Posted on 06/06/2023 1:14:47 AM PDT by dennisw
Ukrainian leader says 80 settlements — including Kherson — could be hit by rapid flooding because of Russia’s planned ‘terrorist attack’.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned on Thursday of an impending “large-scale disaster” in southern Ukraine, claiming that Russia mined a dam at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in the south of the country.
In an address via videolink to EU leaders meeting in Brussels, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had information showing Russia had already set charges. Should the dam be destroyed, more than 80 settlements — including the port city of Kherson — could be hit by "rapid flooding," impacting hundreds of thousands of people, he said.
“According to our information, Russia has already prepared everything to carry out this terrorist attack,” he told leaders in his remarks, calling for an international mission of observers to be sent to the Kakhovka plant. “Russia is deliberately creating the grounds for a large-scale disaster in the south of Ukraine."
The threat comes in the hotly contested south, where Ukrainian forces are clawing back territory from their Russian adversaries on the western bank of the river Dnieper.
The dire warning also follows Iranian drone strikes on Ukrainian cities, that have knocked out infrastructure and hit civilian targets. More than a third of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has now been destroyed by Russian cruise missiles and Iranian drones, he said, meaning Ukraine can no longer export electricity.
Zelenskyy also used his address to EU leaders to plead for more air-defense systems as Kyiv tries to combat the aerial threat.
“When we have reliable protection of the sky — that is, a sufficient number and quality of air defense and missile defense systems — we will be able to guarantee a normal economic and social life in Ukraine,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.eu ...
OMG.
Acts of sabotage.
In a war.
(gobsmacked)
/s
Zelensky was the first to scream. Means the smeller is the feller.
Is someone surprised that warfare endangers people? What did I miss?
++++++
Quoting the above Washington Post piece Andrew Korybko points to a possible motive for today's demolishing of the dam:
"[Kovalchuk's] remark about how “the step remained a last resort” is pertinent to recall at present considering that the first phase of Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive completely failed on Monday according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Just like Ukraine launched its proxy invasion of Russia in late May to distract from its loss in the Battle of Artyomovsk, so too might does it seem to have gone through with Kovalchuk’s planned war crime to distract from this most recent embarrassment as well."
The most recent embarrassment was the failure of yesterday's attack near Novodarovka and Levadnoye. As the Russian Ministry of Defense noted in a special statement:
"As a result of active and self-sacrificing actions of the Vostok Group of Forces, which displayed courage and heroism, the enemy has been stopped, and the set tasks haven’t been achieved. The AFU formations and military units suffered significant losses.
Total AFU losses in South Donetsk direction were over 1,500 Ukrainian servicemen, 28 tanks, including FRG-manufactured 8 Leopard tanks, three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, and 109 armoured fighting vehicles."
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