Continuous evacuation
“More than 1,450 people have been evacuated,” emergency service spokesman Oleksandr Khoronji told Ukrainian television. Russian news agencies quoted authorities appointed by Moscow as saying they had evacuated “1,274 people” so far.
For his part, Oleksiy Kuleba, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said, “The difficult situation is taking place in the Korabelny district of Kherson.” He explained that “the water level has risen so far by 3.5 meters, and the water has flooded more than a thousand houses” in this city, which the Ukrainians recovered from the Russians in November 2022. He added that the evacuations of the residents of the region will continue on Wednesday and in the coming days by buses and trains.
Serious consequences of the disaster
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday afternoon, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths described the destruction of the dam as a catastrophe “the full scale of which can only be assessed in the coming days” but whose consequences would be “serious and far-reaching” on both sides of the front line.
Griffiths said, “The damage resulting from the destruction of the dam means that life will become unbearable harsher for those who are mainly suffering from the conflict,” stressing that “the consequences of the inability to provide assistance to the millions affected by the floods in these areas may be catastrophic.”
Before the emergency meeting, which was held at the request of Ukraine, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres considered that the partial destruction of Alice is “a new devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
“The United Nations has not obtained independent information about the circumstances that led to the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam hydroelectric power station, but one thing is clear: this is another devastating consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he told reporters.
recriminations
During this emergency meeting, Russian and Ukrainian representatives exchanged accusations, as Moscow and Kiev did all day on Tuesday. Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia said, “Kiev’s deliberate sabotage of vital infrastructure is very serious and can essentially be considered a war crime or an act of terrorism,” blaming Kiev and its “Western sponsors (…) fully responsible for the ongoing tragedy.”
The Ukrainian ambassador, Sergei Kislitsa, responded by saying, “We have noticed before the method of blaming the victim for the crimes you commit,” condemning the act of “environmental and technological terrorism” against this dam.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “detonating a bomb” at the dam. He had stated in October that Russia had planted mines in him. He added that it was “practically impossible to blow it up in any way from the outside, with bombing operations,” which is the version issued by Moscow.
Zelensky said, “The world must respond. Russia is fighting a war against life, nature and civilization,” stressing at the same time that “this will not affect Ukraine’s ability to liberate its lands.”
Kiev believes that Russia wanted to “curb” the Ukrainian army’s attack. This is because if the Russian defensive lines along the Dnieper River were flooded, it could hamper a potential Ukrainian military operation in this area. Ukraine announced a day ago that it had made progress in Bakhmut in the east, but played down the importance of “offensive operations” elsewhere on the front.
Russia, for its part, confirmed that it repelled these major attacks. On Tuesday, it acknowledged the killing of 71 of its soldiers and the wounding of 210 others in recent days. The Russian army rarely announces its losses.
And the Ukrainians confirm that they have been preparing for months for a massive counterattack aimed at forcing the Russian forces to withdraw from the lands they seized. Regarding the dam, the Kremlin condemned what it considered an act of “deliberate sabotage” and “strongly” rejected the Ukrainian accusations, calling on the international community to “condemn” Kiev for its destruction.
“ecological genocide”
The Ukrainian president said that Russia had committed “brutal ecocide”. And the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture confirmed in a statement that tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land in the Kherson region are at risk of flooding, expressing concern about the complete drought of fields in the south of the country early in the year and the lack of drinking water for the population.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Attorney General, Andriyach Kostin, said that “more than forty thousand people could be present in flooded areas,” explaining that “unfortunately more than 25,000 civilians are present in the territories under the control of Russia.”
For his part, the Ukrainian Interior Minister said that “24 towns in Ukraine have been flooded so far.” And in the regions occupied by Russia, the authorities appointed by Moscow announced that they had begun evacuating three areas of the population, and mobilized about fifty buses.
Vladimir Leontyev, mayor of Nova Kakhovka, where the dam is located, appointed by Moscow, said his city was flooded and 900 residents had been evacuated. The destruction of the dam raised new concerns about the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, 150 km away, cooled by the water locked up by the dam.
But the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that there was no “immediate nuclear threat”. The dam and nuclear plant are located in an area occupied by the Russians after the invasion that began on February 24, 2022.
For his part, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun expressed concern about the risk of “prolonging or even escalating the crisis in Ukraine.” “What just happened reminds us once again that anything can happen in any dispute,” he said, calling on the parties to “exercise common sense and restraint and resume negotiations peacefully as soon as possible.”
