LAST UPDATE | 8 Jun 2023
UKRAINE AND RUSSIA accused each other of shelling rescuers and evacuees in the flood-hit Kherson region today as Moscow said its forces fought off a Ukrainian offensive in another part of the front line.
Emergency services are still racing to rescue people stranded by the flood-swollen waters of the Dnipro River, which have forced thousands to flee.
The destruction of a major Russian-held dam on the river on Tuesday unleashed a torrent of water that has left 600 square kilometres of the region under water.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the area today after floods inundated dozens of villages and parts of the regional capital, Kherson.
“In Kherson, I visited a crossing point where people are being evacuated from flooded areas. Our task is to protect lives and help people as much as possible. I thank the rescuers and volunteers! I thank everyone involved in this work!” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president posted a video showing him meeting with officials and emergency service members.
“Thank you to everyone in the world who condemns the crimes of the Russian occupiers! Russia must be held accountable for everything it does against life and people,” the post read.
Сьогодні – в Херсоні. Нарада щодо ліквідації наслідків 🇷🇺 теракту на Каховській гідроелектростанції. Порятунок людей. Протидія екоциду. Безліч гуманітарних питань. На всі маємо дати відповідь. Дякую кожному і кожній, хто допомагає нашим 🇺🇦 людям! Дякую всім у світі, хто засуджує… pic.twitter.com/9Gg8dXifZK
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 8, 2023
Shortly after the visit, Kyiv said Russian strikes in the centre of Kherson and the surrounding region killed one person and injured 18 more, including emergency services staff.
Moscow-installed authorities on the other bank of the Dnipro River, which is controlled by Russian forces, said two evacuees were killed by Ukrainian shelling.
The death toll from the flooding reached six as the Moscow-backed administration of Nova Kakhovka, where the dam is located, said five people had died and 41 admitted in hospital.
Ukrainian police said one man had died in a riverside village in the neighbouring Mykolaiv region, also affected by rising water levels.
Flooding from the dam breach extends over 600 square kilometres on the Ukrainian-held right bank of the Dnipro River and the Russian-held left bank, the region’s governor said today.
“The average level of flooding is 5.61 metres. 600 square kilometres of the Kherson region are under water, of which 32 percent is the right bank and 68 percent is the left bank,” Kherson region governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on social media.
He added that “despite the danger and heavy Russian shelling, the evacuation from the flooded area continues”.
“(The water) is two floors high, you can only survive on the roof,” said Laura Musiyan, an employee from the Kherson meteorological agency.
Musiyan, waist-deep in the water that she was measuring, said its rise seemed to be slowing.
“If this trend continues, this will mean good news for people,” she said.
Ukrainian officials estimated they would need to wait for at least another three days for the water to subside significantly.
Prokudin said the situation in Russian-held areas was “extremely difficult”.
The state emergency service of Ukraine said 1,995 people had been evacuated from flooded areas, including 103 children. Many more have fled of their own accord.
The state emergency service said that on the Ukrainian-held side of the river “a total of 20 settlements and 2,629 houses” had been flooded.
In the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region, Russia said its forces had fought a two-hour battle with Ukrainian troops in the early hours of this morning.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the Ukrainian offensive involved 1,500 soldiers and 150 armoured vehicles.
“Today at 1:30 am (11.30pm Irish time) in the Zaporizhzhia area… there was an attempt to break through our defences,” Shoigu said in a statement.
“The enemy was stopped and retreated after heavy losses,” he said.
Ukrainian officials have said their forces are ready for a long-expected counteroffensive but that there would be no formal announcement when it begins.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Maliar said only that Russia was conducting “defensive actions” near the town of Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia region.
In another development, Ukrainian authorities said water levels in a reservoir which had been created by the Kahovka dam had fallen “below the critical point of 12.7 metres”.
This meant the reservoir was no longer able to supply households and the cooling ponds at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, Europe’s largest.
The plant’s six reactors have been shut down but they still need cooling water to ensure there is no nuclear disaster.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said existing water in the cooling ponds can be used “for some time” to cool the reactors and the spent fuel pools in the reactor buildings.
In the Kherson region, Ukrainian rescuers said they were venturing into Russian-controlled areas to save civilians despite the danger.
The area is the estuary of the Dnipro River and is dotted with islands and marshland where the precise location of the front line is sometimes unclear.
Ukrainian authorities have said 30 settlements were flooded, 10 of which lie in territory controlled by Russia on the Dnipro’s eastern bank.
Rescuers used boats and amphibious vehicles to pluck people from flooded areas. Some volunteers were also going out to rescue stranded animals and birds.
One woman, Tetiana Omelchenko, 65, said she had waited two days to be evacuated from her block of flats in Kherson and had to climb through a broken window to reach a rescue boat.
“In my building, the water has reached the third floor and there are still people in there,” she said.
In Brussels today, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged members of the alliance to speed up humanitarian assistance to Ukraine after the destruction of the dam.
Stoltenberg told Nato ambassadors that “the consequences for thousands of people and for the environment are dramatic, and he urged Allies to provide support expeditiously”, Nato said in a statement.
“The impact on the region’s water supply, sanitation systems and public health services cannot be underestimated,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
“WHO has rushed in to support the authorities and health care workers in preventive measures against waterborne diseases and to improve disease surveillance,” he said.
Ukraine accuses Russia, whose forces control the dam area, of blowing up the dam, while Russia accuses Ukraine hitting it with artillery.
Ukrhydroenergo, the dam’s operator, said it was most likely mined from the inside.
The emergency service has warned the flood water has dislodged land mines that pose a threat to civilians.
The government has also sounded the alarm over the environmental impact, calling it “a crime of ecocide”.
A Greenpeace campaigner in Kyiv, Denys Tsutsaiev, warned that it could take a decade for some species to recover from the catastrophe and some may not recover at all.
According to the latest information, “at least 500 tonnes of oil was released due to the dam destruction,” the campaigner said, posing a threat to sea mammals and birds.
© AFP 2023, with additional reporting from David Mac Redmond
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