Attack on Kakhovka dam is Kremlin’s response to calls for peace talks, says Ukraine’s envoy to UN

Read also: Ecologist reveals damaging consequences of Kakhovka dam’s destruction

The attack on the Kakhovka dam was previously discussed intensely at the level of the occupation forces in Kherson Oblast, propagandists on Russian television and in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which indicates that it was planned well in advance, Kyslytsya said.

Kyslytsya said this was a terrorist act against Ukrainian critical infrastructure that aimed to cause as many civilian casualties and as much destruction as possible.

Read also: Ukraine has evidence Russia blew Kakhovka dam by remote control, intelligence says

“By resorting to scorched-earth tactics, or in this case to flooded-earth tactics, the Russian invaders have effectively recognized that the captured territory does not belong to them, and they are not able to hold these lands,” the diplomat said.

Kyslytsya described the statement made by his Russian counterpart, Vasily Nebenzya, who tried to blame Ukraine for the tragedy, as “predictably deceitful.”

“Let me note that Russia has been controlling the dam and the entire Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant for more than a year,” he said.

“It is physically impossible to blow it up somehow from the outside by shelling. It was mined by the Russian invaders. And they blew it up.”

Kyslytsya said that Moscow was resorting to its usual practice “of blaming the victim for your own crimes.”

“And there was little chance that the country which desperately denied its war crimes in Mariupol, Bucha, Izyum, and Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant would acknowledge responsibility for today’s disaster,” he said.

Read also: Russia’s destruction of Kakhovka dam ‘will hurt global food security’

The diplomat said that Russia had reconfirmed by its actions that it was not at all interested in de-escalation or peace.

“(Russia) must be stopped and rendered harmless, rather than appeased,” Kyslytsya said.

“And that is why Russia’s defeat – a defeat that we’ll ensure anyway – will be the most significant contribution to the security of our region and the entire world.”

Explosion at Kakhovka HPP — what is known

Read also: Ukrhydroenergo says how destruction of Kakhovka dam will affect Ukraine’s hydrosystem

During the night of June 6, Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka 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 flow of floodwaters was expected to peak around noon Kyiv time (GMT+3), prompting the Kherson Oblast Military Administration to declare an urgent evacuation.

The agency explained that the rapid drop in the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir is an additional threat to the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, as water from there is needed to feed the plant’s turbine condensers and safety systems.

Read also: Russian troops flood own positions by destroying dam, risk detonating landmines — Malyar

Ukrhydroenergo, the state hydroelectric power company, stated that the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant was completely destroyed as a result of the explosion conducted by the Russians and cannot be repaired.

However, according to Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Southern Defense Forces, the dam was not completely destroyed.

At an urgent meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, President Zelenskyy ordered the evacuation of at-risk areas and the provision of drinking water to towns and villages served by the affected Kakhovka reservoir.

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.

Read also: Some 1,500 houses flooded in Kherson Oblast, bridges destroyed in Mykolayiv Oblast

President Zelenskyy called Russia’s attack on the Kakhovka HPP the largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence has said that the Russian demolition of the Kakhovka HPP increases the threat of a nuclear disaster.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine