SOME 23 people have been injured as a result of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant’s dam collapsing and the flooding of the Kherson Region, medical services told TASS on Thursday.
‘According to the latest data, 23 people have been injured, they have hypothermia and traumas, 21 individuals have been hospitalised,’ a source in the medical services said.
Ukrainian forces shelled the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) in the early morning hours on June 6, which resulted in the collapse of the hydraulic sluice gate valves on the plant’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water.
Water levels in Novaya Kakhovka reached 12 metres but are now receding. According to emergency services, there are 35 population centres and territories in the flood zone. The residents of nearby communities are being evacuated.
The destruction of the power generation facility has seriously damaged the environment, washing away farmland along the Dnieper River and threatening water levels in the North Crimean Canal.
Kremlin Spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, stressed that the attack on the Kakhovka HPP was a premeditated act of sabotage. He added that the responsibility for its consequences fully lies with the Kiev regime.
The US media has launched a targeted campaign regarding the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in an attempt to shift the Ukrainian responsibility on Russia and to ‘whitewash’ the Kiev regime, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov told journalists on Thursday.
‘There is a targeted disinformation campaign going on in the US media around the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant,’ he said.
‘There are many insinuations about the fact that Russia allegedly has blown up the most important infrastructure facility,’ Antonov continued. ‘Administration officials have framed their rhetoric as if the Russian Federation were in any case responsible for all incidents that occur during the Ukrainian conflict.’
‘Such an approach does not stand up to scrutiny. This is another desperate attempt to “whitewash” the Kiev regime, which deliberately shelled the station for many months,’ the Russian ambassador stated.
According to Antonov, ‘We have witnessed yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law by Ukraine.’
‘It was a terrorist attack that led to an ecological disaster, large-scale flooding of settlements and farmland, endangering the functioning of the North Crimean Canal,’ he continued. ‘Experts have yet to assess the imminent consequences for the cooling circuit of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant as a result of this tragedy.’
‘Washington patrons never criticise Kiev. All actions of the regime are approved of, while any strikes, that Russians suffer from, are encouraged,’ Antonov noted. ‘This is a textbook example of an ill-conceived, flawed position that has already caused serious upheavals in the world. However, this is obviously not enough for the United States, and terrorist acts of Ukraine will receive further support.’
On June 6, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), presumably from an Olkha multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). The shelling destroyed the hydraulic sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water.
In Novaya Kakhovka, the water level exceeded 12 metres at one point, but is now receding.
The collapse of the hydro plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage. Farmlands along the Dnieper River have been washed away, and there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal will become shallow.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the attack on the Kakhovka HPP as a deliberate act of sabotage by Ukraine. He added that the Kiev regime should bear full responsibility for the consequences.
The Kiev regime’s much-hyped counteroffensive is simply disinformation, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday.
‘The three days of the “counteroffensive”: what we’re observing and the information we’ve received from the Russian president are in complete congruence. Over three days, about three dozen advancing Ukrainian tanks and 120 or 130 infantry fighting vehicles have been eliminated, and, what’s most horrible, more than 2,100 Ukrainians have been killed, with slightly over 70 (fatalities) on this side.
‘This is the result of this attempt at a counteroffensive. Well, I’ve always said this, the counteroffensive is a major piece of disinformation. There is no counteroffensive and cannot be a counteroffensive, but if there is one, then here’s the result from it over three days,’ he said at a meeting in Minsk with members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) Committee of Security Council Secretaries.
According to Lukashenko, the Kiev regime’s Western handlers are currently scrambling to analyse the causes of Ukraine’s military failures.
‘Yesterday I talked with (Russian President]) Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) and we are absolutely of the same opinion that the current situation is all about the West, which is fighting there, waiting to see the results of the “counteroffensive,” and naturally, if not for all the Western weapons and mercenaries, the whole thing would have ended long ago,’ the Belarusian leader added.
- The Ukrainian leadership was ready to settle the conflict with Russia but gave up under the US pressure, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said on Thursday.
‘Had it not been for the US pressure on those whom they installed at the head of Ukraine, this situation would have not happened. Even the Ukrainian leaders themselves were ready for signing a peace treaty and gave Russia written proposals that we, in principle, approved,’ Patrushev said, referring to the negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkey in March last year.
However, as Patrushev went on to say, ‘in the morning, they (members of the Ukrainian delegation) gave (the proposals) to us during the negotiations and in the evening they said: “No, we give them up”.’
‘This happened only because the United States had put pressure on them and said that no negotiations must be held,’ the secretary of Russia’s Security Council stressed.
As Patrushev pointed out, ‘there are interested parties in this conflict,’ first and foremost, the United States and Great Britain.
The first Russian-Ukrainian negotiations after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine took place in Belarus in early March 2022 but the talks yielded no tangible results.
A new round of negotiations took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022, following which Russian Delegation Head, Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky announced that Moscow had for the first time received Kiev’s principles of a possible future agreement in writing, stipulating, in particular, Ukraine’s neutral, non-aligned status commitments and its refusal to deploy foreign troops and armaments, including nuclear weapons, on its soil.
Russia pulled out its forces from the Kiev and Chernigov areas. However, the negotiations on the peaceful settlement were totally frozen after that and, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said, Kiev gave up the accords reached in Istanbul.
In October last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky enacted a decision by the country’s National Security and Defence Council on banning any talks with Putin.
