In a statement of the Presidium of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, released on May 6, it is stated that the undermining of the dam and structures of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, committed by Russian military personnel, is a war crime aimed at the targeted destruction of critical critical infrastructure, deliberate deprivation of the population and households of drinking water, destruction of the ecosystems of the Dnieper and the Black Sea.
The Mejlis assessed the actions of the Russian troops to destroy facilities that ensure the established regimes for the use of land, water and resources in the territories occupied by the Russian Federation as aimed at deliberately creating unbearable and life-threatening conditions for the population of Zaporizhzha and Kherson regions, that is, it qualified these acts as actually genocide.
Also, the statement of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center dated June 6 states that any determination of the regime for the use of lands, waters and resources of indigenous peoples is impossible without their free, informed and prior consent, and that the undermining of the dam and structures of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant by the Russian aggressor is an undoubted act of state terrorism and at the same time a war crime, as well as an act of genocide, against the ethnic Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar population of the left bank of the Kherson region.
The Center states that this international crime grossly violates the rights of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, their representatives and other citizens of Ukraine to sustainable development, a safe environment, drinking water and affordable food, as well as lawful use of natural resources.
The Center also calls for a response from the International Criminal Court, authorized international organizations, governments of the countries of the European Union and the Black Sea basin, organizations of indigenous peoples of the world with a request to pay maximum attention to the negative environmental, economic and humanitarian consequences of the explosion of the power plant.
