On the night of June 5 to 6, the Ukraine regime committed an unthinkable crime.
They blasted the dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Plant, which resulted in an uncontrolled release of water downstream of the Dnieper River.
Entire neighbourhoods were flooded, and thousands of people had to be evacuated. The evacuation is already underway.
Devastating damage has been caused to the farmlands in the region and the ecosystem at the mouth of the Dnieper.
As early as last year, the Ukrainian military publicly claimed ready to blast the dam in order to obtain a military advantage.
A quote from a Washington Post article dated December 29, 2022, read:
“Maj. Gen. Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages."
At the end of October 2022, we circulated an official UNSC document a letter where we drew attention to Kyiv’s plans to destroy the Kakhovka Hydro plant.
We regret that our calls to the Secretary-General to do everything possible to prevent this appalling crime remained unheeded.
Feeling its total impunity and being encouraged by Western sponsors, the Kyiv regime decided to fulfil this terrorist plot this time.
We already see a well-coordinated information, or rather disinformation campaign.
We hear statements by Western states and by Kyiv, and we will definitely hear more today that will try to assert that it is Russia who blasted the Kakhovka dam.
Kyiv’s planned sabotage of a critical infrastructure facility may be considered a war crime or a terrorist attack.
Attacks on installations containing dangerous forces are directly banned by international humanitarian law.
Besides, dams are particularly mentioned in Article 56 of the first Additional Protocol to the 1977 Geneva Conventions.
The Kyiv authorities also enhanced the release of water at the Dnepropetrovsk Hydro plant.
This causes even larger flooding and proves that this sabotage was carefully premeditated in advance in order to expose the people of the area to a heavier plight.
The responsibility for this unfolding tragedy fully rests with the Kyiv regime and its Western masters.
This act follows up on the systematic tactic that Kyiv has been using since 2014 about targeting purely civil facilities for intimidating the civilian population.
This is explicitly prohibited by Article 51 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention.
Terrorist methods have become part of the official playbook of the Kyiv regime, which is openly bragging about it: Head of Ukraine's military intelligence Kirill Budanov openly announces plans for the eradication of Russians by terrorist means.
Yet Western delegations did not say a word to condemn those steps.
The Kyiv regime has good teachers to learn from who have the exploded Nord Stream and targeted strikes against the Tabqa dam in Syria on their track record.
The West is accustomed to having the dirty job done with someone else’s hands.
We find it deeply puzzling that the UN Secretariat each time refuses to condemn Kyiv's attacks, citing a lack of information.
This is an abridged version of the statement by Amb. Vasily Nebenzia at UN Security Council briefing on the situation around the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant on June 6, 2023