Russian Army Hit by Cholera Outbreak After Kakhovka Dam Flooding

The Russian army has been hit by a cholera outbreak, days after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine caused catastrophic flooding, a military partisan movement has said.

Atesh, a military movement of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, which has 41,000 subscribers on Telegram, cited "informants" from military hospitals of the Kherson region and Crimea as saying that many Russian soldiers are being admitted daily with suspected cases of cholera, a potentially deadly bacterial disease. Several Russian troops have died, the group said.

The reports come after the Soviet-era dam—part of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station in southern Ukraine on the Dnieper River—was breached in the early hours of June 6, unleashing water on swaths of land as a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive to take back the seized territories kicked off. The death toll from the flooding has risen to 52.

Russia maintains that it wasn't behind its collapse and has accused Ukraine of blowing up the dam to distract attention from a "faltering" counteroffensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian forces of blowing up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station dam from inside the facility as part of a "terrorist attack."

On June 13, Oleh Pavlenko, the head of Ukraine's State Environmental Inspectorate, said cholera and e.coli were found in water supplies in southern Ukraine.

"The occupiers are suffering from a cholera epidemic," Atesh, which carries out sabotage against Russian forces and their collaborators, wrote on its Telegram page.

"Entire units from the Kherson direction located along the North Crimean Canal [have lost] their combat capability and are taken to the rear for treatment. Several Russian soldiers died."

The group said the outbreak is likely due to Russian troops using water "from open sources" because "there are difficulties with the delivery of bottled or simply purified water to the occupiers" due to the flooding.

"Naturally, the explosion of the Kakhovka dam caused enormous damage to nature, revealing many diseases that we will hear about," the group added. "We urge the residents of the Kherson region and the Crimea to be especially attentive to the water you [consume]."

In an interview with The New Voice of Ukraine's NV.UA news website, Ihor Kuzin, Ukraine's chief state sanitary doctor, said Ukraine is ready to fight a cholera epidemic.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.

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