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”.
