Residents in the flood zone in Ukraine's south, a fertile, marshy region stretching to the Dnipro estuary on the Black Sea, blamed the bursting of the dam on Russian troops who controlled it from their positions on the opposite bank.
Valery Melnik, 53, said he had hoped for help from local authorities to pump out the water from his swamped home, but so far "they are not doing anything". Two thousand people have been evacuated from the Ukrainian-controlled part of the flood zone and waters had reached their highest level in 17 settlements with a combined population of 16,000 people.The mighty Dnipro River that bisects Ukraine forms the front line across the south.
"The whole world will know about this Russian war crime," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address, calling it "an environmental bomb of mass destruction". Earlier he said Russia blew up the dam power plant from within. The United States said it was still gathering evidence about who was to blame, but that Ukraine would have had no reason to inflict such devastation on itself.