Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported on June 11 that Russia had redeployed its elite troops from Kherson Oblast to other directions after the June 6 Kakhovka dam disaster.
Maliar said Russian marines, airborne troops, and 49th Army units had been redeployed to the Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut directions.
By blowing up the Kakhovka dam, the Russian leadership aimed to prevent a Ukrainian counteroffensive in adjacent areas, Maliar said in a Telegram post.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 6 that the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant's dam would not prevent the liberation of Russian-occupied territories.
The collapse of the Russian-occupied Kakhovka dam on June 6 sparked a large-scale humanitarian and environmental disaster across southern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, dozens of settlements on both banks of the Dnipro River are flooded.
The Ukrainian authorities say that Russian forces intentionally destroyed the Kakhovka hydropower plant. An alleged call between Russian soldiers intercepted by Ukraine’s intelligence services on June 9 supposedly confirms Moscow's complicity.
The U.S. government has so far refused to say conclusively who is responsible for the Kakhovka disaster but asserted that Russia ultimately bears blame as it was in control of the dam.
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