Russia accused Ukraine on Tuesday of an act of “deliberate sabotage” following the destruction of a hydroelectric dam in the southern Kherson region, partly under Russian occupation.
“This is clearly a deliberate sabotage on the part of the Ukrainians, which was planned and carried out on orders from Kyiv,” said Kremlin (Russian President) spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The spokesman strongly denied accusations by the Ukrainian authorities that Moscow was responsible for the partial destruction of the dam that caused flooding in the Kherson region.
“The entire responsibility lies with the Kiev regime,” he said, quoted by the French news agency AFP.
According to Peskov, one of the goals of such an action was to “deprive Crimea” of water.
Russia occupied and annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
Built on the Dnieper in the 1950s and captured at the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in 2022, the Kakhovka Dam is critical to Crimea’s water supply.
According to Peskov, “this sabotage could have very serious consequences for tens of thousands of residents of the Kherson region,” as well as “environmental consequences.”
Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up the dam to try and stop a counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces.
“The goal of the terrorists is obvious: to create obstacles to the offensive actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” said presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
In October, during Kyiv’s successful counteroffensive in the region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had already accused Moscow forces of mining a dam.
“Now all countries of the world must act with force and speed in order to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. The destruction of the dam will mean a catastrophe on a large scale, ”Zelensky said at the time.
The armed conflict in Ukraine, which began with the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, plunged Europe into 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.