(Updated with details, quotes, context)
KYIV, June 9 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Internal Security Service (SBU) said on Friday it intercepted a phone call showing evidence that a Russian “sabotage group” had destroyed the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.
The destruction of the dam overnight from Monday to Tuesday triggered massive flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee while causing environmental damage.
Ukraine’s Security Service posted a one-and-a-half-minute audio clip of the alleged phone conversation on Telegram.
Reuters could not independently verify the recording. Russia, which accused Kyiv of destroying the dam, did not immediately comment on its contents.
“They (the Ukrainians) didn’t destroy it. It was our sabotage group,” says one of the men in the tape, described by the SBU as a Russian soldier. “They wanted to scare people with this roadblock.”
“It didn’t go as planned and they did more than they expected.”
The man also said ‘thousands’ of animals had been killed at a ‘safari park’ below the dam.
The other interlocutor expressed surprise at the soldier’s claim that Russian forces, which had occupied the dam since the invasion in February 2022, had destroyed it.
The SBU did not provide further details about the conversation or its participants. He said he had opened an investigation for war crimes and “ecocide”.
(Reporting Dan Peleschuk, French version Zhifan Liu and Nathan Vifflin, editing by Kate Entringer)
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