Kyiv warns urgently: Russians are said to have mined the aggregates and the dam of the hydroelectric power station Kakhovka. Should the dam break, 80 settlements – including the city of Kherson – would be flooded, says Zelenskyj. Russia wants to turn the energy system into a “battlefield”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of planting mines in a dam in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson. “According to our information, the units and the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station were mined by Russian terrorists,” said Zelenskyy in his daily video message.
Should the dam break, 80 settlements, including the city of Kherson, would be flooded. “The North Crimean Canal would simply disappear,” warned the Ukrainian head of state. The dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station is located on the Dnipro River in the Kherson region, which is currently controlled by Russian troops.
Despite massive air raids on power plants and other infrastructure, Zelenskyy showed an unbroken will to fight. “Russian troops continue to attack our power plants with missiles and drones. In the end, even such Russian meanness will fail,” he said. Russia wants to destroy Ukraine’s energy system and make the country suffer even more. “But this only mobilizes the international community to help us even more and to put even more pressure on the terrorist state,” stressed the President.
In a video address at the EU summit in Brussels, Zelenskyi previously accused Russia of turning his country’s energy infrastructure into a “battlefield.” “The Russian leadership has given the order to turn the power system itself into a battlefield,” said the Ukrainian president. Moscow’s intention is to bring electricity and heating problems to Ukraine in the fall and winter and “send as many Ukrainians as possible to your countries,” Zelensky said to the EU states.
Ukrainian utility company Ukrenerho announced in the evening that it expects temporary restrictions on energy consumption later in the day as a result of the damaged facilities across the country. The company was forced to cut power as early as Thursday. Oleksiy Arestovych, advisor to the presidential office in Kyiv, did not rule out long-term problems. “We may well face a situation where we will be sitting for weeks or even months without water, without light and warmth, or with major limitations.” But he was sure that the Ukrainians would overcome the problems.
