The Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam and power plant (KHPP) has been attacked repeatedly by Ukraine over the past year. In late February, 2022, Russian forces in Crimea made a priority of capturing the dam, as It had been the source for decades, via the North Crimean Canal, of most of Crimea’s fresh water. However, in recent years, Kiev had blocked off that canal. Today’s bombing of the KHPP again cuts off Crimea’s fresh water.
Ukrainian forces, in August 2022, used American HIMARS rockets to shell the KHPP with HIMARS rockets, though no major damage occurred. The deputy director for reconstruction of the KHPP described, as reported by Sputnik News: “At the moment we have three hydroelectric units in operation; there were four of them before the strike near the northern side. We work in a very dangerous environment. Of course, hostilities near the plant are unacceptable, it is a strategic object….”
On October 21, 2022, Russia’s UN Permanent Representative, Vassily Nebenzia, issued a letter to the UN Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council: “I would like to draw your attention to the plans of the Kiev regime to destroy the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam. In particular, Ukrainian forces” are planning “a massive missile strike. We are also registering air strikes targeting the locks of the electric power station…. Such a reckless Ukrainian attack would result in catastrophic flooding…. To avoid such a threat to civilians, a large-scale evacuation of citizens from the right bank of the Dnieper River is currently being carried out by Russia. I urge you to do everything in your power to prevent this heinous crime from happening.”
In December, 2022, the Washington Post was told by a former head of Ukraine’s Operational Command South, Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, that they had “conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates” of the dam. And only last month, the mayor of Novaya Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, complained that repairs to the dam were being prevented, due to the ongoing attacks by Ukrainian troops.
The only ‘evidence’ that Kiev has offered for their naked claim that Russia blew up its own dam, is today’s Foreign Ministry statement, as described by Ukriniform: “It recalled that the terrorist attack on the Kakhovka HPP was previously intensely discussed at the level of the occupation forces in the Kherson region and propagandists on Russian television, which indicates that it was planned in advance.” That’s it.
However, it fails to mention that the ‘intense discussions’ have been about Ukraine’s own attacks on the dam over the last year. That is, Kiev is offering its own history of attacks upon the dam as evidence of Russian ‘planning in advance.'
