KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Ukrhydroenergo said on Thursday it had initiated international arbitration seeking damages for Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and power station in June 2023.
The state-run hydro-electric company estimated the damage at 2.5 billion euros ($2.72 billion), it said.
The Kakhovka dam, one of six dams on the Dnipro river that carves through central and southern Ukraine, was captured at the start of Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.
Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka Dam on the night of June 6, 2023, which flooded swathes of arable land, leaving tens of thousands of people without drinking water and Europe’s largest nuclear power plant without enough water to cool the reactors.
“The company’s actions aim to compensate for the losses caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant,” Ukrhydroenergo said in a statement.
“The company believes that initiating international arbitration process is the most promising way to compensate for the losses.”
Ukrhydroenergo said the Russian president, the government, and other authorised bodies were officially informed of the dispute.
Electricity from Ukrainian hydro-electric power plants was a key energy sources for Ukraine, and the company’s plants were repeatedly subjected to Russian missile attacks.
Ukrhydroenergo said that since the start of the invasion, Russia had fired more than 110 missiles at the company’s stations.
($1 = 0.9199 euros)
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Yuliia Dys; editing by Jason Neely, Alexandra Hudson)
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