minister netanyahu, playing politics with the war i don t think so. he s trying to a serious problem joining me now to weigh in on this, jonathan dekel-chen, his son is a 35-year-old israeli american named tsugi deco hand and he s been held hostage by hamas since october 7, jonathan, thank you for joining the show. again, i wonder what you think the answer is to that question that the president was asked multiple times do you think that netanyahu is prolonging this war for political reasons. and i should know this week marks eight months since that attack on october 7, and those hostages, including kherson, were taken well, thank you for having me abbey in full transparency i ve stated publicly both in israel and abroad in the past that indeed, for reasons of his own,
the dam after it suffered a collapse. early tuesday. led to mass evacuations amid flooding in towns and cities downstream. including kherson. officials say that more than 1300 homes along the west bank there of the dnipro river appear to be already underwater. now while kyiv and moscow accused each other of being responsible for the clouds, they also acknowledge the destruction will cause severe environmental damage. cnn s sam kiley has more. a new phase in russia s war on ukraine, a dam under moscow s control burst. soon vast areas downstream were flooded including parts of kherson city. ukraine and its allies blamed russia for the breach but that might have backfired. he escaped, but according to a ukrainian officer who commands a team in the area,
massive evacuations are happening this hour in southern ukraine. an important dam on the dnipro river destroyed overnight. one ukrainian official accused russia of destroying the dam to, quote, create obstacles for any ukrainian counteroffensive. russia is blaming ukraine. video shows water gushing through the destroyed portion of the dam you can see there. i want to show you another angle that we have pulled in. you can also see what looks like a geyser shooting up into the air. some of the dam s facilities there in the background, some heavily damaged as this flood unfolded. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. wh whoa. so flooding is now hitting the roads an neighborhoods downriver in kherson. more than 800 people have been evacuated from there. one ukrainian official said 16,000 people on the west bank
now it has been entirely breached with this disastrous flooding downstream. kate? yeah, a lot of questions still as you re offering very important context around all of this of what is behind what caused if there is someone to blame for what we re seeing unfold right now. it s very much developing right now as we speak. thank you, sam. sara? the significance of the dam in southern ukraine cannot be overstated. it bridges the dnipro river holding back a huge reservoir of water, the volume nearly equal to the great salt lake. the dam stands nearly 100 feet tall and is about two miles long. there are multiple towns and cities, as you just heard, downstream, including kherson. water from the reservoir supplies the crimean peninsula to the south which was annexed by russia in 2014, as well as the zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, europe s largest. the dam is also part of a nearby hydro electric power plant. ukraine s energy operator says
it, too, has been totally destroyed. this could make ukraine s energy problems even worse than they already are. russian forces have consistently targeted ukraine s electrical grid since the start of their unprovoked invasion. let s talk about the military significance of this region. people know the area we re talking about here, we re talking about southern ukraine, i can push in now specifically on the river, you can see the river flowing right here. this is the dam and this is kherson. that city in the south now controlled by ukraine, for reference point here is the nuclear power plant, it is upriver from the dam which is why people don t think it is a major concern right now. but when you are talking about the military significance of this much more, you can see that the dnipro river is literally the dividing line between ukrainian-held territory and the russian occupied territory in the south. the russians have been in crimea for several years and have occupied this region in r