that captured it early in their 15-month-old invasion, and has suggested Moscow blew it up to try to prevent Ukrainian forces crossing the Dnipro in their counteroffensive.
Residents on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the flood zone in the south, a fertile, marshy region stretching to the Dnipro estuary on the Black Sea, blamed the bursting of the dam on Russian troops who held it on the eastern bank of the Dnipro.“They want to destroy a Ukrainian nation and Ukraine itself. And they don’t care by what means because nothing is sacred for them.”A Kherson resident swims by a house amid flooding caused by the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka hydroelectric dam.
Over 30,000 cubic metres of water were gushing out of the dam’s reservoir every second and the town was at risk of contamination from the torrent, Russia’s Tass news agency quoted the Russian-installed mayor, Vladimir Leontyev, as saying.Shortly afterwards, President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Twitter that “within the next few hours we will send aid to meet immediate needs”.The UN’s humanitarian affairs office said a team was in Kherson to coordinate relief efforts.