Guerrilla Partisans’ History of Explosive Sabotage in Kakhovka Dam Area

June 8, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—There is a group that uses explosives to blow up installations and individuals in the town of Nova Kakhovka, the site of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (KHPP) on the Dnieper River in Kherson Oblast, where explosives destroyed the facility on June 6. It is a partisan guerrilla group called “Atesh” (Tatar for “fire”), dedicated to blowing up all things Russian.

They were formed in late September 2022, along with other partisan guerrilla units working under the Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, such as the “Russian Volunteer Corps.” Their official Telegram channel claimed credit for killing 30 Russian servicemen in hospitals in Simferopol on Nov. 11, 2022; the killing of two Russian National Guard officers on January 31, 2023; a car bomb attack in Nova Kakhovka that killed two Russian soldiers on Feb. 10, 2023; and the bomb attack killing of the deputy head of the military administration of Nova Kakhovka on March 14, 2023. They also claim responsibility for the May 6, 2023, car bomb attempt in Nizhny Novgorod that wounded author Zakhar Prilepin and killed his driver.

Over the last year, the operators of the KHPP have reported problems in keeping the facility running properly, due to various attacks, including smaller attacks over the last month.

Atesh has not claimed credit for any of these latter, and their involvement in the June 6 assault may only turn out to be tangential. However, with no little irony, they are the source that the Kiev regime now relies upon for their claim that the Russian military blew up part of the dam. Atesh states that they know the direct organizers and perpetrators—the soldiers of the 1st battalion of Russia’s 205th motorized rifle brigade, and they name the brigade commander as Col. Eduard Shandur. The Kiev regime’s news agency Ukrinform, in reporting Atesh’s claim, doesn’t mention their history of blowing up things in the Kakhovka area, but assures the reader that Ukrainian “special forces” will track down and deal with the named perpetrators.

Atesh’s so-called evidence is no more than naming the very Russian military unit stationed in the area, the ones that they themselves have been committed to blowing up.