The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, has ruled on the explosion of the Nova Kakhovka dam, in the southern province of Kherson. In a release On Telegram, he has assured that the explosion was a deliberate act by Russia and will not affect Ukraine’s efforts to recover its own territory.
“The main conclusion is that the breach was deliberate, but the enemy acted chaotically allowing their own teams will be flooded“, he said in the application after a meeting of the military command. “At the same time, the rupture of the dam will have no effect on Ukraine’s ability to reclaim its own territory”.
Later, the Ukrainian president has published a message on Twitter in which he reported having spoken by phone with the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Argentine Rafael Grossi. The call has addressed “the large-scale consequences of the Russian terrorist act on the dam of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power station. We discussed ways of minimize risks for the safety of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. We agreed on Mr. Grossi’s visit to Ukraine,” Zelensky tweeted.
In a phone call, I informed IAEA Director General @rafaelmgrossi about the large-scale consequences of the Russian act of terrorism at the Kakhovka HPP dam. We discussed ways to minimize risks to #ZNPP security. Agreed on Mr. Grossi’s visit to Ukraine.
— Volodimir Zelensky (@ZelenskyyUa) June 6, 2023
This statement contrasts with the tranquility that the Ukrainian head of state had previously shown. In a video Published simultaneously with the tweet on Telegram, Zelenski has assured that “the authorities at all levels are doing everything possible to save people and supply drinking water to those who have been receiving it from the Nova Kakhovka reservoir. Kryvyi Rih and the entire Dnipropetrovs’k region, cities and towns of the Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia regions: no matter how hard it isWe have to help people.”
Despite having stated that the breaking of the episodes this Tuesday morning will not affect Ukraine’s ability to recover its territory, the president’s messages this afternoon show concern about the damage caused by the bombing of the Nova Kakhovka Dam.
Red Cross volunteers help an elderly woman evacuated from an area near the Nova Kajovka dam, this Tuesday.
The president has described the attack as a “crime of ecocide“: “This deliberate destruction of the dam and other hydroelectric power plant facilities by the Russian occupiers is a environmental bomb of mass destruction. For our own safety, the world must now show that Russia will not get away with such terror. The Attorney General has already made a Appeal to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to involve international justice in the investigation of the dam explosion”, its publication concluded.
In their conversation, Grossi and Zelenski have agreed that the cooling pond of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant it is full and has enough water for several months. The proximity of these facilities to the Nova Kakhovka dam was frightening, since the pond Zaporizhia It is usually supplied with water from the reservoir. That water is used for essential cooling of the reactors and spent fuel in the Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
The roof of a house on the Dnipro River, after the rupture of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
The lack of danger in Zaporizhia has been a relief for the Ukrainian president, who has declared that the rest of the consequences of the rupture of the Nova Kakhovka dam will not affect the ability of Ukraine to reclaim their territory.
A tweet published during Zelenski’s participation in a summit of the Nine in Bucharest shows the president with even more arguments to advance his counteroffensive: “[Rusia] is he most dangerous terrorist of the world. And that is why the defeat of Russia – a defeat that we will ensure anyway – will be the most significant contribution to the security of our region, of our Europe and of the entire world.”
[La inteligencia de EEUU señala que “Rusia está detrás del ataque a la presa de Nova Kajovka”]
United States does not speak
Meanwhile, Moscow has attributed to kyiv the authorship of the same facts. Russia has linked the destruction of the dam to the counteroffensive launched by Ukrainian forces. From Washington, US government observers have not commented on the matter: the spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirbyhas assured in the White House press room that he “cannot say conclusively” that Russia is responsible.
Contrary to US diplomacy, country intelligence suspect that “Russia is behind of the attack on the Nova Kajovka dam” in Ukraine, according to several American and other Western officials. In the face of what appears to be an attack by the Kremlin, Kirby has assured: “We are working the best we can and we propose evaluating it as a war crime.”
