Closing summary
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war live blog today. Here’s a quick recap of today’s developments:
About 42,000 people are estimated to be at risk from flooding after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, a major hydroelectric dam on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, on the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces. At least people have been confirmed dead as a result of flooding, Ukrainian media outlets reported on Wednesday, citing the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in Kherson region.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been left “without normal access to drinking water” after the destruction, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned. The Ukrainian leader said the evacuation of people and the urgent provision of drinking water were top priorities.
Drone footage showed roads and buildings in Kherson completely submerged by flood water. The critical dam, which lies along the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s Kherson region – now held by Russia – collapsed on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the war’s frontline.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of blowing up the dam on Tuesday. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin on Wednesday accused Kyiv of destroying the Kakhovka dam at the suggestion of the west, in what he called a “barbaric” war crime that escalated the conflict with Moscow.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told Putin in a phone call on Wednesday that a comprehensive investigation was needed into the destruction of the dam. Erdoğan told Putin that an international commission that includes the UN and Turkey could be formed to look into the issue, a statement from the Turkish president’s office said.
Britain cannot yet say Russia is responsible for the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, prime minister Rishi Sunak has said on Wednesday. Asked during a visit to the US whether Russia was responsible, Sunak said: “I can’t say that definitively yet” but that “if true […] it will represent a new low. It’s an appalling act of barbarism on Russia’s part.”
The US “cannot say conclusively” who was responsible for the destruction of the dam, national security council spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday. “We’re doing the best we can to assess”, he told reporters at the White House, noting “destruction of civilian infrastructure is not allowed by the laws of war”.
President Zelenskiy also accused the occupying Russian authorities in southern Kherson on the left bank of the Dnipro of failing in their duty to evacuate residents, and said Ukraine would appeal to international organisations to assist those people.
The governor of Lviv has issued a public welcome for evacuees from Kherson to come to his region in western Ukraine. Lviv will be sending humanitarian aid to Kherson, Maksym Kozytskyi said in a Telegram post on Wednesday.
France will send aid to Ukraine “to meet immediate needs” after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, President Emmanuel Macron has said following a conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart on Wednesday. Macron said he expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine in the aftermath of what he described as an “atrocious act which is endangering populations’
A top Moscow-backed official in a part of Ukraine controlled by Russia has said that the collapse of the dam had handed the Russian military a tactical advantage. Vladimir Saldo said he believed Kyiv was to blame for the disaster but that the dam’s destruction and resulting flood waters would make it easier for Russia to defend against any Ukrainian counter-offensive in the area.
Relief workers on the Ukraine-controlled right bank of the river have reported having to work under fire. The UN’s humanitarian aid agency warned the disaster “will likely get worse in the coming hours”, with access to drinking water and health risks associated with contaminated water among the most pressing concerns.
Ukraine has not yet launched a planned counteroffensive to win back territory occupied by Russia, a senior Ukrainian security official said on Wednesday. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, dismissed statements by Russian officials who have said the counteroffensive has already begun, adding that its start will be obvious to everyone when it happens.
Russia’s defence ministry has said “Ukrainian saboteurs” had blown up a section of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline on Monday, which carries fertiliser from Russia to Ukraine in Kharkiv region. There was no immediate comment on the allegations from Ukraine.
A group of Nato countries may be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine if member states do not provide tangible security guarantees to Kyiv at the alliances’s summit in Vilnius, the former Nato secretary general Anders Rasmussen has said. Current Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance must discuss options for giving Ukraine security assurances for the time after its war with Russia.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg has said he will chair a meeting on Thursday of an emergency coordination panel with Ukraine on the “outrageous destruction” of the Kakhovka dam.
Posting to Twitter earlier on Wednesday, Stoltenberg said he had spoken with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, about the dam’s destruction, “which is displacing thousands of people and causing an ecological catastrophe”.
Zelenskiy calls on aid groups to immediately help with rescue operation
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called on international aid organisations to take immediate action to help people in the aftermath of the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.
The situation for residents in areas of the Kherson region occupied by Russian troops was “absolutely catastrophic”, Zelenskiy said in his daily video address. He accused Russian forces of having “simply abandoned people in these terrible conditions”, “without rescue, without water, just on the rooftops in flooded communities”.
Zelenskiy said:
We need international organizations, 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.
Each person who dies there is a verdict on the existing international architecture and international organizations that have forgotten how to save lives.
The situation in the occupied part of Kherson region is absolutely catastrophic. The occupiers simply abandoned people in these terrible conditions. Without rescue, without water, just on the rooftops in flooded communities. And this is another deliberate crime of Russia: after… pic.twitter.com/SPGzXyoCen
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 7, 2023
Updated
The fields of southern Ukraine could “turn into deserts” by next year, the country’s agrarian and food ministry said after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and the draining of its reservoir, which had irrigated one of the world’s breadbaskets.
Ukrainian emergency services and aid organisations carried out a second day of rescue operations to help the 42,000 people estimated to be at immediate risk from flooding downstream of the dam, including making some forays to the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River to save people cut off in flooded towns.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the Russian occupation authorities were “not even trying to help people”.
“This once again demonstrates the cynicism with which Russia treats the people whose land it has captured,” Zelenskiy said.
The president also severely criticised the UN and the Red Cross who he said were not helping the relief effort.
Many hours after the disaster, “they aren’t here”, Zelenskiy told Bild, Die Welt and Politico.
We have had no response. I am shocked.
First confirmed deaths after dam destruction - reports
At least three people have died as a result of flooding after the destruction of the massive Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian media outlets are reporting, citing Yevhen Ryshchuk, the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in Kherson region.
The victims are reported to have drowned, the Kyiv Independent reports.
⚡Exiled mayor: 3 dead due to floods in occupied parts of Kherson Oblast.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 7, 2023
Yevhen Ryshchuk, the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied Oleshky, Kherson Oblast, reported on the first victims of the Kakhovka dam disaster.
According to the latest information, three people drowned.
Drone footage from Ukraine showed the extent of flooding in the country’s south, after the region’s Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric station were largely destroyed.
The footage showed roads and buildings in Kherson completely submerged by flood water. The critical dam, which lies along the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s Kherson region – now held by Russia – collapsed on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the war’s frontline.
Britain has said it will increase funding to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, by £750,000 to support nuclear safety work in Ukraine.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant gets its cooling water from the reservoir of the Kakhovka dam, which collapsed on Tuesday.
Ukrainian and UN experts have said the dam’s destruction and the draining of the reservoir behind it does not pose an immediate safety threat to the plant further upstream, but warned that it will have long-term implications for its future.
IAEA head Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Tuesday that “our current assessment is that there is no immediate risk to the safety of the plant.” But there are long-term concerns, both over safety and the possibility of the plant becoming operational again in the coming years.
Reuters reports the UK’s permanent representative to the IAEA, Corinne Kitsell, as saying:
Russia’s barbaric attacks on Ukraine’s civil infrastructure and its illegal control of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant runs contrary to all international nuclear safety and security norms.
She added:
I commend the work of the IAEA’s staff in Ukraine and I am pleased that the UK’s additional funding will help to facilitate its vital work, particularly given the additional risk posed by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Updated
A US expert on the Russian military has said he was sceptical the collapse of the massive Kakhovka dam would hamper Ukraine’s near-term military plans for a counter-offensive.
Michael Kofman, director of the Russian studies programme at the US-based CNA think-tank, said he doubted the dam’s destruction would have a “significant impact on Ukraine’s military operations”. He wrote on Twitter:
The Khakovka dam is at least 100 miles from where much of the activity might take place at its closest point.
