Thousands fled their homes on Wednesday after the destruction of a Russian-held dam in Ukraine flooded dozens of villages and parts of a nearby city, sparking fears of a humanitarian disaster.
Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on Tuesday.
The breach of the dam in southern Ukraine, which provides cooling water for Europe’s largest nuclear plant, took place as Ukrainian troops prepared to launch an offensive to recover lost territory.
Photo: AP
Downstream from the breached Kakhovka dam, police and troops in Kherson were taking people out from inundated areas in inflatable boats, most clutching only a few documents or pets.
Despite the evacuations, Ukrainian officials said that Russian forces kept shelling the residential neighborhoods.
“We no longer have a home,” said Dmitry Melnikov, 46, who was evacuated with his five children.
“We have been here since the beginning of the war, we survived the occupation,” said Melnikov, whose family was being evacuated to the southern city of Mykolaiv.
“But now we have no home, no nothing, no work. We don’t want to leave, but what can we do?” he added.
As the mutual recriminations continued, Moscow accused Kyiv of blowing up a section of the Togliatti-Odesa pipeline.
Russia used it before the war to export ammonia, and its reactivation had been requested as part of talks for a deal on Ukraine grain exports.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed an international commission to investigate the damage after speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter that he had sent Erdogan “a list of Ukraine’s urgent needs to eliminate the disaster.”
Putin denounced the breach as “a barbaric act which has led to a large-scale environmental and humanitarian catastrophe,” the Kremlin said.
British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs James Cleverly on Wednesday said that London was unwilling to apportion blame yet, as it was waiting for “all available facts.”
However, Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as “this event is a direct repercussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
Almost 6,000 people have been evacuated from the flooded regions, statements from Russian and Ukrainian officials said — about 4,000 people on the Russian side and nearly 2,000 on the Ukraine side.
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