In his overnight address he said the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper river had been mined by Russian forces, according to Ukrainian information.
The dam is under Russian occupation, but Ukrainian forces are closing in.
Russia has already accused Ukraine of firing missiles at the Kakhovka dam.
The dam also provides Russia with one of the few remaining routes across the Dnieper river in the partially occupied Kherson region. Russian-installed authorities in Kherson say four people were killed by Ukrainian Himars rockets that hit another key crossing, the Antonivskiy Bridge, on Friday.
Russia began evacuating its proxy authorities in Kherson this week but also said 50-60,000 civilians would leave too, a measure condemned as forced deportations by Kyiv authorities.
Russia’s new military commander in Ukraine, Gen Sergei Surovikin, alleged that Ukrainian forces could be planning “banned methods of warfare” in Kherson city and the hydroelectric dam and argued that justified the “evacuation” of the civilian population.
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The Institute for the Study of War, an independent US-based think tank, has suggested Russia is “likely continuing to prepare for a false flag attack” on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, by creating “information conditions” for Russian forces to blow up the dam after they pull out of western Kherson and then accuse Ukraine of flooding the river and surrounding settlements.