He added:
A Ukrainian cross-river operation in southern Kherson, below the dam, was always a risky and therefore low-probability prospect. There is no evidence that such an operation was underway, or would have necessarily been a part of the Ukrainian offensive plans.
Nato members may send troops to Ukraine, warns former alliance chief
A group of Nato countries may be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine if member states including the US do not provide tangible security guarantees to Kyiv at the alliances’s summit in Vilnius, the former Nato secretary general Anders Rasmussen has said.
Rasmussen, who has been acting as official adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Ukraine’s place in a future European security architecture, has been touring Europe and Washington to gauge the shifting mood before the critical summit starts on 15 July.
He also warned that even if a group of states did provide Ukraine with security guarantees, others would not allow the issue of Ukraine’s future Nato membership to be kept off the agenda at Vilnius.
He made his remarks as the current Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said the issue of security guarantees would be on the agenda at Vilnius, but added that Nato – under article 5 of the Washington treaty – only provided full-fledged security guarantees to full members.
The US ambassador to Nato, Julianne Smith, said:
We are looking at an array of options to signal that Ukraine is advancing in its relationship with Nato.
The people living along Ukraine’s lower Dnipro River must contend with the immediate consequences of the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam and flee for safety with whatever they can salvage, but the wider impact could make itself felt for generations.
Downstream, the flood waters will subside somewhat as the surge reaches the Black Sea, but many of the villages and towns along the course of the Dnipro may not be habitable again unless and until a new dam is built. Thousands of homes and livelihoods have been swept away, along with countless domesticated and wild animals.
The ecological trauma of such an inundation of water and silt has changed the landscape in an instant, wiping away islands and wetlands. It could take years if not decades for the fauna and flora to bounce back. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called it the “largest man-made environmental disaster in Europe in decades”. It is the country’s misfortune to have also been the site of the Chornobyl disaster in 1986, arguably the last calamity on such a scale.
With a reservoir of 18bn cubic metres, Nova Kakhovka was one the dams with the largest capacity in the world, according to Mohammad Heidarzadeh, a senior lecturer in the architecture and civil engineering department at the UK’s University of Bath. It was 90 times bigger than the largest dam reservoir in Britain, the Kielder dam in Northumberland.
Heidarzadeh said:
It is obvious that the failure of this dam will definitely have extensive long-term ecological and environmental negative consequences not only for Ukraine but for neighbouring countries and regions.
Along with all the debris carried along by the rushing waters are tens of thousands of mines. The flood waters are rolling through a frontline in the war. The banks of the Dnipro have been frontlines since at least November, when Ukrainian forces drove the Russians across the river to the southern bank. Both sides laid mines along the waterfront and they have now been washed away and will be distributed randomly in towns, villages and farmland downstream. A flood means civilians can be blown up many kilometres from a conflict zone, many years after the war.
Read the full story by my colleague Julian Borger here:
President Joe Biden will host Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, in Washington on 12 June, according to a White House statement.
The pair will discuss support for Ukraine, the statement reads, as well as review preparations for the upcoming Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Here are some images we have received over the news wires from flooded Kherson in southern Ukraine.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has also tweeted about his phone call with Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
France “condemns this atrocious act”, Macron wrote, as he pledged to send aid to Ukraine “within the next few hours”.
Macron said:
I expressed to President Zelensky my solidarity with the Ukrainian people after the attack on the Kakhovka dam. France condemns this atrocious act, which is endangering populations. Within the next few hours, we will send aid to meet immediate needs.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he had a “thorough” phone call with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to discuss the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.
Writing on Twitter, Zelenskiy said the pair spoke about “the environmental and humanitarian consequences” of what he described as a “Russian act of terrorism”. He said he also outlined the “urgent needs of Ukraine to eliminate the disaster”.
As we reported earlier, the Ukrainian leader said he was “shocked” by the what he said was the failure of the UN and the Red Cross to help after the destruction of the massive dam.
Updated
A top Moscow-backed official in part of Ukraine controlled by Russia has said that the collapse of the giant Nova Kakhovka dam had handed the Russian military a tactical advantage.
Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the dam’s destruction, which has sent flood waters across a war zone and forced thousands to flee. Some experts say the dam may have collapsed due to earlier damage and intense pressure on it, Reuters reported.
Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region controlled by Moscow, said he believed Kyiv was to blame for the disaster, but that the tragedy had handed an advantage to the Russian military.
“In military terms, the situation has worked out in a way that is operationally and tactically in favour of Russian forces,” Saldo told pro-Kremlin TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov.
He said the dam’s destruction and resulting flood waters would make it easier for Russia to defend against any Ukrainian counter-offensive in the area.
“They have hurt themselves by doing this. Their calculation was that by blowing up the dam they would give some strategic or operational advantage to the Ukrainian armed forces. But they will not be able to do anything,” he said.
“Our armed forces now have an open space in front of them across which they can see who is trying to cross the Dnipro River and how. And it will be impossible for them to get through via the Kakhovka reservoir if they try.”
A flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam was breached in Kherson.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday he was “shocked” at what he said was the failure of the United Nations and the Red Cross to provide help after the destruction of the massive Kakhovka dam.
Although the catastrophe happened many hours ago, “they aren’t here”, Zelenskiy told German newspapers Bild and Die Welt and also Politico. “We have had no response. I am shocked”.
He also said Russian soldiers were shooting from a distance while rescue attempts were in progress. “As soon as our helpers try to save them, they are shot at,” he was quoted as saying.
Videos published online showed large numbers of dead fish in the Kakhovka reservoir after the destruction of a dam in southern Ukraine.
The dam, which lies along the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s Kherson region – now held by Russia – collapsed on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the frontline.
Videos showed dead fish lining the banks of the reservoir, one of the largest in Europe.
Putin accuses Ukraine of destroying the Kakhovka dam
Russian president Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of destroying the Kakhovka dam at the suggestion of the West, in what he called a “barbaric” war crime that escalated the conflict with Moscow.
The vast Soviet-era Kakhovka dam, under Russian control, was breached in the early hours of Tuesday, unleashing flood waters across a swathe of the battleground in southern Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Ukraine blamed Russia for blowing it up. Russia said Ukraine sabotaged the dam to constrict water supplies to Crimea and to distract from a faltering offensive. Some Russian-backed officials in the area said the dam may have collapsed.
“Vladimir Putin stated that the Kyiv authorities, at the suggestion of their western curators, are still making a dangerous bet on the escalation of hostilities, committing war crimes, openly using terrorist methods, and organising sabotage on Russian territory,” the Kremlin quoted Putin as saying.
“A clear example of this is the barbaric action to destroy the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power plant in the Kherson region which led to a large-scale environmental and humanitarian catastrophe,” Putin was quoted as saying.
Britain cannot yet say Russia responsible for dam destruction - Sunak
Britain cannot yet say Russia is responsible for the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam on the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces, prime minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday during a visit to the United States.
Asked whether Russia was responsible, Sunak told ITV:
I can’t say that definitively yet. You know, our security and military services are working through it.
But if true, if it does prove to be intentional, it will represent a new low. It’s an appalling act of barbarism on Russia’s part.
Nato must discuss options for giving Ukraine security assurances for the time after its war with Russia, the alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.
When the war ends, Nato will need arrangements in place to ensure that Russia does not simply relocate its forces for another attack, he told reporters at an event in Brussels.
At the same time, Stoltenberg made it clear that Nato – under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – will provide full-fledged security guarantees to full members only, Reuters reported.
If Vladimir Saldo was trying to project a sense of calm among the deluged frontline towns and villages of Russian-occupied Kherson region, he was failing miserably.
