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The president of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, visited the flooded region of Kherson on Thursday for the first time since the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam last Tuesday. The president wrote on his Telegram account: "It is important to calculate the damages and allocate funds to compensate the affected residents." The dimensions of the humanitarian tragedy continue to grow. According to the authorities in Kiev and those in the Russian-occupied zone, the number of displaced persons now exceeds 6,000. On the south bank of the Dnieper, annexed by Moscow, the number of people rehoused has exceeded 4,300, according to the Russian agency TASS, while in the territory north of the river, which controls Kiev, the relocated are almost 2,000, according to Ukrainian police. Zelenskiy has denounced that the Russians have abandoned the population in the area they control and has criticized the Red Cross for not helping them. The fear now is the emergence of epidemics because the water has covered cemeteries, killed thousands of animals and washed away toxic substances.
- Photo gallery | The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, in pictures
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Zelenskiy visits flooded Kherson region
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What has happened in the last few hours
These are the most important news of the war at 12.00 on the 470th day since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Zelenskiy visits the flooded region of Kherson. The president of Ukraine visited on Thursday the flooded area of the Kherson region after the rupture of the Nova Kakhovka dam in the early hours of Tuesday. It is, as the president himself has explained, a working trip to coordinate the work that is being developed to face the consequences of the disaster that affects dozens of localities, both in an area under Russian control and under Ukrainian control.
The UN, concerned about access to drinking water after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam. The United Nations has indicated that access to drinking water is "one of the main concerns" in the context of the floods caused by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, located in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, of which Ukraine and Russia blame each other and which has caused the evacuation of thousands of people.
The area flooded by the Kakhovka dam is equivalent to the city of Madrid. The governor of the Ukrainian province of Kherson, Oleksander Prokudin, has quantified the area flooded by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, of which Russia and Ukraine accuse each other. According to its figures, an area of 600 square kilometers, the equivalent of the surface of the city of Madrid, are under the waters of the reservoir discharged by the blasting of the dam. In addition, 68% of that area is on the left bank of the Dnieper River, the area under the control of Russian troops.
Zelenskiy criticizes the absence of the Red Cross in the flooded area of Kherson under Russian control. The Ukrainian president criticized the International Committee of the Red Cross in his daily address to the nation on Wednesday night for failing to set up rescue operations in the Russian-occupied area affected by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine's Kherson province.
The number of people evacuated by the collapse of the dam on both banks of the Dnieper rises to 5,900. The number of people evacuated after the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam continues to grow. In total, on both banks of the Dnieper, 5,900 people have already had to be relocated due to the flooding of the river. "The evacuation continues in the Kherson region. Our emergency teams, police and volunteers have already evacuated 1,894 citizens," Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said on television.
ACT.8 JUN 2023 - 12:10
Luis de Vega
Zelenskiy visits flooded Kherson region
The president of Ukraine visited on Thursday the flooded area of the Kherson region after the rupture of the Nova Kakhovka dam in the early hours of Tuesday. It is, as the president himself has explained, a working trip to coordinate the work that is being developed to face the consequences of the disaster that affects dozens of localities, both in an area under Russian control and under Ukrainian control. "Many important issues have been discussed. The operational situation in the region as a result of the disaster, the evacuation of the population from possible flooded areas, the elimination of the emergency caused by the dam explosion or the organization of life support for flooded areas. In addition, the prospects of restoring the ecosystem of the region and the operational military situation in the area of the man-made disaster, "says the president in a message on the social network Telegram.
"It is important to calculate the damages and allocate funds to compensate the affected residents" and "develop a program to compensate for losses or relocate businesses within the Kherson region," he adds. Following the line marked since the beginning of the great Russian invasion in February 2022, whenever his security team allows it, the president tries to approach as soon as possible the hottest places of the conflict and make contact with the civilian and military population. Zelenskiy already visited the city of Kherson just hours after his army expelled the Russian occupying troops last November.
ACT.8 JUN 2023 - 11:50
UN concerned about access to drinking water after destruction of Kakhovka dam
The United Nations has indicated that access to drinking water is "one of the main concerns" in the context of the floods caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, located in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, for which Ukraine and Russia blame each other and which has caused the evacuation of thousands of people.
"Thousands of people depend on the Kakhovka reservoir for drinking water and levels are falling rapidly," said UN Secretary-General spokesman Stéphane Dujarric, adding that "floods can also cause contamination of water sources, which obviously has a negative impact on health."
