Nova Kachovka dam was ‘very likely’ blown up by Russia, international investigation says | Abroad

The destruction of the dam in Ukraine’s Kherson region was a “barbaric act”, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but evidence would now show that his country was behind the collapse. A team of international legal experts who are assisting Ukrainian prosecutors in their investigation say in a preliminary conclusion that it is “highly likely” that the dam collapsed due to explosives placed by Russians.

The New York Times draws the same conclusion from their research. The destruction of the dam, which was occupied by Russia at the time, was an “inside job” according to the newspaper. The Times quoted engineers and explosives experts in the publication, analyzing videos, photos and satellite images of the dam.

LOOK. According to Ukraine, this tapped phone call also proves that the dam was blown up by Russians.

The report states that the dam was virtually indestructible to outside forces such as shelling. Instead, the evidence suggests that explosives were placed in a passageway through the dam’s concrete base, causing the dam to blow up from the inside, the Times writes. Because the dam was built in Soviet times, Moscow had all the pages of the engineering drawings and knew where the weak points were, the article states.

Engineers point out in the article that they can only name with certainty the cause of the explosion after a full investigation of the dam after all the water has drained out. “Erosion from water flowing through the gates could have led to failure if the dam was poorly designed or the concrete was substandard, but engineers called that unlikely,” the Times said.