The Kremlin-installed “governor”, dressed in camouflage and helmet and sitting in front of the flooded remains of the town centre of Nova Kakhovka, claimed that the city was “alive”.
“People are calmly walking around the streets,” said Saldo, as the flood waters rose up the walls of the city hall behind him. “I’ve just driven around the streets, people are working, the gas stations are open, some stores are open.”
The reality of the catastrophe was playing out around him: people stranded on the roofs of their houses and flats, begging for those with boats to come and save them.
Dozens missing and whole towns downriver washed away. And reports that Russian troops were blocking access to the frontline towns on the left bank of the Dnipro river by installing new checkpoints even as the flood waters continued to rise.
“Everyone is left to fend for themselves, there is no organised evacuation,” said Gleb, a resident of Nova Kakhova who was looking for ways to leave the city.
Updated
The occupied town of Oleshky appears to be the worst affected area on the left bank of the Dnipro river, with severe flooding and residents stranded on the roofs of their cottages.
According to locals, the Russian authorities have set up checkpoints. They refuse to let volunteers enter the town to help with evacuation. Local Telegram channels are full of desperate messages from relatives, asking for their loved ones to be rescued.
One message read:
SOS!!! Can anyone with a boat help? Cottagers Anna .. and her husband have been sitting on their roof since morning, praying for rescue. They’ve raised a white flag. It’s the first house on the right. Help!!!”
Another said:
Help! How can people in Oleshky be saved? Everyone in the Red Army district is sitting on the roof, waiting for assistance. Animals are sinking, drowning.”
Sergei, a local volunteer in the occupied city of Nova Kakhovka, described the situation in Oleshky as “bad”. “There is almost no contact with the people there. No one is allowed into the town and those who make it out on boats are placed into buses and driven away,” he said.
“We tried reaching Oleshky but checkpoints have been set up all around the town. A lot of people are waiting to be evacuated. We have heard stories of people drowning, but we can’t confirm because there is no access. Those with Ukrainian passports who are being evacuated further to Russia are forced to go through filtration centres.”
Helping to Leave, a new organisation that provides aid and services to Ukrainians fleeing the war, described the situation in Oleshky as “chaotic”. “They are not allowing volunteers on boats to enter. Some evacuation is being carried out by [Russian] emergency services but it’s very selective and it is not enough.”
The Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, a southern Ukrainian town controlled by Moscow, said on Wednesday that claims by a local private zoo that all of its 300 animals had drowned after the nearby dam crumbled were false.
A representative for the zoo, called Kazkova Dibrova, said via the zoo’s Facebook account on Tuesday that the park had been completely flooded and that all of its animals had been killed after the nearby Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed.
Vladimir Leontyev, the Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, said on Wednesday that the assertion was untrue and that the zoo’s animals had been evacuated in 2022.
“Actually, the situation is that last year all the animals were evacuated and moved away from Kazkova Dibrova,” he said.
“There was nobody left there, not a single animal.”
Reuters could not independently verify his assertion.
Ukraine’s military has released footage showing drones delivering water to Oleshky residents trapped in their homes.
According to authorities, more than 42,000 people have been affected by catastrophic flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has held a phone call with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
The two leaders discussed “issues related to the well-known African initiative to find a solution to the Ukrainian conflict”, it added.
Reuters also reported that Putin earlier called the destruction of the Kakhovka dam an “environmental and humanitarian catastrophe” during a call with Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan.
Lviv’s governor Maksym Kozytskyi has issued a public welcome for evacuees from Kherson to come to his region in western Ukraine, and said that Lviv will be sending humanitarian aid to Kherson.
In a post on Telegram he said:
As of now, 29 settlements have been flooded in the Kherson region. Overnight, the water in the regional centre rose by one metre. Experts predict that the situation may worsen, but people do not want to evacuate and are ready to stay in the open – with the hope that the water level will drop.
To support the locals, tomorrow we will send a truck with help from our region. We will hand over 700 sets of water purification equipment.
All services and shelters are on alert in the Lviv region, but so far not a single evacuation train has arrived in our region with people affected by the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP, only a few families have come in their own vehicles.
If my post is read by people who live in affected areas and are hesitating whether they have somewhere to go, know that Lviv region is ready to provide you with a roof over your head, food, clothes, psychological and other help. We are together. We will overcome everything.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian security council, has said that the US is waging an undeclared war on Russia and Belarus, and is seeking to replace the government in Belarus.
In a meeting with Belarusian counterpart Alexander Volfovich, Tass quotes him saying:
The US is waging an undeclared war against Russia and Belarus in order to destroy the national identity and peoples of our countries. Today, western politicians speak openly about this and indicate in their documents.
[The US] does not need a strong Russia, they want to either dismember it or liquidate it in order to manage the Eurasian territory, extracting resources.
The Tass report continues by stating Patrushev said the US and the British are using Nato, the EU, Ukrainian neo-Nazis, non-governmental organisations, and the government in Kyiv to achieve this aim. He went on to describe what he said were the west’s plans for Belarus:
This is the implementation of a colour revolution and the bringing to power of a controlled puppet government. The west failed to carry out a coup d’état in Minsk in 2020, but Washington and its satellites did not abandon their plans.
Belarus’s leader, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed a disputed landslide victory in elections in 2020, which sparked mass protests. Opposition leaders have been jailed or forced into exile.
Updated
Here is a little more detail on the claim that the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline has been sabotaged. [See 12.42 BST]
Tass reports, citing Lt Gen Igor Konashenkov:
On 5 June, at about 9pm Moscow time (7pm BST), in the area of the village of Masiutivka, Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group undermined the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline. As a result of this terrorist act, there were victims among the civilian population.
According to him, the victims received medical assistance. “Currently, ammonia residues from Ukrainian territory are being bled through the damaged sections of the pipeline. There are no casualties among Russian servicemen,” Konashenkov said.
Russia has repeatedly claimed that the reopening of its ammonia export route via the pipeline and Odesa is one of the conditions it applies to extending the Black Sea grain initiative.
Ariane Bauer, regional director for the International Committee of the Red Cross, has commented on the damage to the Nova Kakhovka dam, saying:
The destruction of Nova Kakhovka dam and the resulting floods pose a significant threat to civilians, their homes and livelihoods. It leaves tens of thousands in a dire humanitarian situation. Damage to critical infrastructure can plunge entire communities into despair and devastate civilian lives. International humanitarian law can offer crucial protection, but only if states respect their legal obligations.
Updated
Erdoğan calls for comprehensive investigation into collapse of dam
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in a phone call on Wednesday that a comprehensive investigation was needed into the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
Erdoğan told Putin that an international commission that includes the UN and Turkey could be formed to look into the issue, a statement from the Turkish president’s office said. Erdoğan earlier talked to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the same issue.
Turkey has tried to position itself as a broker between its Balck Sea neighbours, hosting a peace conference in the early days of the war, and being part of brokering the grain initiative that has allowed some food exports from Ukraine’s besieged ports.
Updated
Ukraine has not yet launched counteroffensive - senior security official
Ukraine has not yet launched a planned counteroffensive to win back territory occupied by Russia, and its start will be obvious to everyone when it happens, a senior security official said on Wednesday.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, dismissed statements by Russian officials who have said the counteroffensive has already begun.
“All of this is not true. When all this will begin, it will be decided by our military,” Danilov told Reuters in an interview. “When we start the counteroffensive, everyone will know about it, they will see it.”
Danilov said Russian officials had mistaken local Ukrainian advances in some frontline areas for the start of the larger operation.
Updated
The Guardian’s defence editor, Dan Sabbagh, has shared an image from Kherson in Ukraine.
