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By Xander Landen
Weekend Staff Writer
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that if Russia is planning a "terrorist attack" on a major dam in Ukraine's Kherson region it means Russians "are clearly aware" they will face losses in the southern part of the country.
Zelensky's comments came on Thursday, one day after the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in a report that Russian forces are planning to launch a "false-flag" attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, located about 50 miles east of the city of Kherson.
In a speech on Thursday, Zelensky said Ukrainian officials believe Russians are "preparing for" an attack at the power plant, and that "the aggregates and dam of the Kakhovka HPP were mined by Russian terrorists."
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"Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster," Zelensky said.
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"With this terrorist attack, they can destroy, among other things, even the possibility of supplying water from the Dnipro River to Crimea. In the event of the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP dam, the North Crimean Canal will simply disappear," Zelensky said.
"And if Russia is preparing such a terrorist attack, if it is seriously considering such a scenario, it means the terrorists are clearly aware that they will not be able to keep not only Kherson, but also the entire south of our country, including Crimea," the Ukrainian president added.
Russian state media on Wednesday appeared to be preparing its viewers for the loss of the occupied city of Kherson.
"During all of these months, the Ukrainian side has been systemically working to cut off our forces from supply routes, in the area of the Nova Kakhovka dam and in the area of the Antonovsky bridge," Alexander Kots, a military correspondent for the state-run daily tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, said during a broadcast of 60 Minutes on Russia-1.
"This creates difficulties for the Russian troops, especially since on the other side of the frontline, we are confronting forces that are quite substantial," Kots added.
In an interview on the Rossiya 24 news channel this week, General Sergei Surovikin, the commander of the Russian army, said that "hard decisions must be made" as Ukrainians push to retake Kherson as part of their counteroffensive.
"In the Kherson direction, the situation is not easy," Surovikin said. "The situation in the area of the 'Special Military Operation' can be described as tense."
Newsweek reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministries for comment.
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