Ukrainian Intelligence Claims To Tap Phones Related To The Collapse Of The Kakhovka Dam: Allegedly Russian Army, Not In Accordance With Plan

Satellite images of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/Contains Modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2023)

JAKARTA - Ukraine's domestic security service said on Friday it managed to tap a phone call proving that Russia's "Sabotage group" blew up a hydroelectric station and the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.

The destruction of the facility on Tuesday caused massive flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee and cause environmental damage.

The Ukrainian Security Agency (SBU), the country's leading intelligence agency, posted a one and a half minute audio clip on its allegedly conversational Telegram channel, featuring two men apparently discussing the impact of the disaster in Russian.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage. Russia, which accused Kyiv of destroying the dam, did not immediately comment on its contents.

"They (Ukraine) did not damage it. It was our sabotage group," said one of the men on the tape, described by SBU as a Russian soldier.

"They want to scare (people) with the dam," they continued.

"It didn't go according to plan, and (they did) more than they planned," the footage said.

The man also said that the "ribs" of animals had been killed in the "saffari park" in the downstream part as a result.

Another man on the phone expressed surprise at the army's statement that Russian troops, occupying the dam following the Russian invasion in February 2022, had destroyed the hydropower plant and dam.

SBU did not provide further details about the conversation or its participants. They said they had opened criminal investigations into war crimes and "ecocides".

"The wiretapping carried out by SBU confirms that the Kakhovskaya hydropower plant was detonated by the colonial sabotage group," SBU said in a statement.

"Invaders want to blackmail Ukraine by blowing up the dam and causing man-made disasters in the south of our country," said SBU.

Separately, hundreds of Ukrainians were rescued from the roofs of houses in flooded areas on Thursday. The governor of the southern region of Kherson said, about 600 square kilometers, or 230 square miles, the area was flooded.

"By detonating the HPP's Kachovskaya dam, the Russian Federation definitively proves that this is a threat to the whole civilized world," said Head of SBU Vasyl Malyuk in a statement.

"Our job is to try not only the leaders of the Russian President Vladimir Putin regime, but also the perpetrators of ordinary crimes," he stressed.