In a tweet, he said:
Back in Kherson. Water has risen 200m up the road in 24 hours.
Back in kherson. Water has risen 200m up the road in 24 hours pic.twitter.com/IiiKR1rWQq
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) June 7, 2023
Updated
Videos posted by residents on the left bank of the Dnipro River show extensive flooding from Tuesday’s dam collapse, with few signs of a large-scale rescue operation from the occupying Russian authorities.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has accused Kremlin-appointed officials of failing to evacuate local people, and has urged international organisations to help. Drone footage showed that the town of Oleshky – across the river from the city of Kherson – is completely submerged in places.
Ukrainian social media channels showed images of a couple trapped in their home, waving and praying from an upper window. The woman can be seen wiping away a tear. “This video is heartbreaking,” the Kherson Telegram channel reported, adding that people on the left bank were left “begging for help”.
Another video was filmed from a cut-off rooftop in Oleshky. The house was completely inundated, with water levels several metres above the ground. There was no sign of a rescue boat. There was also footage of Russian soldiers abandoning their frontline positions and wading through water to reach higher ground.
One resident quoted in the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper said the occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, adjacent to the hydroelectric power plant and ruined dam, had been mostly left to its fate. Only Russian infantry soldiers were visible, she said, adding: “They don’t know what to do.”
Pro-Kremlin officials reportedly sent text messages to the affected areas which includes the town of Hola Prystan. They urged residents to prepare belongings, documents, food and water for three days. Seven people were reportedly missing, and 100 trapped, they said.
Russian military bloggers posted pictures from the left-bank village of Korsunka, between Nova Kakhovka and Kherson. Water had swamped roads and reached the local monastery. Most people appeared to have left. There were unconfirmed reports that one person drowned. Abandoned dogs roamed about.
Ukrainian military will never leave our citizens behind.#Kakhovka #Kherson #Oleshky
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 7, 2023
🎥 @bo_pavlo, 406th Artillery Brigade pic.twitter.com/kpRoBjUNiu
Updated
The destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam was a violation of international law, said a German government spokesperson on Wednesday.
The aid sent to Ukraine for those affected by the destruction included generators, drip filters and tents, said the German foreign ministry spokesperson at a regular news conference.
The UK government said humanitarian aid to Ukraine would be diverted to the area affected by destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
A No 10 spokesperson said the British government would continue to look at what support the country needed and provide further aid if it could.
They said:
Our intelligence community is currently looking at the incident and it’s too soon to make a definitive judgment but we’re clear that if it is indeed an [intentional] act it shows blatant disregard for the lives of the thousands of people in that local area.
We’ve already provided a lot of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, working closely with the UN and the Red Cross. My understanding is that some of that aid will be diverted to that area to assist those who are having to leave their homes.
Of course we will continue to look at what humanitarian support Ukraine needs and provide it if we can.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that “Ukrainian saboteurs” had blown up a section of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline on Monday, which carries fertiliser from Russia to Ukraine in Kharkiv region.
The ministry also claimed that that Ukrainian forces had mounted what it said was a series of unsuccessful offensives near Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that fell to Russian forces in May after a months-long battle.
There was no immediate comment on the allegations from Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Updated
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Wednesday that Ukraine had shelled the settlement of Grafovka, about 2 km (1.2 miles) from the Ukrainian border, with Grad missiles.
Vyacheslav Gladkov said some of the shells had landed near a school and damaged buildings, but that there were no casualties, Reuters reported.
There was no immediate comment on his allegation from Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify his assertion.
The Grad (Hail) weapons system is a truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces. Its use against civilian areas is regarded as a war crime by human rights activists.
Updated
About 42,000 people are at risk from flooding on both sides of the Dnipro River after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, according to Ukrainian officials.
One day after the disaster, the Ukrainian governor of the region, Oleksandr Prokudin, accused Russia of shelling the area, killing one and injuring another.
Germany is preparing to host the biggest air deployment exercise in Nato’s history – a show of force intended to impress allies and potential adversaries such as Russia, officials said.
The Air Defender 23 exercise starting next week will see 10,000 participants and 250 aircraft from 25 nations respond to a simulated attack on a Nato member country.
The US alone is sending 2,000 Air National Guard personnel and about 100 aircraft to take part in the 12-23 June training, AP reported.
The US ambassador to Germany, Amy Gutmann, said:
This is an exercise that would be absolutely impressive to anybody who’s watching, and we don’t make anybody watch it.
It will demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt the agility and the swiftness of our allied force in Nato as a first responder.
I would be pretty surprised if any world leader was not taking note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance. And that includes Mr Putin.
While the drill has been planned for several years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has jolted Nato into preparing for the possibility of an attack on its territory.
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The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has ordered military contractor Almaz-Antey to speed up the time it takes to launch new production facilities to manufacture air defence systems, his ministry said on Wednesday.
Almaz-Antey makes air defence missile systems like the S-300 and S-400 which are used to shoot down aircraft and ballistic and cruise missiles.
“The products manufactured by Almaz-Antey Corporation are in demand and show high efficiency in the special military operation area,” Shoigu said on a visit to one of the company’s plants.
Russia calls its military campaign in Ukraine a “special military operation”.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
About 42,000 people are at risk from flooding on both sides of the Dnipro River after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, Ukrainian officials have said, with floodwaters expected to peak on Wednesday.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “hundreds of thousands of people have been left without normal access to drinking water” in a social media message on Wednesday morning. In a read-out from a ministerial meeting, Ukraine’s president said the evacuation of people and the urgent provision of drinking water were top priorities. He also accused the occupying Russian authorities in southern Kherson on the left bank of the Dnipro of failing in their duty to evacuate residents, and said Ukraine would appeal to international organisations to assist those people.
The governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, says that 1,582 houses have been flooded on the right bank of the Dnipro River and some 1,457 people have been evacuated overnight.
Relief workers on the Ukraine-controlled right bank of the river have reported having to work under fire. “The biggest difficulty right now is not the water. It’s the Russians on the other side of the river who are shelling us now with artillery,” said Andrew Negrych, who was coordinating relief efforts for a US charity, Global Empowerment Mission, on Tuesday.
The Russian-imposed mayor of Nova Kakhovka in occupied Kherson, the nearest settlement to the dam, has said seven people are missing and up to 100 people are still trapped, and has claimed that a Ukrainian drone struck during evacuation efforts. Tass reports that Russian occupying forces in the Kherson region have set up “40 temporary accommodation centres … in which there are 345 people. The rest of the evacuees stayed with relatives and friends”. It also quotes Russia’s ministry of emergency situations saying that “a group of 350 rescuers is ready to work in the Kherson region”.
The US “cannot say conclusively” who was responsible, national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the White House. “We’re doing the best we can to assess”, he said noting “destruction of civilian infrastructure is not allowed by the laws of war”.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the UN security council that “the sheer magnitude of the catastrophe will only become fully realised in the coming days.”
The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of deliberately sabotaging the dam. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told reporters: “We can state unequivocally that we are talking about deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side.” He said Russian president Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the situation.
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff says he “does not understand” how there could be any doubt that Russian forces blew up the dam. In a statement, Andriy Yermak said: “At 2.50am, Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and its dam. I do not understand how there can be any doubt about this. Both constructions are located in the temporary Russian-occupied territories. Neither shelling nor any other external influence was capable of destroying the structures. The explosion came from within.”
Yermak also reported that two people have been killed in a drone attack in Sumy on Wednesday morning.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas that the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has posted a situational update in which he says two people were killed yesterday in the region by Russian shelling.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, has used his Telegram channel to post a video of bodycam combat footage from a forest, with the message that “the defence forces continue to move forward on the flanks, the enemy loses positions near Bakhmut.”
