"Highly Likely" Russia Behind Ukraine Dam Collapse: International Experts
NDTV
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of destroying the Kakhovka dam as a Western-backed tactic to escalate the conflict.
It is "highly likely" that the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was caused by explosives planted by Russians, a team of legal experts assisting Ukraine's prosecutors in their investigation said in preliminary findings released on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of destroying the Kakhovka dam as a Western-backed tactic to escalate the conflict.
Ukraine is investigating the blast as a war crime and possible criminal environmental destruction, or "ecocide".
The vast Soviet-era Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, under Russian control since the Feb. 24 invasion, was breached in the early hours of June 6, unleashing floodwater across a swathe of the battleground in southern Ukraine, destroying farmland and cutting off water supplies to a large part of the population.
