At a meeting with so-called war correspondents in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin outlined his version of the events that led to the destruction of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station. RIA "Novosti" in a note under the heading "Ukraine is to blame for the tragedy at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, Putin said" reports :
“PUTIN: THE TRAGEDY AT THE KAKHOVSKAYA HEP IS TO BE BLAMED ON THE UKRAINIAN SIDE, IT STRIVED TO THIS
PUTIN: RUSSIA DID NOT DETECT THE BIG EXPLOSIONS AT THE KAKHOVSKAYA HYDROPOWER PLANT, BUT UKRAINE PURPOSELY BEAT HIMARS, MAYBE THERE WAS SOMETHING
PUTIN: RUSSIA WAS DEFINITELY NOT INTERESTED IN THE TRAGEDY AT THE KAKHOVSKAYA HEP, SEVERE CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NEW RUSSIAN REGIONS
Telegram channel BRIEF complements :
“Putin said that the blowing up of the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station “unfortunately” frustrated the plans for offensive operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine across the Dnieper.
Unfortunately, because this offensive would have ended very badly for the Ukrainian troops,” Putin said.
If we bring these theses together, it turns out that the Armed Forces of Ukraine deliberately destroyed the hydroelectric power station with shelling from HIMARS in order to frustrate their own plans to force the Dnieper. At the same time, the disruption of the plans for the Ukrainian offensive, according to Putin, was in the interests of Ukraine, but it is still unclear why it was necessary to arrange a catastrophe of this magnitude to cancel it.
A separate question is about “some kind of bookmark” on the dam. In recent months, the hydroelectric power station has been under Russian control, and if the "bookmark" appeared at that time, this means that the explosion of the dam in the event of this or that turn of events was still planned by Russia. And if the “bookmark” has remained since the time when the hydroelectric power station was not yet captured, it is not clear why the dam has not been examined and cleared of mines for all this time.