Ukraine vows to ‘hit back harder’ if Russia blows up Kherson dam, threatening hundreds of thousands with flooding
- ‘Ukraine will not succumb to peace by coercion … They won’t break us’, tweeted Andrii Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office
- His remarks came hours after warnings Russia was planning an attack on the plant, which would disrupt power, water supplies and trigger flooding
Ukrainian forces will “hit back even harder” if Russia destroys a hydroelectric power plant in the Kherson region, where Kiev’s troops are advancing on occupying Russian forces, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office threatened on Friday.
Andrii Yermak tweeted that Moscow’s “nuclear blackmail” had failed to intimidate Ukraine and its allies, so now “they are trying to scare everyone by blowing up” the Kakhovka plant on Dnipro river.
“Ukraine will not succumb to peace by coercion … They won’t break us. We will hit back even harder,” he wrote.
The remarks came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia was planning an attack on the plant, which, along with causing major disruptions to power and water supplies, would likely trigger flooding affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
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Late on Thursday, Zelensky said Russian forces had mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant with the intent of blowing it up, in what would amount to a “catastrophe on a grand scale”.
Hundreds of thousands of people around the lower Dnipro River would be in danger of rapid flooding if the dam was destroyed, Zelensky warned in a speech Thursday to European leaders.