On June 10, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted an Appeal to the UN, parliaments and governments of states, international organizations and their parliamentary assemblies in connection with another act of terrorism by Russia – the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station (HPP).
In the appeal, the blowing up of the Kakhovka HPP is characterized as another, pre-planned act of state terrorism, which created a mortal danger for people and all living things on both banks of the Dnipro below the Kakhovka reservoir, and also became an indisputable and unprecedented act of ecocide, the impact of which goes far beyond the borders of Ukraine and the region.
The Ukrainian parliament points out that this crime of Russia is not only an act of terrorism, ecocide, but also a war crime in accordance with the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, its Additional Protocol of 1977, as well as a violation of the UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any hostile use of the 1977 environmental impact agents.
According to the provisions of international humanitarian law, the occupying state is responsible for everything that happens in the occupied territory under its effective control, the document emphasizes.
The appeal indicates that due to the critically low water level in the Kakhovka reservoir, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are already experiencing problems with the supply of drinking water, including 600 thousand residents of the city of Kryvyi Rih, as well as residents of other settlements, including those on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.
The Verkhovna Rada points out that the blowing up of the dam of the Kakhovskaya HPP was a continuation of the Russian policy of genocide of the Ukrainian people and another eloquent response from the Kremlin to the politicians of the states calling for peace negotiations with the Russian Federation on any terms.
On behalf of the Ukrainian people, the Parliament called on the addressees of the appeal to strongly condemn the Russian terrorist act committed at the Kakhovka HPP and recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, and its actions as ecocide and genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Let us recall that our experts, such as Professor Borys Babin, have previously written about the qualification of the undermining of the hydroelectric power station as an act of genocide.
