KYIV — Days after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) published what it said was an intercepted call in which Russians admit they were behind the devastating attack.
In an intercepted call, two males with Russian accents — identified by SBU only as two Russian soldiers — speak about how the Russian military wanted to blackmail Ukraine by attacking the dam, but things did not go according to plan as the waters of the Dnipro River spilled across the region, flooding dozens of settlements and destroying ecosystems.
“It wasn’t the Ukrainians who blew up the dam. It was our sabotage group. They wanted to scare people with this dam [attack]. It didn’t go according to plan,” says one of those identified as a Russian military officer. “This dam was constructed in the 1950s, so it quickly collapsed.”
During the call, one of those identified as a Russian soldier complained that Moscow-installed authorities in the occupied part of the Kherson region are trying to downplay the catastrophe.
SBU said in a statement that the wiretapping confirms Russian saboteurs blew up the dam.
On Wednesday, locals from the occupied town of Oleshky told POLITICO that Russian forces seemed disoriented after the catastrophe, even leaving their own soldiers and weapons behind. However, in the first crucial hours after the attack, the Russians prevented locals from leaving the flooded town, forcing many to sit on their roofs without food and water. At the same time, Russian forces were actively shelling evacuation routes in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region and in the city of Kherson.
The findings from wiretapping cannot be independently verified but they fit with the results of an investigation conducted by Ukrainian analytics group Molfar, who claimed Russia was behind the destruction of the dam.
Kyiv claims the destruction was caused by explosives that Russians planted inside the dam and Russia’s main goal was to stop a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
After initially denying the destruction, the Kremlin blamed Ukraine, with state-controlled media TASS reporting that Ukrainian armed forces hit the dam with rocket launchers.
“To blow up the dam you need to drop at least three air bombs weighing half a ton in one place. This cannot be done with the strikes of a single missile. It was a very powerful explosion in three places at the station. When dismantling our station, we will see it, the examination will prove it,” Ihor Syrota, the head of Ukrhydronenergo energy company, which manages all hydroelectric stations in Ukraine, said during a national telethon.
Scientists at NORSAR — a Norwegian-U.S. agency that detects earthquakes and nuclear explosions — reported seismic signals in the area at the same time as the collapse of the dam. This indicates there was an explosion, the seismologists said. U.S. spy satellites also detected an explosion just before the dam collapsed in the early hours of June 6, the New York Times reported, citing an unnamed U.S. senior administration official.
Analyzing open-source data, videos from different sources, and satellite imagery, Molfar analytics concluded that the most likely scenario was Russia’s 205th motorized rifle brigade being behind the explosion at the dam, citing social media posts from the brigade and its affiliates.
On the Telegram channel of the Russian brigade is a post about the withdrawal of troops from the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region, noting the dam was mined for detonation, Molfar analytics said in a report.
The Russian brigade said it “estimated the probability of the Russians blowing up the dam at 70%.”
Indeed, in a Telegram post from October 21, 2022, less than a month before Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson, 205th brigade said that the Kakhovka dam was mined. That same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alerted Western partners that Russians had mined the dam.
“There is confirmed information that we have mined the dam and will blow it up in case of uncontrolled enemy advance. Quote from the operation plan,” the 205th brigade said in an October statement revealing that Russians were planning to retreat in Kherson region.