Russian troops flood own positions by destroying dam, risk detonating landmines — Malyar
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By blowing up the Kakhovka dam, Russia wanted to stop Ukrainian defenders from liberating territories, but achieved the opposite effect from that intended, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister of Hanna Malyar said on Telegram on June 6.
She also said that by blowing up the dam the Russians could cause a serious environmental and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
"The purposeful detonation of the dam was carried out by the Russian occupiers to suspend the process of de-occupation by the Ukrainian Defense Forces and to shift the vector of public attention from the events taking place in Belgorod Oblast," Malyar. “Instead, the Russian occupiers got the opposite effect.”
Malyar said that residents of the temporarily occupied settlements in Kherson Oblast and occupied Crimea are in a critical situation, as the Russians have left them without fresh water by blowing up the dam.
The Russian troops have also flooded their own positions, which "may lead to a large-scale washing away of Russian minefields and their detonation in a chaotic manner."
Explosion at Kakhovka HPP — what is known
During the night of June 6, Russian forces blew up the Kakhovska Hydroelectric Power Plant dam, triggering widespread flooding and posing a grave threat to downstream cities and towns along the Dnipro River, Ukrainian authorities say. The floodwaters were expected to peak around noon Kyiv time (GMT+3), prompting the Kherson Oblast Military Administration to declare an urgent evacuation.
The east bank of the Dnipro River, which is controlled by Russian forces, is also badly affected.
At an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered evacuations from high-risk areas and the provision of drinking water to all towns and villages that previously received water from the Kakhovka Reservoir.
Ukrhydroenergo reported that the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant was completely destroyed and cannot be repaired. At the same time, the Ukrainian military’s South Operational Command said that not all of the dam had been destroyed, but that there was significant damage to it.
About 80 settlements in the region face flooding threats, with 16,000 people on the west bank of Kherson Oblast in the critical impact zone. The Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation on the incident under the charge of ecocide.
President Zelenskyy called Russia's attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant the largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.
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