Ukraine’s KHERSON, June 7 (Reuters) – Following the damage of a significant hydroelectric dam on the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces, which both blamed on the other, Ukrainians fled their waterlogged houses as floodwaters swelled across a large portion of the south on Wednesday.
While rescuers utilized rubber boats to check locations where the waters rose over head height, residents wade through flooded streets carrying toddlers on their shoulders, pets in their arms, and valuables in plastic bags.
According to Ukraine, the flood will submerge tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land and leave additional areas barren while also depriving hundreds of thousands of people of access to clean drinking water.
Oleksandr Reva, who was relocating his family’s possessions into a neighbor’s abandoned home on higher ground, said, “If the water rises for another metre, we will lose our house,” in a community on the river. One could see the roof of a home being carried down the swelling Dnipro River.
The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam comes as Ukrainian forces prepare for their long-promised counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion, which is viewed as the war’s next significant stage.
Both sides swapped accusations for the ongoing shelling in the flood zone and issued warnings about landmines that may be uncovered by the flooding.
The most specific claim of success made by Kiev since Russia confirmed the commencement of the Ukrainian attack this week was that its forces in the east had moved more than a kilometer around the destroyed city of Bakhmut.
Russia claimed to have repelled the assault.
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Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine June 7, 2023. Костянтин і Влада Ліберови on Instagram @libkos
Attacks are currently localized, according to Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, and the full-scale onslaught has not yet started.
“When we start (it), everyone will know about it and they will see it,” he said to Reutes.
The dam was mined by Russian forces, who have held it from the beginning of the 15-month invasion, according to Kyiv, which has indicated Moscow blew it up to try to prevent Ukrainian forces from crossing the Dnipro in their counteroffensive.
