Prosecutor General Kostin: Ukraine initiated a case of both ecocide and war crimes for undermining Kakhovka HPP

In the case of blowing up the Kakhovka HPP on the night of June 6, 2023, Russian general and commander of the "Dnepr" troop group of the Russian Armed Forces, Oleg Makarevich, was suspected. His actions are considered in the context of war crimes, while the case of detonation as ecocide is more complicated and takes more time.

This was announced by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin during a meeting with foreign journalists organized by Babel.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, it was Makarevich who made the decision to blow up the Kakhovka HPP using mines that the Russian occupiers had planted there. The explosion came from the inside.

"This is a year of work, and this is only the beginning. This is just a suspicion report and it only applies to the sabotage case. That is, it refers to war crimes. The case of ecocide is much more difficult because it requires much more time to investigate,” Kostin explained.

On the day of the bombing, the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office publicly sent a statement to the International Criminal Court. ISS investigators were given the opportunity to meet with any people they wanted and to see the consequences of Russiaʼs actions.

"To date, we have conducted more than 12,000 different procedural actions, including 500 interrogations of witnesses, more than 8,000 interrogations of victims. We conducted more than 40 forensic examinations of various types," the Prosecutor General emphasized.

According to him, it will take some time to fully assess the damage caused by the dam explosion. Now it is preliminarily estimated that the losses amount to $2 billion. This included not only the damaged property of people, but also the pollution of land and water, the destruction of agricultural land, crops, natural resources, and the death of animals.

"Therefore, this assessment will take some time, and after the completion of such forensic examinations, we will be closer to making a decision on the indictment of the crime of ecocide," the official summarized.

Undermining Kakhovka HPP

Exactly one year ago, on June 6, 2023, at 2 a.m., the Russians blew up the Kakhovka HPP dam, the fifth largest in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the HPP has been under occupation, and in October 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskyi warned that the Russians had mined it. "Ukrhydroenergo" stated that the HPP was completely destroyed and it was impossible to restore it. And to rebuild the hydroelectric power station, you need no less than a billion dollars.

At least 35 people died from the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP.