On Tuesday afternoon, the Kremlin accused Ukraine’s leadership of deliberately sabotaging a dam in Novaya Kakhovka to divert attention from what Moscow called a “failed offensive” by Kyiv, Reuters reported.
Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov told Russian journalists that President Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the situation around the dam, which suffered a catastrophic breach early Tuesday after one or more explosions that Moscow and Kyiv blamed on each other.
“It can be said unequivocally that we are talking about deliberate sabotage from the Ukrainian side,” Peskov said during the daily press conference.
He charged that the destruction of the dam was intended to deprive Crimea of drinking water, which it receives from the reservoir through the Crimean Canal. We remind you that before Putin’s invasion last year, the whole of Crimea was supplied with drinking water through transports made on the Kerch bridge in the conditions of Ukraine’s disconnection of water sources on the peninsula after it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
But the initial success of Russian invasion forces in southern Ukraine made it possible to create a land corridor between Crimea and Russia.
“Apparently, this sabotage is also connected with the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, having launched large-scale offensive operations two days ago, are not achieving their goals. These offensive actions are failing,” Vladimir Putin’s press secretary assured.
The Kremlin “officially declares” that Ukraine blew up the Novaya Kakhovka dam
Responding to the question that Ukraine accuses Russia of undermining the dam, Peskov said that “we categorically reject it.”
“We officially declare that it is clearly a matter of deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side,” he emphasized.
He also noted that the destruction of the dam “potentially could have very serious consequences for several thousand residents of the region.”
In addition, computer simulations conducted since last year have shown how a possible collapse of the Novaya Kakhovka dam would cause widespread flooding along the banks of the Dnipro River and its tributary to the mouth of the Black Sea.
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Source: Hot News
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