Ukraine has said that the “world must react” to Russia after blowing up the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP) on Tuesday morning.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that “Russia detonated a bomb of mass ecological destruction” and Moscow is “guilty of brutal ecocide.”
Thousands of people are being evacuated and the water from the dam has already flooded many towns.
The floodwaters could also have implications for Ukraine with their counteroffensive as the dam did hold back millions of gallons of water from the third largest river in Europe, the Dnipro River.
President Zelensky warned the Russian leadership against attempts to blow up Kakhovka last October.
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Hydroelectric dam which supplies water to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant blown up with warnings of ‘catastrophic consequences’
Zelensky said last year, “I want now once again and separately to warn everyone in Moscow who makes the appropriate decisions: any of your attempts to blow up Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and flood our territory and dehydrate Zaporizhia nuclear power plant will mean declaring war on the whole world.
“Think about what will happen to you.”
Ukrainian intelligence has warned that the “scale of the ecological disaster [would] go far beyond the borders of Ukraine and affect the entire Black Sea region,” as the dam has been “fully destroyed” which cannot be rebuilt.
Zelensky said, “Now Russia is guilty of brutal ecocide. Any comments are superfluous. The world must react. Russia is at war against life, against nature, against civilization. Russia must leave the Ukrainian land and must be held fully accountable for its terror.”
Addressing the participants of the Bucharest Nine summit, the Ukrainian President added, “It was mined. It was mined by the Russian occupiers and blown up by them.
“Russia detonated a bomb of mass ecological destruction. This is the greatest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades.
“This is the most dangerous terrorist in the world. And therefore, Russia‘s defeat is a defeat that we will ensure anyway, will be the most significant contribution to the security of our region, our Europe, and the whole world.”
