Whoever ordered the dam busting has screwed the Ukraine AND Russia….
The Ukraine farmland could be effected…..
Evacuation’s continue from flooded area’s….
The dam will continue to fall apart with MORE flooding …..
Ukraine military says the Offensive goes on…..
Ukraine forces close in on Russian troops in Bakhmut…..
KHERSON, Ukraine — Hundreds of exhausted people, some carrying only backpacks or pets, escaped inundated villages on Wednesday as a rescue effort pressed ahead across southern Ukraine, a day after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam unleashed another humanitarian disaster along the front lines of the 15-month war.
Floodwaters engulfed streets and homes, sent residents fleeing on boats and dislodged roofs across dozens of communities on both sides of the Dnipro River, which divides the warring armies in much of southern Ukraine. A total of about 3,000 people had been evacuated in Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled areas, according to officials on both sides, a fraction of the roughly 41,000 residents whom Ukrainian officials have said are at risk.
There were still no confirmed reports of deaths, and the scale of the disaster, which drained a giant reservoir used for drinking water and irrigation, was only beginning to come into focus. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that hundreds of thousands of people were “without normal access to drinking water” and that the emergency services were working to rush potable water to Ukrainian-controlled areas.
Even as officials said floodwaters were receding in areas closest to the dam, its destruction has spread further misery on both sides of the Dnipro.
In the Ukrainian-held town of Kherson on the west bank, rescuers completely evacuated a neighborhood submerged in fetid floodwaters, venturing out in boats to pull people from roofs and the upper floors of homes. Information about areas in the Russian-occupied east bank was difficult to obtain, but state television broadcast images of inundated villages and Russian-appointed officials said about 1,500 people had been evacuated.
Here is what else to know:
-
Experts said a deliberate explosion inside the dam, which has been under Russian control since early in the war, most likely caused the massive structure of steel-reinforced concrete to crumble. Mr. Zelensky said Russian forces had blown up the dam to “use the flood as a weapon,” while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian shelling for damaging the facility.
-
Ukraine’s agriculture ministry warned that the disaster would cut off water to hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, turning some of the country’s most productive grain and oil fields “into deserts as early as next year.”
-
The dam’s destruction could also risk diverting attention, resources and personnel from a long-planned Ukrainian counteroffensive that U.S. officials said may have begun this week. Flood-affected communities are calling for large amounts of fuel, water and vehicles — all components that are also essential for military operations — while national guard soldiers are helping with disaster relief….
…
Moscow and Kyiv have traded blame for the dam’s collapse, which poses strategic challenges to both sides, experts say. The United States said it has not determined what happened.
Here’s the latest on the war and its impact across the globe.
- More than 1,700 people in the Ukrainian-controlled Kherson region were evacuated from their homes, and almost 2,000 homes have been flooded, local officials saidWednesday. The head of Kherson’s Russian occupation administration, Vladimir Saldo, estimated that as many as 40,000 people were affected. Ukraine’s state hydroelectric company, Ukrhyroenergo, said Wednesday on Telegram that water levels in the Kakhovka reservoir were still decreasing but that the “peak of water spillage” has passed. It warned of chemical substances and pathogens from latrines, landfills and cemeteries contaminating wells and drinking water.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of orchestrating an attack on the dam on the Dnieper River, calling it a “crime of ecocide.” “We cannot yet predict how much of the chemicals, fertilizers and oil products stored in the flooded areas will end up in the rivers and sea,” he said. At the same time, Moscow blamed Kyiv. The destruction of the dam was “sabotage by the Ukrainian side” aimed at cutting off the water supply to Russian-held Crimea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
- The United States cannot conclusively say what led to the breach of the dam, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday. NATO and the European Union cast blame on Russia’s invasion, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz came the closest to accusing Moscow. “By all accounts, this is aggression by the Russian side,” Scholz told reporters Wednesday. Germany is also sending aid such as tents, generators and filters, officials announced.
- The full extent of the catastrophe in Kherson will be clear only in the coming days, said Martin Griffiths, the United Nations’ emergency relief coordinator. The dam breach will have “grave and far-reaching consequences” for thousands of people in Russian-held and Ukrainian territories, he told the U.N. Security Council.
- International Atomic Energy Agency officials will visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant next week to assess the plant’s condition after catastrophic damage to the dam, the nuclear watchdog agency said in a statement. “There is no immediate risk to the safety of the plant,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA’s director general. The dam is about 90 miles southwest of the nuclear plant, which borders the Kakhovka reservoir.
- The United States learned of a Ukrainian military plan to carry out a covert attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, leaked military documents say. The previously undisclosed documents, first leaked on the chat platform Discord, suggest that details about the plan collected by a European intelligence service were shared with the CIA in June 2022, The Post reported. An attack on the undersea network, which supplied gas from Russia to Western Europe, occurred in September and remains disputed.
- Russian ally Belarus lost its bid for a temporary spot on the U.N. Security Council, the Associated Pressreported. While five countries were elected unopposed, Slovenia beat Belarus, which received 38 votes to Slovenia’s 153. The council tasked with maintaining international peace has 15 members. Five are permanent with veto powers.
- China and Russia conducted a joint air patrol over the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan — also known as the East Sea — rattling South Korea and Japan, Reuters reported. This was the sixth such exercise by the two nations since 2019, the report said, adding that it prompted South Korea to scramble fighter jets.
- The devastation caused by the Kakhovka dam breach is likely to lead to long-term environmental consequences for the region, The Washington Post reported. The damage could dry up the agriculturally rich area of southern Ukraine, pollute water systems and change ecosystems surrounding the reservoir, experts said, adding that it could take months or years to understand the consequences.
- Russians have a greater and clearer interest in flooding the lower Dnieper River than Ukraine does, the Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis Tuesday. The D.C.-based think tank said it cannot draw a definitive conclusion about who is to blame but added that it “finds that the balance of evidence, reasoning, and rhetoric suggests that the Russians deliberately damaged the dam.” In October, the ISW assessed that Ukraine has “no material interest” in attacking the dam given the risk of flooding to its settlements.
- Ukraine said its forces made advances near Bakhmut, according to a Wednesday update from Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar. “We have advanced from 200 to 1,100 meters in various sections of the Bakhmut direction,” she wrote on Telegram, noting that Kyiv’s troops switched from defensive to offensive positions around the fiercely contested eastern city. The Post was not able to immediately verify the claim.
- The dam’s structure is likely to deteriorate further over the next few days, causing additional flooding,according to a daily update from Britain’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday. Officials said the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir “was at a record high before the collapse, resulting in a particularly high volume of water inundating the area downstream.” However, the ministry added, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is “highly unlikely to face immediate additional safety issues” as a result…..