Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday opined that “the world must react” to the partial destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, which Kiev attributes to Moscow and which Russia categorically denies.
“The world must respond. Russia is at war against life, against nature, against civilization,” he said on the Telegram social network, accusing the Russians of undermining the dam before it “blew up”.
A video of the moment of the explosion of the dam at the NovaKakhovskaya hydroelectric power station entered the network pic.twitter.com/bjPeQq83UO
-Artur Stoletov (@AEstoletov) June 6, 2023
“Russia detonated a bomb and caused massive environmental damage,” Zelensky said in a videoconference speech to the “Nine of Bucharest,” an organization that brings together nine Central and Eastern European countries that are members of NATO, according to a shared statement. video. through its services.
“This is the biggest man-made environmental disaster in Europe for decades,” he continued, as the partial destruction of the Kakhovka dam raises fears about the impact on the fauna and flora of this southern part of Ukraine.
“Russia is guilty of a brutal ecocide,” Zelensky also assured, considering that the Moscow armed forces “should be held fully responsible.”
Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine has been partially destroyed. The Ukrainian government blames Russia, saying it happened to stop the country’s army’s advance into Kherson. 16 thousand people must be evacuated, there must be power and supply failures from Crimea. pic.twitter.com/N9VuhRGv3i
– Renato Souza (@reporterenato) June 6, 2023
According to the Ukrainian president, “It is physically impossible to explode [a barragem] somehow from abroad, with bombings”, the version put forward by Moscow to explain this destruction that took place during the night.
Russia denounced an act of “deliberate sabotage” by Kiev as one of Ukraine’s objectives is to “deprive Crimea of water”, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
“This is unmistakably an act of deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainians, which was planned and carried out on the orders of Kiev,” said Kremlin (Russian presidency) spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The Kakhovka Dam, built on the Dnieper River in the 1950s and captured at the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in 2022, is crucial to Crimea’s water supply.
According to Peskov, “this act of sabotage could have very serious consequences for tens of thousands of residents of the Kherson region”, as well as “ecological consequences”.
Aerial view of the demolition of the new Kakhovka dam carried out by the Russians during the night. It will directly affect the lives of thousands of civilians, including Russian citizens, as the water from this artificial lake supplied Crimea, occupied by… pic.twitter.com/cR9irSqbOX
– Today in the military world (@hoje_no) June 6, 2023
The armed conflict in Ukraine, which began with the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Information about the course of the war released by the two sides cannot be immediately verified by independent sources.
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With the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Kherson, many cities are flooded. pic.twitter.com/LnUagmjgeu
– Pica-Pau Belico (@PicaPauBelico) June 6, 2023
Source: DN
