and two nearby settlements to safe areas. 

"We are organising temporary accommodation centres with hot meals," he said. 

"Emergency rescuers, city administration workers and soldiers are at work," he said. "Help will be given to all those who need it." 

Leontyev posted a video of himself looking at the city from a high-rise building with the flooded central square and the Dnipro river in the background. 

A reporter on Russian state television, speaking from the square, said water was rising around a statue of Lenin erected by Moscow's forces after taking control of the city on the first day of their offensive. 

The dam at the Kakhovka hydropower plant in Southern Ukraine has become the latest casualty in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with both countries accusing the other of the attack. The dam blowing up has unleashed floodwaters in the war zone.

Ukraine authorities have said that the water could reach critical levels in the next five hours. "Water will reach critical levels in five hours," regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said in a video on his Telegram channel.

Russia has called the damage to the dam as "deliberate sabotage" by Ukraine to cut-off the water supply to the Russian-held Crimean peninsula.

"We can already unequivocally declare (this was) deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, said that it saw "no immediate nuclear safety risk" but was exploring options to get water to keep cooling Europe's biggest atomic plant the dam breach in southern Ukraine.