Russian artillery fire left one dead and 18 injured on Thursday in the midst of a rescue operation in Kherson, in flooded southern Ukraine, kyiv said. Russia also accuses the Ukrainian army of deadly fire and claims to have repelled a troop and armored offensive further north.
Ukrainians have accused the Russian army of hitting Kherson in recent days as thousands of civilians were evacuated from flooded areas following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, located upstream on the Dnieper River.
According to kyiv, one person was killed and 18 injured, including members of the emergency services, in Russian strikes on the center of Kherson and the surrounding area.
Ukraine and its allies, including the United States, France and Japan, on Thursday condemned the ‘attacks’, calling on Russia to allow ‘unfettered’ access for aid after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam .
“You are heroic,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told rescuers working “under Russian fire” in a message posted on social media after traveling to the area where more than 600 km2 were flooded.
At this point, the Ukrainian and Russian occupation authorities count six deaths in the floods.
The Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine have for their part accused kyiv of bombardments which killed two people, including a pregnant woman, in an evacuation point in Golan Pristan, in the area under Russian control.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also claimed that his troops had countered a Ukrainian offensive overnight in the Zaporizhia region, northeast of Kherson, at a time when Kiev said it was ready to launch an assault to reconquer the territories occupied by Moscow.
“The enemy tried to break through our defenses with […] up to 1,500 men and 150 armored vehicles,” Shoigu said in a statement. “The enemy is stopped and retreating with heavy losses,” he said. Statements, however, unverifiable from independent sources.
Human and ecological disaster
Moscow and kyiv reject responsibility for the destruction on Tuesday of the Kakhovka dam located on the Dnieper, which raises fears of a human and ecological disaster.
Implicated on Tuesday by Ukraine, which accused it of having dynamited the dam to cut the road to an offensive in the south towards Crimea, Russia asserts on the contrary that it is of a “barbaric” act committed by the Ukrainians.
According to the administration of the region, 2339 people were evacuated, and one man died, according to the emergency services. Many others fled on their own.
More than 20,000 people are still without electricity, according to Ukraine’s energy ministry, which has asked Europe to provide it with more electricity.
The minister, German Galouchtchenko, also declared that the nuclear power plant of Zaporijjia, cooled by the water of the Dnieper, presented “no imminent risk at this stage”, but required to be “monitored”.
After examination, it turned out that the pumping operations should “be able to continue even if the level fell below the current threshold of 12.7 meters”, previously considered critical, explained the UN body in a press release, which now sets the limit at “11 meters or even lower”.
When the dam can no longer be used, the plant will be able to use “a large retention basin located nearby as well as smaller reserves and on-site wells that can provide cooling water for several months “, specified the IAEA.
“Disease Surveillance”
The Red Cross assured to participate in the evacuation operations in Ukrainian territory, with about fifty volunteers. Aid from the United Nations will be increased, kyiv said on Thursday.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on Alliance members to “provide rapid support”.
On the health side, because of the consequences of the flood on “water supply, sanitation systems and public health services”, the WHO provided assistance so that the authorities and health professionals could “take preventive measures against water-borne diseases” and to “improve disease surveillance”, assured the press its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The Kremlin finally warned on Thursday that Monday’s explosion of an ammonia pipeline in Ukraine, essential for the export of fertilizers, could have a “negative impact” on the future of the grain agreement, crucial for global food supply, which it is reluctant to extend.
See the damage from the attack on the Ukrainian dam