Ukraine’s Internal Security Service said today that it had intercepted a phone call proving that a Russian “sabotage group” had blown up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station and dam in southern Ukraine.
The destruction of the facility on Tuesday, June 6 triggered massive flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee their homes and wreaking environmental havoc.
Officials close to it in Ukraine blamed Kiev for destroying the dam, but offered different explanations.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) posted a minute and a half of audio on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation, in which two men are said to discuss the aftermath of the disaster in Russian.
“They (Ukrainians) didn’t beat her. It was our sabotage team,” said one of the men, who the SBU says was a Russian soldier. “They wanted to scare (people) with this dam.”
“It didn’t go according to plan and (they did) more than they planned.”
The SBU did not elaborate on the conversation or its participants. He said he had launched a criminal investigation into war crimes and “murder”.
“The invaders wanted to blackmail Ukraine by blowing up the dam and caused a man-made catastrophe in the south of our country,” the State Security Department said in a statement.
Borrell: Everything seems to indicate that Russia is responsible for the collapse of the Kakhovka Dam
The European Union’s head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said today that “everything indicates” that Russia is behind the destruction of the Cahovka Dam.
He added, “The dam was not bombed. It was destroyed by explosives placed in the areas where the turbines are located. This area is under Russian control,” Borrell told Spanish public television.
“I wasn’t there to find out who did it. But everything seemed to indicate that if it happened in a Russian-controlled area, it would be difficult for someone else to do it.”
“In any case, the consequences for Ukraine are dire in all respects: from a humanitarian point of view for people who have been forced to flee their homes, from an environmental point of view because the destruction of (the dam) would lead to an ecological catastrophe,” said even Josef Borrell.
Moscow and Kiev blame each other for destroying a dam on the Dnieper River on Tuesday.
Russia, which Ukraine accuses of blowing up the dam to stop a Ukrainian offensive further south on Crimea, told the International Criminal Court on Thursday that Kiev had destroyed the dam with intense artillery bombardment.
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