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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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A Kremlin propagandist blamed the U.S. and U.K. for the destruction of a dam in southern Ukraine that has threatened tens of thousands of people and sparked an international outcry.
Kyiv accused Moscow of a terrorist attack after reports of explosions at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in the Kherson oblast sent water gushing into dozens of communities, sparking mass evacuations and fears of widespread casualties. The Kremlin has denied involvement and said that Ukrainian forces struck the dam in "a deliberate act of sabotage."
As Russia and Ukraine traded blame over the incident, Igor Korotchenko, editor of the newspaper National Defense, pointed the finger at the West during the program 60 Minutes where guests and anchors often portray Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a proxy war between Moscow and NATO.
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Over images of the flooded area, Korotchenko said that the incident was part of a tactic "to overstretch" Russia's forces, and that he was "convinced" this "massive terror attack...was planned in Washington, in London."
In the clip tweeted by Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko, Korotchenko described how the dam blast bore the hallmarks of British involvement and that the "combination of the capabilities that are in place in Ukraine led to what happened."
"So this is the direct responsibility of London, Washington and we have to call things out for what they are," Korotchenko told the anchor of the Russia 1 channel show, Olga Skabeeva.
The Institute for the Study of War said it couldn't say for sure who was to blame for the Kakhovka dam destruction, but wrote that "the balance of evidence, reasoning, and rhetoric suggests that the Russians deliberately damaged the dam."
The think tank said on Tuesday that Moscow's "greater and clearer interest in flooding the lower Dnipro," contrasted with the flooding risks and counteroffensive complications it would cause Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the United Nations official in charge of humanitarian aid, Martin Griffiths, told an emergency UN Security Council meeting that the breach of the dam will have "grave and far-reaching consequences."
The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which is co-ordinating a response in Kherson City at the frontline of evacuations, as well as further on in Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro and Odesa, has warned of the humanitarian fallout of the dam explosion.
"We are deeply concerned about thousands of civilians who are likely to lose access to drinking water, and potential mass displacement fuelled by the breach," Giuliano Stochino Weiss, the IRC's Rapid Response Coordinator in Ukraine, said in a statement to Newsweek.
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