78 Years ago, Soviets Blown up Dnieper Hydroelectric Station Dam

Photo from Bundesarchiv

On August 18, 1941, 78 years ago, Soviet troops, retreating under the forces of Nazi Germany, blew up the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station dam.

A huge wave of water covered the lower part of Khortytsya and the southern parts of the city. According to various sources, then from 20 to 100 thousand people died.

The flow reached the cities of Manganese and Nikopol, located almost 80 kilometers downstream of the Dnieper.

The explosion was organized at the direction of the NKVD by the Red Army Boris Epov and Alexei Petrovsky. To undermine the dam, 20 tons of explosives were laid, which were delivered from Moscow by two planes.

After the war, the truth about this tragedy was hidden. Only in the late 1980s, it became possible to write about the tragedy objectively.