Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking civilian infrastructure in annexed region

In a stage in the Ukrainian War in which Russia invests in the destruction of civilian infrastructure in the occupied country, Moscow accused rival forces of using the same strategy on Sunday (6). The target was a dam in the south of the country, causing water and electricity cuts in Kherson, an area annexed by the Kremlin at the end of September.

Six Himars missiles were fired at the Kakhovka dam, which is at the end of the Dnieper River. Russian officials said five of them were intercepted, but the one that eluded defense units hit and damaged the dam’s lock.

Occupation leaders referred to the episode as a “terrorist attack organized by the Ukrainian side” and even reported damage to three power lines at the site. For this reason, they claim that there is no water or electricity in the city of Kherson and other districts in the region.

The Kakhovka dam was taken by Russia at the beginning of the offensive in Ukraine and allows supplying the Crimea peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014. Installed on the Dnieper River in 1956, during the Soviet period, the structure built of concrete and earth is one of the largest of its kind in the country.

As a strategic infrastructure, the dam had been considered a target of attacks since last month by both Ukraine and Russia, in a scenario also dominated by the conflict of versions. Both accuse each other of endangering the region’s thousands of inhabitants.

Just over two weeks ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed concern to the Council of the European Union, saying that if the dam exploded, more than 80 locations, including Kherson, would quickly be flooded.

No wonder the dam soon became one of the weapons of coercion in the war. Also last month, Zelensky accused Russia of laying mines on the Kakhovka structure. The objective would be to create a physical barrier to an eventual advance of Kiev troops in the area, which is being evacuated by the Russians.

The occupants’ management denied the intention. The suspicion goes back to an episode in World War II in 1941, when the Soviets secretly blew up a dam upriver in Zaporijia to try to stop the German advance into the region. Without warning, thousands of civilians and military personnel from then-Soviet Ukraine died.

Shortly after the attack on the dam on Sunday, the representative of the administration installed by Russia in Nova Kakhovka, 60 kilometers from the city of Kherson, first put a lid on the situation. In the aftermath, however, he implied that the offensive even carries the risk of a nuclear catastrophe.

“Everything is under control. A missile landed at the scene, but it did not cause critical damage. This could interrupt the water supply to much of southern Ukraine,” said Ruslan Agaiev, adding later that the bombing could cause damage to the cooling of the reactors at the Zaporijia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, which draws water from the dam.

Faced with the already ventilated possibility of an attack on the Kakhovka dam, whose destruction would lead to the flooding of the left bank of the Dniepe River, the Russian authorities have been evacuating civilians from the surroundings of the site. Kiev says these operations are “deportations” of citizens.

At the same time, Moscow is investing in the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine mainly with the use of kamikaze drones, leaving part of the country without electricity a few months before winter in the Northern Hemisphere. This Sunday, Moscow suffered the effects of the strategy repeated by rivals.

The day before, Iran’s regime admitted for the first time that it had supplied drones to Russia, but with the caveat that the equipment was sent “in limited numbers” and before the war, which began eight months ago.

Zelensky promptly rebutted the information and accused Iran of lying about sending a “limited number” of drones. He said that Ukrainian forces have been shooting down at least ten such pieces of equipment a day.

“If Iran continues to lie about the obvious, the world will make even more efforts to investigate terrorist cooperation between the Russian and Iranian regimes, as well as payments made by Russia for such cooperation,” Zelensky said.

Amid the rhetoric of the Ukrainian leader, the United States would be encouraging Ukraine to signal an opening to negotiate with Russia, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, without revealing the sources.

The publication in the American newspaper also says that the request by US officials is not intended to push Ukraine to the negotiating table, but to provide a calculated attempt to ensure that Kiev retains the support of other countries.

At the front, a 25-year-old Taiwanese man who volunteered against Russian forces was killed, becoming Taiwan’s first casualty since the invasion began. In its daily report, the Ukrainian army even accused Russian forces of “destroying” facilities of “Ukrainian telephone operations” in the Kherson region.

The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, said it had disposed of a Ukrainian armed forces missile and artillery storehouse, including 120 rockets from the Himar system, in the occupied eastern Donetsk region.

Also on Sunday, Pope Francis, on a trip to Bahrain, prayed for “martyred Ukraine”, for the “war to end” after more than eight months of conflict.