Ukraine's Security and Defence Secretary says Putin's spokesman is "talking nonsense" about Ukraine's involvement in Kakhovka dam explosion

Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, has said that Ukraine was not involved in blowing up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), adding that it is "nonsense" for the Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov to claim that the explosion occurred as a result of a Ukrainian sabotage operation.

Source: Oleksii Danilov on the 24/7 national newscast

Quote from Danilov: "They are choking with anger because they can’t secure a military victory. That is why they’re coming up with all sorts of unfounded nonsense now.

First of all, it [the Kakhovka HPP] was entirely under the control of Russian occupiers, Russian terrorists, since last March, unfortunately. Not a single [Ukrainian] soldier or representative was there. So it’s difficult for me to understand the claims that person [Peskov] is making. But I’m used to this moustachioed man talking all sorts of nonsense to justify the aggression they are carrying out against our country.

We found out they had planted them [rigged the dam with explosive devices] last September or October. And they’ve decided to make use of them now to prevent our counteroffensive, which, understandably, the whole world is talking about.

The only thing I can say is that we had no involvement in this, whatever the Kremlin claims."

Details: Danilov confirmed that it was members of the 205th Separate Cossack Motor Rifle Brigade of the Russian armed forces who blew up the dam.

"They were the ones who were there and who controlled the situation [at the power plant] up until 02:50 this morning – the time when they blew it up, the time when they committed this terrorist attack on not only our country, but the entire world," Danilov said.

Update: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also stressed that it was Russia that blew up the Kakhovka HPP dam. During his address to the Bucharest Nine summit participants on 6 June, Zelenskyy said:

"Russia has detonated a bomb of mass environmental destruction. This is true ecocide! [...]

Unfortunately, Russia has controlled this dam and the entire Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant for more than a year. It is physically impossible to blow it up from the outside, through shelling. Mines were laid there. Mines were laid by the Russian occupiers. And they blew [the dam] up."

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