Russia obviously planned to blow up Kakhovka HPP, as they had moved equipment and troops to another location in advance – сolonel Kostenko

Roman Kostenko, speaking from the suburbs of Kherson, told Espreso about the intensity of flooding in the settlements as a result of the blowing up of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station by Russian troops.

"The water is constantly coming, and the upstream settlements of Kherson region are being flooded. We understand that the disaster is even worse on the left bank, because it is located lower. Nova Kakhovka is almost all flooded, there is already about waist-deep water, and maybe even more," said the colonel.

The MP noted that such a possible catastrophe was often talked about, but no one thought that the enemy would be able to do it.

"We are working in this area, conducting reconnaissance. And recently we have seen that the Russian occupiers have withdrawn their troops and equipment despite the fact that they had dug a lot of barriers and trenches here. They began to occupy another place, and our fighters had assumed that Russian troops were digging a second line of defense. But it turned out that the enemy planned the explosion in advance, withdrawing equipment and making new trench directions, and then blew up the hydroelectric power station to increase the scale of flooding and possibly damage the highway between the left and right banks. The Russian invaders do not care about the scale of the disaster, because they are just worried about themselves," Kostenko said.

• On June 6, Russian occupation forces blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.

• Ukraine convenes an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP