A year has passed since the moment when the Russian occupying forces blew up the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station in the Kherson region.
On the morning of June 6, 2023, around 03:00 a.m., the Russians committed a terrorist attack, blowing up the dam of the hydroelectric power station, the largest shallow water body in terms of area. This act caused the flooding of settlements near the Dnipro River.
Andrii Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, said that the available evidence indicates the involvement of the military and political leadership of the Russian Federation in this crime.
"The Russians committed a terrorist attack in order to provoke the Ukrainian Security and Defense Forces and disrupt counteroffensive actions," added the HUR representative.
The warning about the explosion of the station was received in April of last year. The Russians mined the hydroelectric power station and the dam, after which they blew it up.
More than 16,000 people and 80 settlements were at risk because of this war crime.
According to the report of the UN international commission, 33 people died, 28 were injured, and more than 40 went missing in the territories controlled by Ukraine.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi noted: "Russian evil organized special groups in the occupied territories to hide the bodies of the dead."
Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba called the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP the biggest man-made disaster in Europe in recent decades.
"The only way to stop Russia, the biggest terrorist of the 21st century, is to expel it from Ukraine," he added.
The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine reported that the detonation of the dam led to significant human casualties, a large-scale ecological disaster and has all the signs of a war crime and ecocide.
As a result of this incident, losses for Ukraine are estimated at almost $14 billion.
The Prosecutor General's Office has launched an investigation into ecocide.
