VIENNA, June 14. /TASS/. The United States was aware of Kiev's plans to destroy the dam at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP) as it is able to see what the HIMARS multiple rocket launchers supplied to Ukraine target, but did nothing to prevent the disaster, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control Konstantin Gavrilov said on Wednesday.

"Let us specifically stress that HIMARS is a high-precision system that is guided with the help of the American GPS system, and all targets chosen by the Ukrainian armed forces are coordinated with the Americans at one of the US military bases in Europe," the diplomat told a plenary meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation.

"You remember perfectly well that last week, on June 6, Kiev terrorists blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, instantly triggering a disaster for hundreds of thousands of civilians. And before that - in the summer and fall of 2022 - more than 300 missiles were fired at the hydroelectric plant by the Ukrainian armed forces from HIMARS MLRS alone. The Americans knew about this. But they did nothing to prevent this catastrophe," Gavrilov stressed. TASS received the text of the diplomat's speech from the Russian delegation.

In the early morning hours of June 6, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike on the Kakhovka HPP. The shelling destroyed the hydraulic sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. It stood as high as 12 meters in Novaya Kakhovka, but the water is gradually subsiding now. A total of 35 communities and territories found themselves in the flood zone; residents of nearby population centers are being evacuated.

The collapse of the hydro plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage, with farmland along the Dnieper River being washed away and a heightened risk that water levels in the North Crimean Canal will become unsustainably low.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the attack on the Kakhovka HPP as a deliberate act of sabotage by Ukraine. He added that the Kiev regime should bear full responsibility for the consequences.