Russia is setting information conditions to conduct a false-flag attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) to cover the retreat of Russian forces from the right bank of the Dnipro River and prevent or delay Ukrainian advances across the river, Institute for the Study of War reported.
The new commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine General Surovikin and Russian occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast claimed they received information that Kyiv planned to strike the dam at the plant, which would cause destructive flooding in Kherson Oblast. Russia likely intends warnings about the strike to damage the dam and blame Ukraine for the attack.
On Oct. 20, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov said that Russia’s possible terrorist attack at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant would lead to numerous casualties and destroy the possibility of supplying water from the Dnipro River to Crimea for many years, Channel 24 informed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his address to the European Council said that “Russia is deliberately creating the grounds for a large-scale disaster in the south of Ukraine.” According to him, Ukraine has the information that Russian forces mined the dam and aggregates of the plant. “If Russian terrorists blow up this dam, more than 80 settlements, including Kherson, will be in the zone of rapid flooding. Hundreds, hundreds of thousands of people may be affected,” Zelenskyy explained.
The president added that the Russian attack could leave the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant without water for cooling because the water for the plant is taken from the Kakhovka Reservoir.
He called on the European Union to act immediately to prevent catastrophe and to create a mission for monitoring the situation at the plant.
