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War in Ukraine: evacuations continue after partial destruction of Kakhovka dam

2023-06-07T06:11:25.620Z

Highlights: On Tuesday, the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was partially destroyed, causing flooding in several municipalities. In the aftermath of this event, evacuations of civilians continue. At the same time, fears about the ecological consequences of this destruction are growing, with Volodymyr Zelensky denouncing a "brutal ecocide" The Kremlin denounced an act of "deliberate sabotage" and "irmly" called on the international community to "condemn" Kiev for the dam's destruction.


At the same time, fears about the ecological consequences of this destruction are growing, with Volodymyr Zelensky denouncing a "brutal ecocide".


On Tuesday, the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was partially destroyed, causing flooding in several municipalities. In the aftermath of this event, evacuations of civilians continue. Le Figaro takes stock Wednesday, June 7 on the war in Ukraine.

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Evacuations continue

Mass evacuations continue Wednesday (June 7th) in southern Ukraine after the partial destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which caused flooding in many localities along the Dnieper and of which Moscow and Kiev accuse each other. "The most difficult situation is taking place in the Korabelny district of Kherson city. So far, the water level has risen by 3.5 meters, more than 1000,2022 houses are flooded," in this city retaken from the Russians by the Ukrainians in November <>, said in a statement the deputy chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency, Oleksiy Kuleba.

" READ ALSO "War in Ukraine: drowned earth, scorched earth"

Evacuations will continue on Wednesday and in the coming days by bus and train, he said. "More than 40,000 people are at risk of being in flooded areas. Ukrainian authorities evacuate more than 17,000 people. Unfortunately, more than 25,000 civilians are on Russian-controlled territory," Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said on Tuesday. "At this stage, 24 localities in Ukraine have been flooded," Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said.

The authorities installed by the Russians in the regions they occupy said they had begun the evacuation of the population of three localities, mobilizing about fifty buses. Vladimir Leontiev, the mayor set up by Moscow in Nova Kakhovka, where the dam is located, said his city was under water and that 900 of its inhabitants had been evacuated.

An environmental disaster

In Geneva, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA warned that the destruction of the dam could cause an environmental disaster and "severely impact hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the front line". In Washington, a White House spokesman said the destruction had "certainly (caused) many deaths, while specifying that he did not have a definitive conclusion on what happened.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of "detonating a bomb" on the dam. It had undermined him, he said last October. "It is physically impossible to blow (it) up in one way or another from the outside, with bombings," the version given by Moscow, he added. "The world must react. Russia is at war against life, against nature, against civilization," said Volodymyr Zelensky, assuring, however, that this "would not affect Ukraine's ability to liberate its own territories."

" READ ALSO Why the Kakhovka dam is a vital issue for Ukraine and Russia

For Kiev, the Russians did this in order to "curb" the offensive of its army. Because if the Russian defensive lines along the Dnieper will be submerged, it is above all a potential Ukrainian military operation in this region that is likely to be hindered.

Ukraine had claimed the day before to have gained ground near Bakhmut, in the east, while relativizing the extent of "offensive actions" carried out elsewhere on the front. Russia, for its part, says it is repelling the large-scale attacks, while acknowledging Tuesday that 71 of its soldiers have died and 210 have been wounded in recent days. And this while the Russian army rarely reports its losses.

" READ ALSO Destruction of the dam of Kakhovka: "The flood, it is less scary than the war"

The Ukrainians say they have been preparing for months a vast counter-offensive designed to force Russian troops to withdraw from the territories they have seized. Regarding the dam, the Kremlin denounced an act of "deliberate sabotage" and "firmly" rejected the Ukrainian accusations, calling on the international community to "condemn" Kiev for this destruction.

Concerns in Zaporizhzhia

This has raised new concerns for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is located 150 km upstream and cooled by water retained by the dam. But there is "no immediate nuclear danger," said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Like the dam, the plant is located in an area occupied by the Russians after the invasion they launched on February 24, 2022.

" READ ALSO Destruction of the Kakhovka dam: no immediate danger on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine

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Russia is guilty of brutal ecocide," Zelensky charged. Several tens of thousands of hectares of farmland in the Kherson region are at risk of flooding, Ukraine's agriculture ministry said in a statement, saying it fears that fields in the south of the country will be completely drained as early as next year due to the destruction of the dam and a lack of drinking water for the population.

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Ukraine calls for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. "Russia cannot defeat us on the battlefield, so it targets civilian infrastructure," Anton Korynevych, Ukraine's representative to the International Court of Justice, said in The Hague. "This is yet another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Source: lefigaro

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