FACT CHECK: Video Showing Dam Flooding Is Old
NEWS UPDATE NOVA KAKHOVKA EVENING JUNE 7
I don’t know who’s responsible for destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, but if you do what you can to worsen the situation and destroy the remnants of the dam, you’re the prime suspect, not the victim. Ukraine keeps the gates at Dnipro… pic.twitter.com/WmQK2h0eZh— Mikael Valtersson (@MikaelValterss1) June 7, 2023
Verdict: False
The video is from April 2023, a month and a half before the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
Fact Check:
The Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed earlier this month, with the cause of the destruction still unknown, according to CNN. (RELATED: Did The Leaked Pentagon Documents Show Ukraine Suffered 71,000 Dead?)
Social media users have been sharing a video of a dam flooding, implying that it was kept open by Ukraine in order to make the situation in Kherson worse. One tweet claims that the video shows Ukraine keeping the “gates at Dnipro HDD open (video).”
“Ukraine keeps the gates at Dnipro HDD open (video) and the water streams southward. The already undermined remnants of the Novo Kakhovka dam risk to totally collapse from the water pressure and later on, the flooding of Kherson oblast are worsened,” the tweet partially reads.
However, the video shared by the user is old. Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact found that the video is from April 2023. The video was posted to Instagram by InsiderKyiv.
View this post on Instagram
“In a number of regions of Ukraine, a red level of danger has been declared due to spring flooding, – the State Emergency Service According to forecasts, the peak of the flood will fall on the period from April 18 to 28,” reads the Instagram post’s caption. “Red and orange levels of danger have been declared in some areas. The most difficult situation in: Kyivska; Cherkasy; Poltava; Dnipropetrovsk; Kirovohradskaya; Chernihivska; Zaporozhye regions.”
Shayan Sardarizadeh, a BBC Verify reporter, also debunked the claim on Twitter.
This video is being shared widely by pro-Kremlin accounts as evidence that Ukraine was responsible for the damage to the Nova Kakhovka dam by keeping its gates open.
The clip is from April, reported by local outlets at the time, and shows high water levels due to spring floods. pic.twitter.com/k5cQiwnNih
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) June 9, 2023
“This video is being shared widely by pro-Kremlin accounts as evidence that Ukraine was responsible for the damage to the Nova Kakhovka dam by keeping its gates open. The clip is from April, reported by local outlets at the time, and shows high water levels due to spring floods,” Sardarizadeh tweeted.
