Associated Press: More than a week before the Kakhovka HPP was blown up, a car with explosives was parked there

Nine days before the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP, a car with explosives was spotted parked on it.

This was reported by the Associated Press (AP) agency, which received exclusive photos from the drones and spoke with the Ukrainian military.

The publication received a photo from a Ukrainian drone dated May 28. On it is a car parked on the dam. Its roof is open to reveal barrels inside, one of which appears to be connected to a landmine, and a wire leads to the occupied river bank. It is not known how long the car was parked on the dam.

An AP interlocutor among Ukrainian special forces confirmed that the car was indeed standing on the dam before the breach. In his opinion, it could have been placed in this way with two goals: to stop the advance of the Ukrainian military on the dam, to intensify the planned explosion in the engine room and to destroy the upper part of the dam. But one car bomb would not be enough to destroy the dam, the source said.

• On the night of June 6, Russia blew up the Kakhovka HPP in the Kherson region. Due to the breach of the dam, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is under threat, it is also possible to deprive people of drinking water in the south of the Kherson region and in the Crimea, and to destroy part of the settlements and the biosphere. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Russians deliberately blew up the dam, but they did it chaotically, which caused their military equipment to sink. At least 17 people died as a result of the hydroelectric power plant explosion, 31 people are considered missing. The number of dead on the occupied left bank of the Kherson region is unknown.