Russian artillery fire left one dead and 18 injured on Thursday amid relief operations in Kherson, in flooded southern Ukraine, with Russia also blaming the Ukrainian army for deadly fire and claiming to have pushed back further north an offensive of troops and tanks.
Ukrainians have accused the Russian army of hitting Kherson in recent days as thousands of civilians are evacuated from flooded areas following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam located upstream on the Dnieper River.
According to kyiv, one person was killed and 18 injured, including members of the emergency services, in Russian strikes on the center of Kherson and the surrounding area.
"You are heroic," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told rescuers working "under Russian fire" in a message posted on social media after visiting the area where more than 600 km2 were flooded.
At this stage, the Ukrainian and Russian occupation authorities have identified six deaths in the floods.
The Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine have for their part accused kyiv of bombardments which killed two people, including a pregnant woman, in an evacuation point in Golan Pristan, in the area under Russian control.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also said his troops had countered a Ukrainian offensive in the Zaporizhia region, northeast of Kherson, as Kiev said it was ready to launch an assault. to reconquer the territories occupied by Moscow.
"Today at 1:30 a.m. (Wednesday 22:30 GMT) in the Zaporizhia area, the enemy tried to break through our defenses with (...) up to 1,500 men and 150 armored vehicles," Shoigu said. in a press release. "The enemy is stopped and retreating with heavy losses," he said.
Statements, however, unverifiable from independent sources. The Ukrainian authorities did not immediately mention these events.
Moscow and kyiv reject responsibility for the destruction on Tuesday of the Kakhovka dam located on the Dnieper, which raises fears of a humanitarian and ecological disaster.
Implicated on Tuesday by Ukraine, which accused it of having dynamited the dam to cut the road to an offensive in the south towards Crimea, Russia asserts on the contrary that it is of a "barbaric" act committed by the Ukrainians.
A Russian representative repeated these accusations Thursday before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), during a hearing on the military support that Ukraine accuses him of having provided to the separatists of Donbass (is) from of 2014.
"Ukraine said that Russia blew up the big dam located in Nova Kakhovka. In fact, Ukraine did it," said Russian Ambassador to the Netherlands Alexander Shulgin , in front of the court.
According to the regional administration, 2,198 people were evacuated. Many others fled on their own.
The emergency services explained that, on the Ukrainian side of the river, "20 localities and 2,629 houses" had been flooded. A man is dead.
On the Russian occupation side, 4,500 people "have already been evacuated", according to the occupation authorities, and "five people (...) died by drowning", advanced Vladimir Leontiev, the mayor of the city of Nova Kakhovka, installed by Russia.
More than 20,000 consumers are still without electricity, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy, which has asked Europe to provide it with more electricity
The Minister, German Galouchtchenko, also declared that the nuclear power plant of Zaporijjia, cooled by the water of the Dnieper, presented "no imminent risk at this stage" but required to be "monitored".
The level of the dam's water reservoir, "below the critical threshold of 12.7 meters", is no longer sufficient to supply "the basins of the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant" for cooling operations, said the boss of the Ukrainian operator Ukrhydroenergo Igor Syrota.
The water still present in the cooling ponds can be used "for a while", the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said earlier this week.
Its chief, Rafael Grossi, had also specified that a large cooling pond located near the site was "currently full and contains enough reserves to supply the plant for several months, because its six reactors are shut down".
"The operator of the hydroelectric dams talks about the cooling of the plant but it is not the Dnieper which cools it, it is an isolated basin of the Dnieper so there is no safety impact", relativized with AFP Karine Herviou, Deputy Director General of the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN).
In Kherson, Tetiana Omelchenko, 65, told AFP she waited for rescuers for two days, finally crawling out of her apartment through a window to reach their rubber dinghy.
"In my building, the water has reached the third floor and there are still people there," she said.
According to an employee of the local meteorological agency, Laura Moussiïane, the water level is 5.33 meters above normal. But it "started to go down a bit," she said.
The day before, Volodymyr Zelensky had deplored the lack of humanitarian aid from the United Nations and the Red Cross.
The Red Cross assured in response to participate in the evacuation operations in Ukrainian territory, with about fifty volunteers. Aid from the United Nations will be increased, according to kyiv on Thursday.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on NATO members to "provide rapid support".
On the health side, because of the consequences of the flood on "water supply, sanitation systems and public health services", the WHO has provided assistance so that the authorities and health professionals can " take preventive measures against water-borne diseases" and to "improve disease surveillance", assured the press its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The Kremlin finally warned on Thursday that Monday's explosion of an ammonia pipeline in Ukraine, essential for exporting fertilizers, could have a "negative impact" on the future of the crucial grain deal for the country. global food supply, which it is reluctant to extend.
08/06/2023 20:15:36 - Kherson (Ukraine) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