Dujarric said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has already warned that the destruction of the dam will "probably" have an impact on food security. The UN, "together with its partners" and other NGOs, delivered around 12,000 bottles of water, more than 1,700 packages with essential supplies for displaced children and 10,000 purification tablets and food in five towns in Kherson and the city of Mikolaiv.
The spokesman of the UN Secretary General has specified that the operations are taking place "in the areas of Ukraine that remain under the control of the Government of Ukraine", although he has stressed that the agency is carrying out efforts to "reach the areas of Ukraine that are under Russian control". (EP)
ACT.8 JUN 2023 - 10:39
The Country
Russian War in Ukraine
The EU does not rule out that Russia may commit acts similar to the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam
Maria R. Sahuquillo
The European Union points to Russia as the "very likely" perpetrator of an attack on the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine, which has caused an unprecedented catastrophe. "Although at this time the exact person responsible for the destruction of the dam cannot be identified," says an internal analysis document of the EU Foreign Service (EEAS), "it is most likely a reaction by Russia as part of its defensive measures against the Ukrainian counteroffensive," the text adds. And it warns: "In light of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive operations, we cannot exclude that Russia commits similar acts elsewhere in Ukraine," says the text, to which EL PAÍS has had access.
ACT.8 JUN 2023 - 09:01
The Country
The area flooded by the Kakhovka dam is equivalent to the city of Madrid
The governor of the Ukrainian province of Kherson, Oleksander Prokudin, has quantified the area flooded by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, of which Russia and Ukraine accuse each other. According to its figures, an area of 600 square kilometers, the equivalent of the surface of the city of Madrid, are under the waters of the reservoir discharged by the blasting of the dam. In addition, 68% of that area is on the left bank of the Dnieper River, the area under the control of Russian troops.
Late on Wednesday, the Ukrainian national police reported that 1,995 people, including 103 children, had been evacuated, with 2,629 houses flooded.
As reported by Prokudin, the average water level in the part of the Dnieper River south of the dam was 5.61 meters on Thursday morning. The Dnieper River splits the province of Kherson in two. The Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, of which the destroyed dam was a part, was located on the eastern bank of the river and was therefore under Russian control. Kiev says Russia intentionally blew up the infrastructure with explosives from inside it. (Reuters / EL PAÍS)
ACT.8 JUN 2023 - 08:49
Zelenskiy criticizes the absence of the Red Cross in the flooded area of Kherson under Russian control
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the International Committee of the Red Cross in his daily address to the nation on Wednesday night for failing to set up rescue operations in the Russian-occupied area affected by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine's Kherson province.
The Ukrainian president states in his speech that dozens of villages and thousands of houses have been flooded in the area controlled by Ukraine after the Russian "terrorist act" at the Kakhovka dam and that evacuations by the Ukrainian emergency services continue even "under fire" from Russian artillery. "Savages," he exclaims.
But he also turns his attention to the area of the region under Russian control, whose situation, he says, is "catastrophic." "The occupiers have simply abandoned people in these terrible conditions, without water, without rescue, simply on the rooftops of flooded communities," he denounces, "another deliberate crime of Russia," so he calls on international relief organizations to offer "a rapid response."
"We need international organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross to immediately join the rescue operation and help the people in the occupied part of the Kherson region," Zelensky said. He also stated that "every person who dies is a sentence for the existing international architecture and international organizations that have forgotten to save lives."
"That there are no international organizations in the disaster zone now means that they do not exist at all, that they do not work," added the Ukrainian head of state, who also explained that the Kiev government has made "all the necessary requests" in this regard.
He also recalls that last autumn Ukraine already warned of what could happen at the dam. "We call for an international observation mission to be sent to Kakhovka and for the demining of the hydroelectric plant facilities." "Unfortunately, the world's attention was not enough to prevent all this. We must now focus the world's attention on eliminating the consequences of another catastrophe caused by Russia and we must prevent further destructive activities by the occupiers."
ACT.8 JUN 2023 - 08:03
The Country
5,900 people evacuated by dam collapse on both banks of the Dnieper
The number of people evacuated after the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam continues to grow. In total, on both banks of the Dnieper, 5,900 people have already had to be relocated due to the flooding of the river. "The evacuation continues in the Kherson region. Our emergency teams, police and volunteers have already evacuated 1,894 citizens," Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said on television. According to the minister of Zelensky's government, 30 towns have been flooded, of which 10 are in the area under Russian control. Local authorities loyal to Moscow, meanwhile, say more than 4,000 people have been transferred to the occupied territory, many of whom have been relocated to temporary accommodation centres. (AFP)
ACT.7 JUN 2023 - 20:42