![]() It is not known how many people may have died as a result of the flooding. Kyiv said several months ago the dam had been mined by Russian forces who captured it early in their invasion, and has suggested Moscow blew it up to try to prevent Ukrainian forces crossing the Dnipro river in their counteroffensive. Putin, without providing evidence, has accused Ukraine of destroying the Russian-controlled dam at the suggestion of its Western allies. The Kremlin said Putin had no plans to visit the region but was monitoring the situation. "Drinking water remains the most pressing need," it said. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said aid agencies had delivered bottles of drinking water, water purification tablets, hygiene kits and jerrycans. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has appealed for a "clear and rapid" international effort to help flood victims, held emergency talks with officials in Kherson, one of five Ukrainian regions which Moscow claims to have annexed but only partially controls. Ukraine said the floods would leave hundreds of thousands of people without access to drinking water, swamp tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land and turn at least 500,000 hectares deprived of irrigation into "deserts". "The latest information is that there was a lot of water in the street, as high as a person," he said. One man, Sergei, told Reuters the last time he spoke with his 83-year-old father-in-law in the Oleshky region was several days before the dam collapse. The coordinator of a volunteer group on the Telegram messaging app said the appeals were getting more urgent because people were running out of drinking water. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.įriends and family of stranded residents posted appeals online with names, photos and GPS locations of residents. ![]() Ukraine's military said the flooding in Kherson had forced Russian troops to retreat by five to 15 km and had "practically halved" Russian shelling.Ī senior Russian commander briefed President Vladimir Putin on how his forces had repelled a large-scale Ukrainian attack in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the TASS news agency reported.ĭefence Minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier on Thursday that Russian forces had withstood fierce overnight attempts by Ukrainian troops to break through the frontline in Zaporizhzhia and had inflicted heavy losses on them. In its daily Ukraine briefing, Britain's defence ministry on Thursday reported heavy fighting along "multiple sectors of the front", adding that Kyiv held the initiative in most areas. The Washington Post cited "four individuals" in the armed forces saying the same thing.Īsked about the reports, a spokesperson for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces told Reuters: "We have no such information." NBC news, citing a senior officer and a soldier near the front lines, said the offensive had begun.
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