Ukraine dam explosion inside job to mask counteroffensive failures: Kherson mayor
While Ukraine is blaming the Russian forces for the destruction of a key dam in the Russian-controlled Kherson region early on Tuesday, its mayor has accused Kiev of destroying the dam to mask the country's counteroffensive "failures" in the east.
Vladimir Saldo, mayor of the Kherson region, said in a video on Telegram, that Kiev had struck the Nova Kakhovka dam to to distract attention from the “failures of the counteroffensive.”
Russia’s TASS news agency, citing emergency service in Kherson, said that Ukraine had hit the region with Storm Shadow missiles which had been supplied to Ukraine by Britain.
Satellite images and videos on social media show a series of intense explosions around the Nova Kakhovka dam, as flood water was unleashed across the war zone.
The flood, threatening scores of villages, has sparked fear of large-scale devastation and mass evacuation.
Mayor of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontiev, also confirmed that the dam is partly destroyed in what he called “a serious terrorist act”, but said there was “no need to evacuate.”
“Overnight strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant destroyed gate valves, causing water to be spilled downstream uncontrollably,” Leontiev said.
“If necessary, we are ready to evacuate the residents of embankment villages, buses are prepared,” he said.
Andrey Alekseenko, another Kherson official, also echoed Leontiev, saying the situation along the banks of Dnipro was “under control.”
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