Yahoo Finance Russia is now bombing dams in an effort to halt Ukraine's counter-offensive success
Russia is bombing dams to flood military crossing points in an attempt to halt the progress of Ukrainian counter-offensives, according to the Ministry of Defence.
On top of its deadly campaign of shelling cities in the east, Moscow is also targeting the Siverskyi Donets and Inhulets rivers, where Ukrainian troops have been pushing advancing at great speed.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Defence said that Russia was firing on the Pechenihy dam on the Siverskyi Donets River, just days after striking a dam on a reservoir near Kryvyi Rih, causing flooding on the Inhulets River.
It is thought that they used short range ballistic missiles.
“Ukrainian forces are advancing further downstream along both rivers,” the MoD said.
“As Russian commanders become increasingly concerned about their operational setbacks, they are probably attempting to strike the sluice gates of dams, in order to flood Ukrainian military crossing points.”
On Saturday, Russian forces launched new attacks on Ukrainian cities killing at least three people and wounding 19 others.
Oleksandr Starukh, the Ukrainian governor of Zaporizhzhia - one of the regions where Moscow-installed officials are organising referendums on joining Russia - said a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the city, killing one person and injuring seven others.
Ukraine and its Western allies say the referendums underway in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal force.
They say that the vote represents an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory stretching from the Russian border to the Crimean Peninsula.
Furthermore, Ukrainian officials said people were banned from leaving some occupied areas until the four-day vote was over, armed groups were going to homes to force people to cast ballots, and employees were threatened with the sack if they did not participate.
On Friday, Ukraine’s presidential office said 10 civilians were killed and 39 others wounded by Russian shelling in nine regions.
Two civilians were killed in the Donetsk region, and three people were injured, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk oblast.
Russian forces also shelled settlements near the Russian border. In the Kupyan district, five people were injured from shelling, including two children, aged 10 and 17.
Battles continue in the southern Kherson province while Ukrainian forces have launched 280 attacks on Russian command posts, munitions depots and weapons.
Heavy fighting also continues in the Donetsk area, where Russian attacks have targeted Toretsk, Sloviansk and several smaller towns. Russian shelling in Nikopol and Marhanets on the western bank of the Dnieper River killed two people and wounded nine this weekend.
The continued attacks come just days after a UN-mandated investigation commission said it had found evidence of war crimes including executions, rape, torture and confinement of children in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, after visits to 27 areas and interviews with more than 150 victims and witnesses.
Russia denies deliberately attacking civilians in the conflict and says abuse accusations are a smear campaign.
Russia also attacked the port city of Odesa with an Iranian-designed Shahed-136, killing one person.
Officials said that an Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drone had been shot down in a second area.
As a consequence, Iran’s charge d’affaires was summoned and told the supply of Iranian weapons to Russia was “an unfriendly act that deals a serious blow” to bilateral ties.
Ukraine “decided to deprive the ambassador of Iran in Ukraine of accreditation, as well as to significantly reduce the number of diplomatic personnel of the Iranian embassy in Kyiv”.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman insisted his country followed a “clear policy of active neutrality.”
