Evacuation spots including a school where displaced Ukrainian flood victims were sheltering are said to have been bombed by Russia.
Moscow’s forces reportedly shelled the building in the Ukrainian-held part of Kherson where people fleeing the Dnipro River’s rising waters were gathered.
It came just after Ukraine ’s president Volodymyr Zelensky visited a crossing point where people were being evacuated from flooded areas.
He called for “a clear and quick global response” to Tuesday’s bombing of the Nova Kakhovka dam, which Kyiv and its allies say the Kremlin orchestrated.
At least five people have died, many are homeless and tens of thousands are without drinking water after the dam was destroyed.
Yevhen Rischuk, the Ukrainian mayor-in-exile of the occupied town of Oleshky, said of the evacuation point attacks: “[Russian forces] have just fired at [a] school where people from flooded homes were gathering.”
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office reported that nine civilians have been wounded in the city of Kherson.
The shelling targeted major evacuation routes from the city, which Ukraine recaptured from Vladimir Putin ’s invading forces last autumn. Bogdan Logvynenko, founder of the Ukrainer media project, said: “They are shelling evacuation spots.”
Ukrainian journalist Kristina Berdynskykh said she fled as Russian bombs rained down near an evacuation point.
She added: “So many boats, so many volunteers, medics, rescuers working when the shelling began.
“I don’t know how far it was from us. We started running for shelter. We hid in a building and waited as shelling continued.”
As shells landed in floodwaters, rescue workers temporarily suspended efforts to retrieve stranded residents and pets in an area Mr Zelensky had visited hours earlier.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said: “The strikes began during evacuation of residents whose houses were flooded.
“Russia has abandoned people in calamity in the occupied part of the Kherson region.
“It continues to prevent Ukraine from saving lives.” The dam lay along the Dnipro River, which forms part of the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Russia controlled the dam, and blames Ukraine for it being destroyed. The ensuing floods have ruined crops, displaced land mines, wrought widespread environmental damage and set the stage for long-term electricity shortages. In recent weeks, Ukraine has intensified shelling of Russian positions, signalling that a long-expected counter-offensive could be under way.
There were further signs yesterday as Ukraine reportedly attacked three points in the Zaporizhzhia region with NATO-supplied Leopard 2 tanks.
According to military reports, Ukrainian forces advanced between 200 yards and half a mile in various areas around the city of Bakhmut in recent days and are now on the offensive.
Amid the fighting, both sides were coping with the fallout from the burst dam. Ukrainian rescue workers have stepped up efforts to get drinking water, medical care and other support to residents.
Five people in the Russian-occupied city of Nova Kakhovka have died, its Kremlin-appointed mayor said yesterday.
Rishi Sunak has called the destruction of the dam an “appalling act” affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
