Moscow claimed today before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague that Kiev destroyed the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam with “massive” artillery strikes and called the Ukrainian government “neo-Nazi”.

Moscow made the accusations as Russia and Ukraine presented their positions at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Kiev has appealed, accusing the Russian government of violating a treaty against the financing of terrorism by providing support to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014. .

This case reached the International Court of Justice in 2017.

“Ukraine claimed that Russia caused the explosion at the large dam located in Nova Kahovka. Actually Ukraine is the one who did it,” said Russian Ambassador to the Netherlands Alexander Shulgin.

“The Kiev regime not only launched massive artillery attacks against the dam (…) but also deliberately increased the volume of water in the Kakhovka dam to critical levels,” opening the valves of the hydroelectric plant, he added.

Shulgin presented no evidence for his allegations.

The Ukrainian delegation had earlier labeled Russia a “terrorist state” and said its support for the separatists was a harbinger of the February 2022 invasion.

Shulgin replied that Kiev “has no moral authority to make such accusations.”

“This regime came to power after a violent coup in 2014, which was based on the nationalists, direct descendants of the collaborators of the Nazis during the Second World War,” the Russian ambassador emphasized.

According to him, “neo-Nazis” have taken over key positions in the government of Ukraine and have spread “terror” throughout the country.

To justify the Russian invasion, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denounced the “genocide”, as he called it, of the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine and has labeled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “neo-Nazi”.

The conflict with pro-Russian separatists has killed nearly 13,000 people since it began in early 2014, a month after Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted.