Russian general who commanded the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant explosion was informed in absentia of suspicion

The Russian general who commanded the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP) was informed in absentia of the suspicion. This is Russian Major General Vladimir Omelyanovych.

This was reported by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Omelyanovych was the Chief of Staff and First Deputy Commander of the “Dnepr” Group of the Russian Armed Forces. As the investigation established, on the night of June 5-6, 2023, he directly coordinated the actions of his subordinates to destroy the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant using explosives.

The explosion of a hydroelectric power plant caused a catastrophic water spill, killing at least 35 civilians. Another 24 people are missing.

The water spread rapidly and flooded 46 settlements and 1 323 hectares of agricultural land in the Kherson region. Among them were 14 affected communities in the temporarily occupied territory of the region.

Uncontrolled water spillage flooded 55 000 hectares of forest and at least 81 000 hectares of nature reserves and industrial facilities in southern Ukraine.

In addition, the damʼs collapse made it impossible to provide water to the Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions and the temporarily occupied Crimea.

It also created a threat to the maintenance of the Zaporizhzhia NPP due to disruption of the nuclear power plantʼs cooling system.

The Kakhovka hydroelectric power station was blown up.

On June 6, 2023, at 2 AM, the Russians blew up the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, the fifth largest in Ukraine. Since the start of the full-scale war, the hydroelectric power station has been under occupation, and in October 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the Russians had mined it.

“Ukrhydroenergo” stated that the hydroelectric power station was completely destroyed and could not be restored. And to rebuild the hydroelectric power station, no less than a billion dollars are needed. According to estimates by the UN, the government of Ukraine, the World Bank, and the EU, the total damage from the disaster is approximately $14 billion.

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