Shocking drone footage shows clapped-out Lada rigged with explosives on top of Kakhovka dam ‘proving Russia blew it up’
SHOCKING drone footage showing a Lada car packed with explosives at the doomed Kakhovka dam has been touted as smoking-gun evidence that Russia was responsible for the blast.
The Kakhovka Dam disaster on June 6 unleashed 4.8billion gallons of water into an already battered southern Ukraine, destroying whole towns, drowning civilians and eviscerating wildlife.
Images obtained by AP from Ukrainian military sources appear to show both a Lada stuffed with explosives and Russian officials stationed very close to the point at which the Soviet-era dam exploded.
The footage taken on May 28 shows the car parked on the dam with its roof cut open to expose giant barrels, including what looks like a land mine.
It adds to the mounting evidence that Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to blow up the dam.
Ukrainian special forces have suggested that the car bomb - which itself is not enough to have brought down the dam - was used to amplify the larger planned explosion from inside.
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In the region that surrounds the dam, the Dnieper River forms the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces, with Russian in control of the dam itself.
The dam's destruction led to deadly flooding, endangered the worlds breadbasket, contaminated the drinking water supplies for thousands and unleashed an environmental catastrophe.
Ukrainian commanders say it also scuppered some of their plans to take Russian positions in a counteroffensive that is now in its early stages.
Russia blamed Ukraine for the collapse, but their claims that the dam was hit by a missile or taken down by explosives were undermined by the sheer size of the blast.
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Russia has benefited from the timing of the massive flooding that followed the explosion, however the scale of destruction through areas of Ukraine it partially controls may have been fear heavier than expected.
It comes as the released evidence from engineers and explosive experts that suggested Russia blew up the Kakhovka Dam from within.
Their investigation revealed an explosive charge was allegedly detonated from deep within the dam's concrete base, which Russia had extensive knowledge of and access to from the machine room.
The major dam was built in the 1950s to sustain any kind of possible attack and Ukraine is not believed to possess any missile with enough power to destroy it.
The day before the structure collapsed on June 6, Russians had set up a firing position inside the dams crucial machine room, where the explosion is believed to have originated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said as early as October 2022 that the dam was mined.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces claimed to have destroyed a "significant" ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Kherson sparking a huge fireball blast.
On Sunday, smoke was seen rising in large plumes in the region already devastated by the burst dam.
The blast was the latest of a number of recent suspected Storm Shadow attacks on Henichesk - the designated Putin-capital of the invaded Kherson region.
