Russia is deliberately creating grounds for a large-scale catastrophe in the south of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said in an address to the European Council by video link.
"We have information that Russian terrorists have mined the dam and units of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant," he said.
He recalled that this is one of the major energy facilities and its dam holds about 18 million cu.m. of water.
"If Russian terrorists blow up this dam, more than 80 settlements, including Kherson, will be in the zone of rapid flooding. Hundreds of thousands of people may suffer," Zelenskyy explained.
"Water supply to a large part of southern Ukraine could be destroyed. This Russian terrorist attack could leave Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant without water for cooling – water for ZNPP is taken from the Kakhovka reservoir. Even the work of the canal, which was built to supply water to Crimea and about which Moscow 'cares' so much periodically, will be completely destroyed. This is the real attitude of Russia to our Ukrainian Crimea. In general, the devastating environmental, humanitarian, man-made consequences of this Russian terrorist attack may be called a historical catastrophe."
According to Zelenskyy, Russia has already prepared everything to carry out this terrorist attack.
"Ukrainian workers were thrown out of the Kakhovka plant - there are only Russian citizens there. They fully control the station. We must act immediately to prevent Russia from realizing this catastrophe," he said. "We need an international observation mission to Kakhovka HPP. We need to return Ukrainian personnel there and ensure immediate and professional demining of the units and the dam."
He suggested Russia is doing this to arrange another false flag operation - to carry out a terrorist attack and blame Ukraine for it.
"We know that this territory is controlled by the occupiers and what they were already capable of. They will stop at nothing. But we can stop them. We can stop the onset of catastrophic consequences. We can, and therefore - we must!" he concluded.