“Today at 10:00 a.m. (08:00 GMT), six Himars missiles were launched. Air defense units shot down five, (and) one hit the sluice of the Kakhovka dam, which was damaged,” claimed a representative of the emergency services of the Kherson region, quoted by Russian agencies.
The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, built along the Dnieper River and captured at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, notably supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014 by Moscow.
“Everything is under control,” quickly declared the representative of the administration installed by Moscow from Nova Kakhovka, the village where the dam is located, 60 km east as the crow flies from the large city of Kherson, under Russian control.
“A missile hit (the site), but did not cause critical damage,” said Ruslan Agaev, quoted by Russian agencies.
The Himars, American precision artillery systems, have been used since July in Ukraine after the United States delivered them to kyiv, notably allowing the Ukrainian army to carry out more precise strikes than with Soviet weapons. she had before.
The risk of strikes on this strategic infrastructure has been brandished since October by the Ukrainian and Russian sides, the two accusing each other of endangering the lives of “thousands” of inhabitants in this area of the region where kyiv troops are advancing since September.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensk had accused Moscow two weeks ago of having “undermined the dam”, one of the largest in Ukraine, “lies” swept away by the Russian occupation authorities.
– Threat of flooding –
In recent days, the Russian occupation authorities have carried out “evacuations” of civilians in the villages around the site in the face of a “possible missile attack” on the dam, the destruction of which would lead to “the flooding of the left bank”. of the Dnieper River, according to the regional governor installed by Moscow in Kherson, Vladimir Saldo.
kyiv has repeatedly condemned these “deportations” of inhabitants of the region to territories less exposed to fighting, or even to Russia itself.
If the dam explodes, “more than 80 localities, including Kherson, will find themselves in the rapid flood zone”, had, for his part, alerted Mr. Zelensky on October 21 before the Council of the European Union.
“It could destroy the water supply for much of southern Ukraine” and affect the cooling of the reactors at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which draws its water from this 18 million cubic meter artificial lake, s he was alarmed.
Ukraine even said it was asking for an international observation mission to secure the scene.
– Pray –
On the ground, a 25-year-old Taiwanese volunteer against Russian forces was killed in action, the first known victim from Taiwan since Moscow’s invasion of Ukrainian territory, the Taipei Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday.
In its daily report, the Ukrainian army on Sunday accused the Russians of “destroying” the installations of “Ukrainian telephone operations” in the Kherson region.
In the northeast, in Starytsya, a small village taken over by troops from kyiv in mid-September, the Ukrainian army is patrolling. Russia is only a few kilometers away.
“Everyone at home, Russia has his country and let them stay there”, comments to AFP the commander of the 127th Ukrainian brigade, Roman Grychtchenko, at the head of 5,000 men of the “Territorial Defense” who guard this liberated area stretching from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv to the Russian border, 30 kilometers to the east and north.
The Russian Ministry of Defense for its part claimed to have eliminated “a warehouse of missiles and artillery weapons of the Ukrainian armed forces”, including “120 rockets of the Himars system”, in the occupied region of Donetsk (east).
Traveling to Bahrain, Pope Francis finally said he prayed on Sunday for “Ukraine so martyred and for this war to end”, after more than eight months of conflict.