Russia has detained a resident in its far east on suspicion of spying for Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday, citing the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Two towns in Russia’s western Kursk region lost electricity and a man was wounded on Wednesday after Ukraine dropped explosives on an electricity substation near the border overnight, the region’s governor said.
Maria Zakharova, official spokesperson of the Russian foreign ministry, has said that the government in Kyiv could not survive for “a hundredth of a second” without the support of the west, and claimed Ukraine was “blackmailing the world community”.
Zelenskiy: 'evacuation of people' and 'urgent provision of drinking water' top priorities in flooded Kherson
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given a read-out on Telegram of his latest meeting with ministers and officials over the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, saying that the evacuation of people and the urgent provision of drinking water were top priorities.
He also accused the occupying Russian authorities in southern Kherson on the left bank of the Dnipro of failing in their duty to evacuate residents, and said Ukraine would appeal to international organisations to assist those people.
On Telegram, Ukraine’s president wrote:
The situation with the Kakhovka HPP is the number one topic of this morning’s conference call.
Minister Klymenko, the newly appointed head of the emergency response headquarters, delivered a report. He is already on the ground.
Evacuation of people. Urgent provision of drinking water and long-term solutions for settlements that were dependent on the reservoir. Assessment of losses and environmental damage.
Evacuation on the left bank has been completely failed by the occupiers. We will appeal to international organizations.
In addition, today, as every day, we have reports from the front. Intelligence data. Supply of equipment and ammunition.
Interim results of the inspection of bomb shelters. Unfortunately, they are disappointing.
Kyiv has said about 42,000 people are at risk from flooding on both sides of the Dnipro. Ukraine has claimed that Russia blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant from inside, sending a cascade of flood water down the river. Russia has maintained, without providing evidence, that a Ukrainian strike damaged the dam, which sat on territory that the Russian Federation has claimed to annex.
The Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, the nearest settlement to the dam, has said that seven people are missing and up to 100 people are trapped by the flood water that has engulfed it. Occupying authorities in Kherson have declared a regional state of emergency.
Reuters reports elevated water levels in some parts of Ukraine’s occupied southern Kherson region are forecast to continue for three to 10 days after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, citing Tass and Russian emergency services.
Updated
The all clear is sounding across Ukraine after an air raid warning that has lasted just under an hour.
Giuliano Stochino Weiss, the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) rapid response coordinator in Ukraine, has spoke about the ongoing humanitarian effort in the area, saying:
The humanitarian fallout of Ukraine’s dam explosion is taking a heavy toll on 16,000 people directly affected by the flooding. We are deeply concerned about thousands of civilians who are likely to lose access to drinking water, and potential mass displacement fuelled by the breach. For the IRC and other humanitarian actors, the main priority right now is maintaining unfettered access to those in need of assistance.
As the evacuations continue, we are expecting that countless people who have remained in the rural areas of Kherson to date and already suffered a year of intense hostilities, or who have recently returned to the region, will be forced out of their homes.
The IRC is gearing up to respond in Kherson city, currently at the frontline of evacuations, and further on in Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Dnipro and Odesa. We are deploying a rapid needs assessment team to determine how to best address the needs of affected communities over the next few weeks, focusing on protection and legal aid.
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region, has posted to say that the region received its first evacuees from the floods in Kherson. In his daily operational update he wrote:
At night, the first people who evacuated from the Kherson region due to the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP arrived in Lviv region. They came by their own transport. They only needed advisory help. There is currently no mass evacuation in our region.
The development of the situation in the Kherson region is monitored at all levels. If necessary, we will provide shelter to all those evacuating to the Lviv region.
Volunteers of medical and psychological care at the main railway station of Lviv, specialists of the advisory and coordination centres that we have deployed in all districts of the region, and shelters are on standby.
Ukrainian officials are sharing a video which purports to show stranded fish in the Dnipro flood waters. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, posted it with the message “Man-made ecocide carried out by Russia.”
Рукотворний екоцид, який здійснює росія. pic.twitter.com/6CDSBPXNaa
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) June 7, 2023
The Guardian has not independently verified the location or time that the video was filmed.
An air raid alert is being declared across all of Ukrane.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the news wires from flooded Kherson:
Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency carries this report about events in Belgorod inside Russia:
The armed forces of Ukraine fired 460 ammunition in the Shebekinsky district in a day, dropped explosive devices from a drone 26 times, there were no casualties, the Belgorod governor said.
The Russian-imposed mayor of Nova Kakhovka in occupied Kherson has said up to 100 people are still trapped in the settlement, and has claimed that a Ukrainian drone struck during evacuation efforts.
Tass reports on its Telegram channel:
Up to 100 people are now blocked in Nova Kakhovka and need to be evacuated, the head of the city administration said. Ukraine armed forces hit Novaya Kakhovka with a drone during the evacuation of residents of flooded areas, the mayor added.
Journalists and Ukrainian officials are sharing this video on social media which purports to show the flooded town of Oleshky on the left-bank of the Dnipro, in Russian-occupied Kherson.
Video showing the flooding and devastation in Russian-occupied Oleshky, Kherson oblast, a day after the Kakhovka Dam under Russian forces’ control was destroyed. pic.twitter.com/k6ys9rnjij
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) June 7, 2023
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers these updates in its daily news round up:
Water continues to arrive in Kherson oblast after the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP – the intensity of flooding is decreasing, but in the next 20 hours the water level is expected to rise by another one metre.
In Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, the authorities announced a strict water saving regime. Residents are urged to stock up, additional drinking water should be brought to supermarkets.
Updated
Tass reports that Russian occupying forces in the Kherson region have set up “40 temporary accommodation centres … in which there are 345 people. The rest of the evacuees stayed with relatives and friends.”
It also quotes Russia’s ministry of emergency situations saying that “a group of 350 rescuers is ready to work in the Kherson region”. A statement from the ministry said it is sending “about 100 units equipment, including watercraft and motor pumps”.
The claims have not been independently verified.
'Hundreds of thousands of people' left without normal access to drinking water – Zelenskiy
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used to his social media channels to issue another statement about the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, claiming that hundreds of thousands of people have been left without normal access to drinking water.
On Telegram, Ukraine’s president posted:
Russian terrorists have once again proved that they are a threat to everything living. The destruction of one of the largest water reservoirs in Ukraine is absolutely deliberate. At least 100 thousand people lived in these areas before the Russian invasion. At least tens of thousands are still there. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without normal access to drinking water.
Our services, all those who can help people, are already involved. But we can only help on the territory controlled by Ukraine.
On the part occupied by Russia, the occupiers are not even trying to help people. This once again demonstrates the cynicism with which Russia treats the people whose land it has captured and what Russia really brings to Europe and the world.
A state of emergency has been declared in the Russian-occupied area of Kherson, where the Russian installed leader Vladimir Saldo has said that 22,000-40,000 people are affected. Reports say that seven people are missing from the settlement closest to the dam. Saldo claims the destruction of the dam was caused by Ukraine, and has worked in favour of the Russian military. [See 7.32 BST]
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Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, reports that two people have been killed in a drone attack in Sumy. He wrote on Telegram:
In Sumy oblast, a fire and destruction of a private residential building occurred as a result of a “shahed” hit. Two civilians were killed, one was injured and taken to the hospital.
They simply launched a “shahed” into a residential building. Russia is a country of terrorists.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, has used his Telegram channel to post a video of bodycam combat footage from a forest, with the message that “the defence forces continue to move forward on the flanks, the enemy loses positions near Bakhmut.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Russia has detained a resident in its far east on suspicion of spying for Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday, citing the Federal Security Service (FSB).
