Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the flood-hit southern Kherson region to evaluate the damage from the breach of the Kakhovka dam as he severely criticised the UN and the Red Cross, who he said were not helping the relief effort.
The Ukraine president’s visit came as Russian-installed officials in occupied territory said five people had died in the town of Nova Kakhovka near the dam, and the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, Yevhen Ryshchuk, said three people had drowned in the Kherson region.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly address on Wednesday, voiced fears for the lives of Ukrainians in Russian-held areas hit by the disaster.
He said it was impossible to predict how many people would die in Russian-occupied parts of Kherson due to the flooding, urging a “clear and rapid reaction from the world” to support victims.
He criticised the UN and the Red Cross, who he said were not helping the relief effort. “Our military and special services are rescuing people as much as it is possible, despite the shelling. But large-scale efforts are needed,” he said.
“We need international organisations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, to immediately join the rescue operation and help people in the occupied part of Kherson region.
“If an international organisation is not present in the disaster zone, it means it does not exist at all or is incapable.”
Many hours after the disaster “they aren’t here”, Zelenskiy told the Bild, Die Welt and Politico news outlets. “We have had no response. I am shocked.”
The destruction of the dam near the frontline in Ukraine has flooded dozens of villages and parts of a nearby city, prompting fears of a humanitarian disaster. Officials have said thousands will have to leave their homes and many are already doing so without assistance. Zelenskiy has claimed the Russian occupation authorities were “not even trying to help people”.
He added: “The occupiers are simply abandoning people in frightful conditions. No help, without water, left on the roofs of houses in submerged communities.”
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, urged the international humanitarian organisations to provide assistance on the occupied left bank.
“We appeal to you to take charge of evacuating people from the territory of Kherson oblast occupied by Russia. We must save the lives of people whom the occupiers have condemned to death,” he said.
The UN’s humanitarian affairs office said a team was in Kherson to coordinate relief efforts. It said access to drinking water was a significant concern and about 12,000 bottles of water and 10,000 purification tablets had been distributed so far.
Almost 6,000 people have been evacuated on both sides of the Dnipro River, officials said. “Our rescuers, police and volunteers have already evacuated 1,894 citizens,” Ukraine’s interior minister, Oleg Klymenko, said, adding that 30 settlements had been flooded, 10 of which were under Russian control.
“So far, more than 4,000 people have been evacuated”, in the part of the Kherson region occupied by Russia, the Moscow-installed head of the region, Vladimir Saldo, said on Telegram. “It is a bit premature to talk about going back,” he said, advising people to wait in centres for the displaced.
On the Russian side, the worst-affected town is Nova Kakhovka, where Russian authorities have imposed a state of emergency and said they would start pumping out water on Thursday.
Ukrainian officials have said the deluge will 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 World Bank has said it will support Ukraine by conducting a rapid assessment of damage and needs, as the destruction of the Novo Kakhovka dam had “many very serious consequences for essential service delivery and the broader environment”.
The new damage assessment will build on the bank’s previous analysis of damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure and buildings, which estimated that it would cost $411bn to rebuild Ukraine’s economy after Russia’s invasion.
Nato will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday, the secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said, citing the “outrageous destruction” of the frontline dam.
The meeting will include the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who said the meeting was called at his request, adding that Stoltenberg had promised Nato mechanisms would be used to provide humanitarian assistance.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
