Ukraine’s foreign ministry rejected a Russian official’s claim that Kiev planned to launch attacks on its own power-generating dams in the country to blame Russia for the attack, describing the statement as a new scare tactic.
“The real purpose of such statements by Moscow is to intimidate Ukrainian society and deceive the international community and the media,” the ministry said in a statement.
“There can be no real purpose or motive for Ukraine to destroy its own infrastructure or endanger its own people. As for “shifting the blame to Russia”, the Russian regime is doing a good job of this with its own war crimes,” the ministry adds.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in comments reported by the TASS news agency, said earlier that Ukraine plans to destroy two dams in “another cynical provocation against Russia.”
Zakharova, who offered no evidence for her accusations, said Ukraine was “preparing to destroy” Kiev’s hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River outside the capital and the Kaniv reservoir downstream of it.
Last year, the Kahovka reservoir, further downstream on the Dnieper, was destroyed, flooding large areas of southern Ukraine and causing extensive damage.
At the time, the dam was under the control of Russian occupation forces and Ukraine accused them of blowing it up. Russia rejected the accusations and said that Ukraine was responsible, reports Reuters.
