Vladimir Putin
For some reason, Putin decided to comment on the catastrophe in the Kherson region to Erdogan. And then in indirect speech – the comment was retold by the Kremlin press service. The publication says that “the Kyiv authorities, at the suggestion of their Western curators, are still making a dangerous bet on the escalation of hostilities, commit war crimes, openly use terrorist methods, and organize sabotage on Russian territory. A clear example of this is the barbaric action to destroy the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station in the Kherson region, which led to a large-scale environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.”
Why would Kyiv destroy the dam, drown its population and cut off the counteroffensive towards Crimea, Putin did not explain.
Volodymyr Saldo, occupation "head" of the Kherson region
Immediately after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, a video appeared on social networks in which Vladimir Saldo, against the backdrop of a flooded city, says that people “are calmly moving along the streets” and “there is no big water.”
“Just drove through the streets. Gas stations are working, shops are working, even enterprises are working, ”he said against the backdrop of the flooded Palace of Culture.
He also said that "the evacuation is ready today, there are buses." Saldo later stated that people did not want to evacuate. “The main goal is to save people. There are children left in these places, we take the children out. But here people remain people and, despite the dangers, they are waiting for the water to come down. So far, no one is active and there are not even requests for evacuation.”
In reality, people cannot evacuate from the flooded areas on the left bank of the Dnieper. Volunteers are not allowed there by the occupying authorities, as they are afraid of sabotage. In particular, the Ministry of Emergency Situations has blocked access to Oleshki, where more than 600 people are left without water, food and medicine. The volunteers themselves told The Insider about this.
“The entry and exit of people is impossible, boaters are not allowed. One of the volunteers who made his way there says that this is due to the fact that there are a lot of corpses. Also, people remain blocked in the center of Oleshek. This is 600 people in the hospital and some in the school and the house of culture. The evacuees are left without food and water. Now we are trying to establish logistics in order to send medicines and insulin, food, water, blankets, generators there. It is not yet clear whether we will be able to do this or not,” said one of the volunteers.
Moreover, the Russian military continues to shell the Kherson region. The Russian authorities, meanwhile, continue to say that Ukraine has staged an ecocide and genocide of its own people.
Sergei Kiriyenko, First Deputy Presidential Administration
Kiriyenko, according to the Kremlin, came to the Kherson region to “calm down” people who had lost their homes. Instead of real help, he gives them promises that "a couple of days – the water will subside, it will be fine."
At the same time, the adviser to the mayor of Kherson, Roman Golovnya, said that the flooding could last more than a week. The same forecasts are given by military analysts. According to expert Roman Svitan, the flood may delay the crossing of the Dnieper by the Armed Forces of Ukraine for one and a half to two weeks.
"Mayor", "acting" and all Russian propaganda
The most popular fake related to the flooding of Novaya Kakhovka is “rescued animals” from the local zoo. Occupation " mayor " of the city Vladimir Leontiev, "freelance adviser to the acting governor" of the region Alexander Malkevich, many Russian propagandists and state media prove that the pets of the zoo "Kazkova Dibrova" were taken out six months ago, and therefore they could not drown there.
In reality, the animals were removed from the zoo in Kakhovka, and not Novaya Kakhovka – these are two different settlements. About the death of about 300 animals, The Insider was told by volunteers who monitored Kazkova Dibrova and looked after the pets.
“It was not a zoo, but a private menagerie,” a source told The Insider. – There were raccoons, and ostriches, and monkeys. They say that there was nothing there, but there was! There were two monkeys, green monkeys, both drowned. There were six raccoons, porcupines, ostriches, peacocks. There were many. They survived everything in a year and a half – arrivals, flights … Everyone survived. And then they drowned. At two o'clock in the morning there was a sharp flood, and no one had time to open the enclosures. Volunteers came, tried to dive, but there was a strong pressure of water. They wanted to at least save the monkeys, but they couldn't. Their enclosure is the very first from the gate, but they still couldn’t.”
