Dam collapse in Novaya Kakhovka: Russians shoot at rescuers in flooded areas, Zelensky says
CNN
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Russian forces fired on Ukrainian Rescuers are trying to get to the flooded areas of the Kherson region, which are under Russian control, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday.
Rescuers are trying to evacuate thousands of people from the flood zone occupied by Russia Novokakhovskaya dam and a hydroelectric power station that collapsed on Tuesday, sending torrents of water into the Dnieper River.
At least eight people have died in the region so far, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made his own claims about the rescue effort on Thursday, saying in a conference call with reporters that occupied parts of the Kherson region are still under Ukrainian fire as rescuers try to help people get out of flooded areas.
When asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit settlements affected by the flood, Peskov replied that he had no such plans.
Zelenskiy made his comment in an exclusive interview with the German tabloid newspaper Bild published on Wednesday.
“People, animals died. From the roofs of the flooded houses, people see the drowned people passing by. You can see it from the other side. It is very difficult to take people out of the occupied part of the Kherson region,” Zelensky said.
“When our forces try to get them [the residents] occupiers are firing at them from afar,” Zelensky Bild said. “As soon as our helpers try to save them, they are shot at. We will be able to see all the consequences only in a few days, when the water calms down a bit.”
The evacuation effort came as Ukrainian forces faced “fierce resistance” and losses in soldiers and equipment in their first attempt to breach Russian positions in the country’s east in recent days, two senior US officials said. told CNN.
The international humanitarian organization CARE has warned that landmines are likely to float in the floods caused by the collapse of the dam.
“The area where the Kakhovka Dam used to be is filled with land mines, which now float in the water and pose a huge danger,” said Fabrice Martin, Regional Director of CARE Ukraine.
At least five people have died in the flooding in the Russian-occupied town of Novaya Kakhovka, about five kilometers (three miles) from the collapsed dam, Russian state news agency TASS reported, citing a pro-Kremlin official.
“It was reported that out of seven people grazing cattle, five drowned,” Vladimir Leontiev, head of the administration of the city of Novaya Kakhovka, told Russian television, TASS reports.
“The most difficult situation is in Aleshki. [the Russian spelling of ‘Oleshky’] and Naked Pristan,” another official appointed by the Kremlin in the occupied territory on the eastern bank of the Dnieper said on Telegram. Oleshki is located about 70 km west of Novaya Kakhovka, and Golaya Pristan is about 20 km from it.
Oleshky’s exiled Ukrainian mayor, Yevhen Ryshchuk, told CNN earlier Thursday that at least three people had died in the city after water flooded “about 90% of it.”
“Three people drowned there. We don’t know how many more dead people there will be. I think there could be many more,” Ryshchuk said.
Between 3,500 and 4,000 people still lived in Oleshky, including “many pensioners and bedridden people,” the mayor added.
On Wednesday, a volunteer involved in the rescue effort in Kherson told CNN that the volunteers face Russian shelling on almost every sortie.
“Of course, it is very dangerous,” said Roman Skabdrakov of the Cayman Islands Volunteer Group.
The collapse of the dam and subsequent flooding forced more than 1,800 people to flee their homes, flooded thousands of hectares of farmland, threatened vital water supplies and triggered water warnings. catastrophic environmental damage from Ukrainian officials and experts.
Kyiv and Moscow exchanged accusations of destroying the dam, without presenting concrete evidence of each other’s guilt. The dam was occupied by Russia at the time of its collapse. It is not yet clear whether the attack on the dam was deliberate or whether the breach was the result of structural failure.
A video released by the Ukrainian military shows residents affected by flooding in Russian-occupied areas of Kherson being dumped with drinking water.
Military drone footage reportedly from the town of Oleshki shows a family stranded in a flooded house, pleading for help. The video shows one resident standing in the gap of a house surrounded by flood waters, catching a water bottle dropped from a drone.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said that the Russian occupying forces “do not provide any assistance” to the residents of the flooded areas. He said that the inhabitants of the occupied areas of Kherson “were abandoned by the Russians” and “left to perish” as the houses “disappear under water.”
In the photo: the collapse of the Novokakhovskaya dam in Ukraine.
President Zelensky called the situation in the territories occupied by Russia “absolutely catastrophic.”
“The occupiers simply abandoned people in these terrible conditions. No rescue, no water, just on rooftops in flooded communities,” he said on Wednesday.
Both Zelensky and Shmyhal appealed directly to the UN and international humanitarian organizations with a call to take over the evacuation of people from the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson.
Zelenskiy called for a “clear and quick” humanitarian response, saying it was difficult to say “how many people in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region could die without rescue, without drinking water, without food, without medical care.”
He said the Ukrainian military and emergency services are “rescuing as many people as possible” despite Russian shelling.
“But more efforts are needed,” Zelensky said.
Representatives of UN humanitarian organizations visited Kherson on Wednesday to “coordinate humanitarian response” along with local organizations and authorities, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.
“They said the disaster is likely to get worse in the coming hours as the water levels are still rising and more villages and towns will be flooded,” the UN said in a statement. “This will affect people’s access to basic services and pose serious health risks.”
Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson regional military administration who led the rescue effort, said they expect the water levels “to remain and accumulate for another day and then gradually decrease over another five days.”
At least 1,854 people have been evacuated since Tuesday as rescue efforts to free people from their flooded homes in Ukrainian-controlled Kherson continued throughout Wednesday, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said.
The ministry said it was also seeking ways to evacuate citizens from the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnieper.
“We are trying to do it as quickly as possible. We are hindered by a strong current and shelling from the Russian military,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said.
According to Zelensky, the conditions for residents in the flooded areas are difficult: “hundreds of thousands of people were left without normal access to drinking water.”
The city of Kherson has been under Russian occupation for eight months and continues to be shelled by Russian troops on the other side of the river.
Despite threats of flooding and shelling, aid workers told CNN that some residents are determined to stay in their flooded homes rather than evacuate.
Many are elderly, and some have survived more than a year of conflict or have recently returned to their homes and are “less willing to leave due to flooding,” said Selena Kozakievich, CARE Regional Manager in Ukraine.
Kozakievich said some of the local partners that CARE works with have received calls from people in the occupied areas saying they are struggling to find help and asking for support.
“Unfortunately, the left bank of the river is inaccessible from the right side, and this is the main reason why aid from the territories controlled by Ukraine is not currently going to the other side,” she said.