Zelensky: ICC investigating dam attack

Zelensky: ICC investigating dam attack
by Darryl Coote
Washington DC (UPI) Jun 12, 2023

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is investigating the recent destruction of a major hydroelectric dam in Russia-occupied southern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as operations are still underway to rescue people left stranded by the breach.

According to Ukraine's ministry of Internal Affairs, at least 46 towns and villages remained flooded Sunday, nearly a week after the Kakhovka Hydro Electric Power Plant dam on the Dnipro River in Nova Kakhovka was blown, seemingly with explosives, on Tuesday.

At least five people were killed and 35 remain missing due to the subsequent flooding, the ministry said, while the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs states another eight are believed to have died in Russia-occupied Ukraine.

Some 17,000 people have been affected, according to a United Nations' estimate, though that number could rise to 40,000, it said.

Both Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations that the other was behind the attack on the dam. Kyiv officials have accused the Kremlin of committing ecocide by blowing the facility Moscow forces have occupied for months. Russia has claimed that the Ukrainian military had planned the attack since as early as last year.

On Sunday night, Zelensky announced that the ICC has been investigating the attack. He said a day after the breach occurred, Kyiv's prosecutor general sent a request to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate.

"And the work has already begun," Zelensky said in his nightly address.

The Ukrainian president did not state that ICC staff were already on the ground but explained that "it is very important that the representatives of international justice have seen the consequences of this Russian act of terrorism with their own eyes and heard for themselves that Russian terror continues."

"We are already facilitating and will continue to facilitate the most independent and objective investigation by the International Criminal Court," he added. "All our law enforcement and other institutions are involved in this process to the fullest extent possible."

UPI has asked the ICC for comment.

According to the Internal Ministry, more than 2,743 people have been evacuated from the Kherson region, including 205 children, since Tuesday. In the six days since the incident, more than 700 people, including 30 children, have been rescued, it said.