The suspect was accused of gathering information about law enforcement facilities and the region’s military infrastructure, Reuters reports, citing RIA.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, one of the occupied regions of the Donbas that the Russian Federation claims to have annexed, has posted a situational update in which he says two people were killed yesterday in the region by Russian shelling.
He listed Kurakhove, Ocheretyne, Avdiivka and Toretsk among locations targeted, with five houses damaged in the latter, and additional one high-rise building in Chasiv Yar coming under fire.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Maria Zakharova, official spokesperson of the Russian foreign ministry, has said that the government in Kyiv could not survive for “a hundredth of a second” without the support of the west, and claimed as a consequence that Ukraine was blackmailing the world.
Tass quotes her telling listeners of the Sputnik radio station:
Without the help of material, financial, without weapons, without political support, the Kyiv regime cannot exist for a hundredth of a second at all. Of course, people [in Ukraine’s government] have this understanding.
And therefore, they have long resorted to the method of blackmailing the world community, realizing that if this assistance, these supplies, these handouts stop even for a second, perhaps people no longer participate in this criminal conspiracy, then there will be nothing more, that is, they will disappear, in one second. The only thing that feeds them and gives them strength is these colossal Nato infusions in every sense of this word. Without them – the end.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Tass is carrying some quotes from Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-imposed leader of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region. It reports:
Between 22,000 and 40,000 people were in the disaster zone in the Kherson region due to the emergency at the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station (KHPP). The level of the Kakhovka reservoir in the Enerhodar region dropped by more than 3.5m, Saldo said.
He also noted that from a military point of view, the operational-tactical situation after the destruction of the KHPP by the armed forces of Ukraine developed in favour of the Russian forces.
Both Ukraine and Russia have blamed the other for the destruction of the dam, which was in Russian-held territory. Ukraine’s hydroelectric energy company have stated that it was blown up from inside.
Tass reports that the occupying Russian authorities in the portion of Kherson that they control have declared “an ‘emergency situation’ mode of operation”.
The Russian Federation claimed to annex Kherson late last year, despite only controlling the territory to the south of the Dnipro, on its left-bank. Ukraine forced Russian troops back over the river and liberated the right-bank city of Kherson in November.
Ed Ram is in Kherson, and here are some more of his pictures, showing people wading through the flood water.
Our photo desk has also put together this gallery of some of the most striking images to emerge since the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Two towns in Russia’s western Kursk region lost electricity and a man was wounded on Wednesday after Ukraine dropped explosives on an electricity substation near the border overnight, the region’s governor said.
“One of the workers received shrapnel wounds while restoring power supply. He is in the central district hospital and doctors are giving him all necessary treatment,” Reuters reports governor Roman Starovoyt said.
The claims have not been independently verified.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
That is it from me for today. My colleague Martin Belam will take you through the rest of the day’s news.
The governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, says that 1,582 houses have been flooded on the right bank of the Dnipro River and some 1,457 people have been evacuated overnight, Reuters reports.
At least seven missing, says Moscow-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka
At least seven people are missing after waters from the destroyed Nova Kakhovka dam flooded nearby areas, Russia’s TASS news agency cited the Moscow-installed mayor of the city of Nova Kakhovka as saying on Wednesday.
“Of seven people we know for sure (are missing),” TASS cited Nova Kakhvovka mayor Vladimir Leontiev as saying. More than 900 people were evacuated on Tuesday from the Russian-controlled city of some 45,000 people, which sits on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
Ukrainian officials said that some 80 communities in the overall Kherson region are at risk of being flooded, Reuters reports.
Relief workers on the Ukraine-controlled right bank of the river have reported having to work under fire. “The biggest difficulty right now is not the water. It’s the Russians on the other side of the river who are shelling us now with artillery,” said Andrew Negrych, who was coordinating relief efforts for a US charity, Global Empowerment Mission, on Tuesday.
In Kherson on Tuesday evening, Reuters reporters heard four incoming artillery blasts near a residential neighbourhood where civilians were evacuating.
At least seven people are missing after dam blast, Tass, Russia’s state news agency cited the Moscow-installed mayor of the city of Nova Kakhovka as saying on Wednesday.
No flood-related deaths have been reported, but US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the flooding had probably caused “many deaths”.
Kyiv predicts 42,000 at risk from dam flooding
About 42,000 people are at risk from flooding on both sides of the Dnipro River after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, Ukrainian officials have said, with floodwaters expected to peak on Wednesday.
The prediction came after UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the security council on Tuesday night that the dam breach “will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the front line through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods”.
“The sheer magnitude of the catastrophe will only become fully realised in the coming days,” he said.
Russian forces shell Kherson, killing one
Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian region of Kherson multiple times over the past day, the region’s governor said, with one person dying and one injured as a result of the attacks.
The shelling included the city of Kherson, the Ukrainian governor of the region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Neither the Guardian nor Reuters could not independently verify the report. There was no further detail from Prokudin.
On Tuesday, the critical Nova Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled part of Kherson was destroyed, flooding large swaths of Kherson and forcing the evacuation of thousands.
Updated
Here is the video of Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of terrorism at the UN on Tuesday:
Updated
Water levels in the city of Nova Kakhovka have begun to decline after the destruction of the nearby dam, the Russian-installed administration of the city said on the Telegram messaging app.
“The water level on the previously flooded streets of Nova Kakhovka began to subside,” the administration of the now Moscow-controlled city in occupied Ukraine said.
Images released from the city have shown flooding submerging entire streets under water. The devastation to the region is likely to be severe and ongoing, even if it is confirmed that flood waters have begun to recede more than 24 hours after the dam collapsed.
Satellite images from Ukraine, provided by the Maxar Technologies company, have revealed the extent of the flooding in the country’s south.
The images show houses and buildings submerged in water, with many having only their roofs showing, and water taking over parks, land and infrastructure.
Maxar said that their images covered more than 2,500 square km between Nova Kakhovka and the Dniprovska Gulf southwest of Kherson city on the Black Sea, giving some idea of the scale of the crisis.
As Reuters reports, US President Joe Biden told G7 leaders last month that Washington supported joint allied training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16s.
But US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan has said there was no final decision on Washington sending aircraft.
Zelenskiy has long appealed for the F-16 jets, saying their appearance with Ukrainian pilots would be a sure signal from the world that Russia’s invasion would end in defeat.
Russia said on Tuesday that US-built F-16 fighter jets can “accommodate” nuclear weapons and warned that supplying Kyiv with them will escalate the conflict further.
Zelenskiy says he has received 'serious, powerful offer' of F-16s
Zelenskiy has received “a serious, powerful” offer from leaders of countries ready to provide Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, he said on Tuesday. He is awaiting final agreements with key allies.
“Our partners know how many aircraft we need,” Zelenskiy was quoted as saying in a statement on his website. “I have already received an understanding of the number from some of our European partners ... It is a serious, powerful offer.”
Kyiv now awaits a final agreement with its allies, including “a joint agreement with the United States,” Zelenskiy said.
It is still unclear which Kyiv’s allies are ready to send the jets to Ukraine.
Meanwhile France is unenthusiastic about a proposal for Nato to open a liaison office in Japan, an official has said, days after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the move would be a “big mistake”.
There have been suggestions, alluded to most recently by the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, that the organisation would open an office in Tokyo – its first in Asia – in response to the growing challenge posed by China and Russia.
