Russia accuses West of ignoring Ukraine's 'criminal acts': 'Stop terrible provocations'

Alleging that the Ukrainian forces have been launching over 100 missiles daily targeted at the power plant in the Kherson region, Russia on Saturday asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to "prevent Ukraine's terrible provocations". Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the blowing up of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam in Ukraine’s southern Kherson Oblast on the Dnipro River would create a “large-scale disaster". He blamed the Russian armed forces for repeatedly hitting the site. "We have information that Russians mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant," Zelensky said in an address to the European Council. 

West ignores 'criminal acts' committed by Ukraine: Russian ambassador to UN

Russia, however, refuted claims that it was preparing a false-flag attack and instead appealed to the UN to hold Ukraine's military accountable. Any disaster at the plant might end up in the deaths of thousands of civilians and the destruction of several homes, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia warned. Furthermore, he told the UNSC that the West ignores “any criminal acts” committed by Ukraine. The plant stores up to 18 million cubic meters of water, and can cause flash flooding in as many as 80 settlements, including the regional capital Kherson, according to Zelenskyy. 

Nebenzia informed the UNSC that the recent attacks were being carried out by Ukraine with the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). The Russian ambassador accused Kyiv of shelling the occupied town of Novaya Kakhovka in Kherson which was recently annexed and officially incorporated into Russia by President Vladimir Putin. The latter also announced Martial Law in the occupied regions prompting the Ukrainians to flee. 

Ukraine has been “consistently conducting strikes on civilian infrastructure in its former territories”, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia said at the UNSC, according to RT.

“Ukrainian forces are aiming at the Kakhovskaya dam in order to break it, causing the water level to rise and the adjacent areas to flood,” he further added. 

Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, separately told Polish state news agency PAP that an impending assault on the hydropower facility in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region was being carried out by the Russians. On Twitter, Podolyak outlined that the alleged  “real plan” was drafted by none other than the commander of the Russian forces in Ukraine, Gen. Sergey Surovikin. Surovikin plans first “to mine the dam and transformers” at the Kakhovka hydro plant, Podolyak claimed, adding that his forces will also "forcibly deport" Ukrainians from the region to Russia, describing them as the “disloyal population."  Surovikin’s troops will “flood the territory” in order to “stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive and block their own retreat,” Podolyak said in his far-ranging claims. “Russia is preparing a man-made catastrophe."