Evidence suggests that this month’s destruction of the huge Kakhovka dam in a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine resulted from an inside explosion set off by Russia, the New York Times said.
Citing engineers and explosive experts, the newspaper said on Friday that its investigation found evidence suggesting an explosive charge in a passageway running through the dam’s concrete base detonated, destroying the structure on June 6.
“The evidence clearly suggests the dam was crippled by an explosion set off by the side that controls it: Russia,” the Times said.
Photo: Reuters
Separately, a team of international legal experts assisting Ukraine’s prosecutors in their investigation said in preliminary findings on Friday that it was “highly likely” the collapse in Ukraine’s Kherson region was caused by explosives planted by Russians.
The Kremlin accuses Kyiv of sabotaging the hydroelectric dam, which held a reservoir the size of the US Great Salt Lake, to cut off a key source of water for Crimea and distract attention from a “faltering” counteroffensive against Russian forces.
Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the Soviet-era dam, under Russian control since early days of its invasion in February last year, unleashing floodwater across a large swath of the battleground, destroying farmland and cutting off water supplies to civilians.
Reuters could not independently verify the claims about the explosion’s cause.
The Times cited engineers as saying only a full examination of the dam after the water drains from it can establish the sequence of events leading to the destruction.
“Erosion from water cascading through the gates could have led to a failure if the dam were poorly designed, or the concrete was substandard, but engineers called that unlikely,” the newspaper said.
The death toll from the flooding has risen to 16 in Ukraine, Kyiv officials said late on Saturday, while Russian officials said 29 people have died in territories that Moscow controls.
More than 3,600 people have been evacuated from the flooded areas in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, while 31 people were still missing and about 1,300 houses remained flooded, Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior said on its Telegram channel.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
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