Growing military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow in the Asia-Pacific was underlined on Tuesday when the Russian and Chinese militaries conducted joint patrols over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, prompting South Korea and Japan to scramble fighter jets in response:
If you’re just joining us, here is a summary of the latest developments:
‘Russians have a greater and clearer interest in flooding lower Dnipro’, says ISW. The Institute for the Study of War has published its report on the dam’s collapse. The US thinktank says, it “has not yet observed clear evidence of what transpired at the KHPP on June 6 and is therefore unable to offer an independent assessment of responsibility at the time of this publication.”
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has condemned the attack on the Nova Kakhovka dam in the Russia-occupied south of his country as “an environmental bomb of mass destruction”. Zelenskiy made the claim in his nightly video address to the nation on Tuesday, adding that only liberation of the whole of Ukraine from the Russian invasion could guarantee against new “terrorist” acts.
The US “cannot say conclusively” who was responsible, national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the White House. “We’re doing the best we can to assess”, he said noting “destruction of civilian infrastructure is not allowed by the laws of war”. Earlier Tuesday, NBC News reported that the US government had intelligence indicating Russia was behind the incident, according to two US officials and one western official.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the UN security council that “the sheer magnitude of the catastrophe will only become fully realised in the coming days.” “But it’s already clear that it will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the frontline through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods,” he added.
The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of deliberately sabotaging the dam. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told reporters: “We can state unequivocally that we are talking about deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side.” He said [Russian president] Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the situation.
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff says he “does not understand” how there could be any doubt that Russian forces blew up the dam. In a statement, Andriy Yermak said: “At 2.50am, Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and its dam. I do not understand how there can be any doubt about this. Both constructions are located in the temporary Russian-occupied territories. Neither shelling nor any other external influence was capable of destroying the structures. The explosion came from within.”
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak said that if the bursting of the dam was proven to be intentional, it would represent a “new low” in Russian aggression. Speaking to reporters on board his official plane to Washington, where he is to hold pre-planned talks with US president Joe Biden, Sunak said the UK’s military and intelligence agencies were looking into the blast and it was too soon to pre-empt the cause and make a definitive judgment.
Energy company Ukrahydroenergo said the hydroelectric power plant at the dam had been blown up “as a result of the explosion of the engine room from the inside” and was irreparable.
The Ukrainian government called for people living downstream to evacuate in the face of catastrophic flooding and thousands of people have fled their homes. The governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said about 16,000 people were in the “critical zone” on the Ukrainian-controlled right bank of the river.
The areas most under threat of flooding are the islands along the course of the Dnipro downstream of Nova Kakhovka and much of the Russian-held left bank in southern Kherson. Andrey Alekseyenko, one of the Russian-installed officials in occupied Kherson, has posted to Telegram to say that up to 22,000 people are in the flood plains in Russian-controlled territory.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry called for an urgent meeting of the UN security council to discuss what it called a Russian “terrorist act against Ukrainian critical infrastructure”. At the meeting Ukraine accused Russia of “floundering in the mud of lies”.
At the meeting, Russia’s UN envoy was accused of floundering in a “mud of lies” after he claimed at an emergency session of the security council that Ukraine destroyed Kakhovka dam in a “war crime”. Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukraine envoy to the UN, said it was typical of Russia to blame the victim for its own crimes, pointing out Russia has been in control of the dam for more than a year and it was physically impossible to blow it up by shelling. He said the dam was mined by the Russian occupiers and they blew it up. He accused Russia of “floundering again in the mud of lies”.
There seems to be no immediate safety threat to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant 200km downstream from the dam, according to Ukrainian and UN experts. Water from the reservoir affected by the destruction of the dam is used to supply the plant’s cooling systems.
However, experts warned it could prove the country’s worst ecological disaster since the Chornobyl nuclear meltdown. Analysts told the Guardian at the very least, it had forced the evacuation of thousands of people, flooded national parks and jeopardised water supplies to millions of people. In the worst-case scenario, it may pose a long-term danger to Europe’s biggest nuclear plant, Zaporizhzhia, and could also spread agrotoxins and petrochemicals into the Black Sea.
Here is a gallery of pictures from the disaster:
The ISW has also published maps showing the extent of the flooding:
1/ Damage to the #Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (KHPP) dam in the early hours of June 6 caused massive flooding of the #Dnipro River delta, river wetlands, estuaries, and shoreline settlements in #Kherson Oblast.
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) June 7, 2023
Our latest: https://t.co/GZRLSWO9ig pic.twitter.com/tyiHqiJD0k
The ISW has also looked at the available information on whether there is a threat to the Zaporizhzhia power plant, which seems to be less acute than initially feared, it reports.
The plant will have sufficient water for cooling for “some months”, International Atomic Energy Agency director Rafael Grossi said.
The ISW quotes Grassi and other officials:
IAEA Director Rafael Grossi reported that the drop in the water level at the Kakhovka Reservoir poses “no immediate risk to the safety of the plant” and that IAEA personnel at the ZNPP are closely monitoring the situation. Grossi stated that the ZNPP is pumping water into its cooling channels and related systems, and that the large cooling pond next to the ZNPP will be ”sufficient to provide water for cooling for some months.”
Ukrainian nuclear energy operator Energoatom’s President Petro Kotin stated that the fall in the water level at the Kakhovka Reservoir does not directly impact the water level in the ZNPP cooling pond and noted that the ZNPP pool basins are still at the same water level.
Ukrainian Chief Inspector for Nuclear and Radiation Safety Oleh Korikov stated that the decrease in water level at the Kakhovka Reservoir will not affect the condition of the ZNPP provided that ZNPP personnel implement established safety measures.
Updated
'Russians have a greater and clearer interest in flooding lower Dnipro', says ISW
The Institute for the Study of War has published its report on the dam’s collapse. The US thinktank says, it “has not yet observed clear evidence of what transpired at the KHPP on June 6 and is therefore unable to offer an independent assessment of responsibility at the time of this publication.”
But, it added, “Statements by US and European officials are generally consistent with ISW’s October 2022 forecast that the Russians have a greater and clearer interest in flooding the lower Dnipro despite the damage to their own prepared defensive positions and forces than the Ukrainians.”
In October 2022 the USW said that “Russia may use the flooding to widen the Dnipro River and complicate Ukrainian counteroffensive attempts across the already-challenging water feature.”
In its update, it says that “Russian sources have expressed intense and explicit concern over the possibility that Ukraine has been preparing to cross the river and counterattack into east bank Kherson Oblast. Available footage from June 6, corroborated by claims made by Russian [military bloggers], suggests that the flooding washed away Ukrainian positions near the Dnipro shoreline and forced Ukrainian formations to evacuate while under Russian artillery fire.”
Reporters for the Associated Press are on the ground as evacuations are take place. They have filed this report:
In the early morning, before the floodwaters arrived, many residents tried to stick it out. But as the water level climbed in the streets, rising nearly to the tops of bus stops or the second floor of buildings, national guard teams and emergency crews fanned out to retrieve people who got stranded.
Some found themselves floating under the rafters of their homes as the waters rose. Space was limited on the trucks, and an effort to tow two rafts behind one went awry when the ropes snapped. One man chucked his German shepherd from the roof of the stalled truck onto another. Some residents clung to each other to keep from falling into the rising tide.
Officials said about 22,000 people live in areas at risk of flooding in Russian-controlled areas on the eastern side of the river, while 16,000 live in the most critical zone in Ukrainian-held territory on the western side — areas like those evacuated on Tuesday.
The United Nations said at least 16,000 people have already lost their homes, and efforts were underway to provide clean water, money, and legal and emotional support to those affected. Evacuations on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the river were ferrying people to cities including Mykolaiv and Odesa to the west.
Amnesty International’s regional director for Eastern Europe says that the dam’s destruction is a “huge humanitarian disaster”.
“While towns and villages in downstream Dnieper River are going under water, the human and environmental cost of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam is a huge humanitarian disaster — and the international community must unite to bring those responsible to justice,” said Marie Struthers.
“The rules of international humanitarian law specifically protect dams, due to the dangers their destruction poses to civilians,” she said.
Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian envoy to the UN, claimed Ukraine had committed an unthinkable crime. His main supportive evidence was an article in the Washington Post in which Andriy Kovalchuk, Ukraine’s southern commander, claimed Ukraine had tested strikes on the dam.
Nebenzya said the west was responsible for a coordinated disinformation campaign full of flawed logic that “reeks of schizophrenia and not of a latent variety”. He said the attack was part of an effort to distract from Ukraine’s clearly bogged down military offensive that was failing to meet its objectives.
“We are deeply bewildered that the UN secretariat repeatedly fails to condemn the attacks perpetrated by the Kyiv regime citing insufficient information. The secretary’s leadership does not hesitate to replicate politicised conclusions that suggest all such crimes are as a result of Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” he said.
Neither the French, US or British representatives at the UN directly said there was evidence of Russian responsibility, but called for an investigation and insisted their support for Ukraine was unwavering.
Outside the UN security council chamber on Tuesday, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, said: “We’re not certain at all, we hope to have more information in the coming days.
“But, I mean, come on … why would Ukraine do this to its own territory and people, flood its land, force tens of thousands of people to leave their homes – it doesn’t make sense.”
Russia’s UN envoy accused of floundering in “mud of lies”
Russia’s UN envoy was accused of floundering in a “mud of lies” after he claimed at an emergency session of the security council that Ukraine destroyed Kakhovka dam in a “war crime”.
Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukraine envoy to the UN, said it was typical of Russia to blame the victim for its own crimes, pointing out Russia has been in control of the dam for more than a year and it was physically impossible to blow it up by shelling. He said the dam was mined by the Russian occupiers and they blew it up. He accused Russia of “floundering again in the mud of lies”.
“By resorting to scorched earth tactics, or in this case to flooded earth tactics, the Russian occupiers have effectively recognised that the captured territory does not belong to them, and they are not able to hold these lands,” Kyslytsya said.
Updated
A satellite photo Tuesday morning by Planet Labs PBC analysed by The Associated Press shows more than 600 meters (over 1,900 feet) missing from the wall of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
A video shared by Euromaidan Press shows a house collapsing into floodwaters:
A house collapsed in front of its residents amidst a major flood caused by the destruction of a dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant by Russian troopshttps://t.co/rmDeA81oVk 📽️ by Tsaplienko pic.twitter.com/DRom3aVCU8
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) June 7, 2023
UN says scale of dam disaster will only be clear in coming days
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the UN security council that “the sheer magnitude of the catastrophe will only become fully realised in the coming days.”
“But it’s already clear that it will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the front line through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods,” he added.
This is Helen Sullivan bringing you the latest from the war in Ukraine and the aftermath of the attack on Nova Kakhovka dam.
I’ll be with you for the next while. If you see news you think we may have missed, have questions, or live near Nova Kakhovka dam get in touch with me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
Meanwhile China and Russia have conducted a joint air patrol on Tuesday over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea for a sixth time since 2019, prompting neighbouring South Korea and Japan to scramble fighter jets, Reuters reports.
China’s defence ministry said the patrol was part of the two militaries’ annual cooperation plan. South Korea scrambled fighter jets, according to its military, after four Russian and four Chinese military aircraft entered its air defence zone in the south and east of the Korean peninsula.
Japan’s military said it had scrambled fighter jets after verifying that two Russian bombers had joined two Chinese bombers over the Sea of Japan and flown together as far as the East China Sea, where they were joined by two Chinese fighter planes.
Here are images showing damage to the dam:
Satellite images show Nova Kakhovka dam' largely destroyed', flooding extensive
Satellite images taken on Tuesday afternoon by Maxar Technologies showed extensive flooding in southern Ukraine with the region’s Nova Kahkovka dam and hydroelectric station largely destroyed.
This image was taken before homes were flooded:
In this image shows large sections of the area under water:
Maxar said the images of more than 2,500 square km (965 square miles) between Nova Kakhovka and the Dniprovska Gulf southwest of Kherson city on the Black Sea, showed numerous towns and villages flooded.
“The Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric plant has been largely destroyed and few structures remain,” Maxar said in a statement.
The satellite images show houses and buildings submerged in water, with many having only their roofs showing, and water taking over parks, land and infrastructure.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine and the aftermath of the breaching of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
I’m Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths has told the United Nations security council that “the sheer magnitude of the catastrophe will only become fully realised in the coming days.”
“But it’s already clear that it will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the front line through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods,” he added.
Here is a summary of recent developments to bring you up to date:
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has condemned the attack on the Nova Kakhovka dam in the Russia-occupied south of his country as “an environmental bomb of mass destruction”. Zelenskiy made the claim in his nightly video address to the nation on Tuesday, adding that only liberation of the whole of Ukraine from the Russian invasion could guarantee against new “terrorist” acts. “Such deliberate destruction by the Russian occupiers and other structures of the hydroelectric power station is an environmental bomb of mass destruction,” he said.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that if the bursting of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday was proven to be intentional, it would represent a “new low” in Russian aggression, BBC reporter Chris Mason tweeted.Sunak said the UK’s military and intelligence agencies were looking into the blast and it was too soon to pre-empt the cause and make a definitive judgment, while he was travelling to Washington for his upcoming meeting with Joe Biden, BBC’s Mason said.
US military chief Milley said Ukraine is “well prepared” for a counteroffensive. The senior US military leader, chair of the joint chiefs General Mark Milley, says that while few conclusions can be drawn from an increase of fighting in Ukraine, the country is ‘well prepared’ to carry on the battle against the Russian invasion. But he also cautions the war will be “lengthy”.
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff says he “does not understand” how there are any doubts that Russian forces blew up the dam. In a statement, Andriy Yermak said: “At 2.50am, Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station and its dam. I do not understand how there can be any doubt about this. Both constructions are located in the temporary Russian-occupied territories. Neither shelling nor any other external influence was capable of destroying the structures. The explosion came from within.”
The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of deliberately sabotaging the dam. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told reporters: “We can state unequivocally that we are talking about deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side.” He said [Russian president] Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the situation.
The US “cannot say conclusively” who was responsible. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the White House: “We’re doing the best we can to assess”, noting “destruction of civilian infrastructure is not allowed by the laws of war”. Earlier Tuesday, NBC News reported that the US government had intelligence indicating Russia was behind the incident, according to two US officials and one western official.
The Ukrainian government called for people living downstream to evacuate in the face of catastrophic flooding. Energy company Ukrahydroenergo said the hydroelectric power plant at the dam had been blown up from the inside and was irreparable.
The governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said about 16,000 people were in the “critical zone” on the Ukrainian-controlled right bank of the river. The areas most under threat of flooding are the islands along the course of the Dnipro downstream of Nova Kakhovka and much of the Russian-held left bank in southern Kherson. Andrey Alekseyenko, one of the Russian-installed officials in occupied Kherson, has posted to Telegram to say that up to 22,000 people are in the flood plains in Russian-controlled territory.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry called for an urgent meeting of UN security council to discuss what it called a Russian “terrorist act against Ukrainian critical infrastructure”.
There seems to be no immediate safety threat to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam 200km downstream, according to Ukrainian and UN experts. Water from the reservoir affected by the destruction of the dam is used to supply the plant’s cooling systems.
