Evening summary
It is now approaching 9pm in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Here is a round-up of the stories today.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the Kherson region that has been impacted by flooding after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam. In a post to Telegram, Ukraine’s president said the main issues discussed during the visit were “the operational situation in the region as a result of the disaster, evacuation of the population from potential flood zones, elimination of the emergency caused by the dam explosion, organisation of life support for the flooded areas”.
Russia on Thursday denied Ukrainian accusations that it backed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and discriminates against ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea, accusing Kyiv of “blatant lies” at the UN’s top court.
One of Russia’s longest-serving and most respected human rights campaigners Oleg Orlov went on trial on Thursday, facing the prospect of three years in jail if convicted of repeatedly discrediting Russia’s armed forces, his organisation said.
A group of leading Russian independent media organisations together with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have called on big tech companies to establish a working group to prevent Russia’s online information shutdown, the Guardian’s Pjotr Sauer reports.
The past few days have brought a very marked intensification of fighting south of Zaporizhzhia in the direction of the key town of Tokmak. While the situation remains highly confused, some Russian military bloggers have been speculating that this might be the beginning of the long anticipated Ukrainian summer offensive, the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont reports.
The cooling pond at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is in danger of collapse as a result of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and the draining of its reservoir, according to a French nuclear safety organisation, the Guardian’s Julian Borger reports.
The World Health Organization has rushed emergency supplies to flood-hit parts of Ukraine and are preparing to respond to an array of health risks including trauma, drowning and waterborne diseases such as cholera, officials said on Thursday.
Ukraine could lose several million tons of crops because of flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the south of the country, the Ukrainian agriculture ministry said on Thursday.
Drone footage shows the extent of flooding after the Ukraine dam collapse.
Russian shelling killed a civilian in the Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday as people were being evacuated because of flooding caused by the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, Ukraine’s prosecutor general claimed.
Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has said that Russia is “actively on the defensive” in the Orikhiv area of Zaporizhzhia region, a possible confirmation that Ukraine is attacking in that direction.
The investigations team of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has released a new video in which it claims to have found a son of Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, whose name was previously not known to the public. Over the past year, Shoigu’s alleged son has been making cheesy pop songs in English while his father is sending tens of thousands of Russians to war in Ukraine, the Guardian’s Shaun Walker reported.
Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday that his forces had repelled overnight attempts by Ukrainian forces to break through the frontline in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
At least three people were wounded in Russian shelling of the Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday as people were being evacuated because of flooding caused by the collapse of the nearby Kakhovka dam, police said.
The Russian embassy has said the responsibility for the “unfolding tragedy” in Kherson due to the destruction of the Kakhovka dam lies with Kyiv and western countries who have supplied Ukraine with weapons, in what they describe as a “terrorist plot” in a statement.
Britain announced a new sanctions package against Belarus on Thursday for its role in facilitating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including import bans and new measures aimed at preventing internet propaganda.
The Russian-installed governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said on Thursday that Ukraine had shelled an evacuation point for civilians affected by the Kakhovka dam breach in the town of Hola Prystan, killing two people, Reuters reports.
The Kremlin on Thursday accused Ukraine of shelling Russian rescue workers in the area flooded after the huge Kakhovka dam in Ukraine’s Kherson region was breached earlier this week. It did not provide any immediate evidence for its assertion.
In an address on Wednesday evening, Zelenskiy said it was impossible to predict how many people would die in Russian-occupied parts of Kherson due to the flooding, urging a “clear and rapid reaction from the world” to support victims. He also severely criticised the UN and the Red Cross, who he said were not helping the relief effort. “Our military and special services are rescuing people as much as it is possible, despite the shelling. But large-scale efforts are needed,” he said. “We need international organisations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, to immediately join the rescue operation and help people in the occupied part of Kherson region.
About 230 square miles (600 sq km) of the Kherson region was under water on Thursday, the regional governor said. Oleksandr Prokudin said 68% of the flooded territory was on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River. The average level of flooding in the Kherson region on Thursday morning was 5.61m (18.41ft), he said. He said almost 2,000 people had left flooded territory as of Thursday morning.
Thank you for following along. Read more of our live coverage on the blog tomorrow.
Updated
Russia on Thursday denied Ukrainian accusations that it backed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and discriminates against ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea, accusing Kyiv instead of “blatant lies” at the UN’s top court.
Ukraine has asked The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Russia to halt alleged discrimination against the Tatar ethnic group in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014.
At the second day of hearings at the ICJ, the Russian ambassador to the Netherlands, Alexander Shulgin, said:
Ukraine is constantly turning to blatant lies and false accusations leveled against the Russian federation.
In the same case, Kyiv also says that Moscow violated a UN anti-terrorism treaty by equipping and funding pro-Russian forces, including militias who shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, killing all 298 passengers and crew in 2014.
On the first day of the hearing, Ukraine accused Russia of being a terrorist state and said it tried to erase the culture of ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea.
Russia denies systematic human rights abuses in Ukrainian territory that it occupies.
The court adjourned on Thursday but will hold two more days of hearings next week where Ukraine and Russia can react to each other’s submissions.
The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, is expected to rule on the case before the end of this year.
Here is a round-up of images from the wires of Ukrainian’s recusing animals from flooding in the Kherson region after the Nova Kakhovka dam was breached.
One of Russia’s longest-serving and most respected human rights campaigners went on trial on Thursday, facing the prospect of three years in jail if convicted of repeatedly discrediting Russia’s armed forces, his organisation said.
Oleg Orlov has since 1999 been one of the leaders of Memorial, which won a share of the Nobel Peace prize in 2022 a year after being banned and dissolved in Russia.
Since sending its tanks into Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has intensified a long-running clampdown on all forms of political dissent and made it an offence to discredit the armed forces or deviate from government accounts of what it calls a “special military operation”, Reuters reports.
Orlov, who came to prominence by opposing Soviet totalitarianism, told the independent Moscow Times last month that campaigners like him were to some extent following the path of anti-communist dissidents of the cold war era.
The charges are based on an article he wrote denouncing Russia for waging the conflict.
He told the court, according to a Memorial post on Telegram:
In my article I spoke about the terrible role that war plays for the development of the political regime in our country.
“This is an opinion, reasoning, an evaluation,” he said, adding that he could not understand how he could be punished for expressing an opinion.
Orlov’s defence team included Dmitry Muratov, editor of the now-banned independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and also a winner of the Nobel Peace prize, for his decades of work to defend freedom of speech in Russia.
Outside the court, Muratov told reporters:
Article 29 of the constitution directly says that censorship is prohibited, everyone has the right to disseminate information, and no one has the right to force anyone to give up their beliefs.
Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Russia director, said the state could not tolerate Orlov’s “need to defend the truth and his refusal to remain silent”.
“The price he and others pay for exercising their right to freedom of expression in today’s Russia is very high indeed,” she said.
Updated
A senior Russian commander briefed President Vladimir Putin today on how his forces had repelled a large-scale Ukrainian attack in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the Tass news agency reported.
Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier on Thursday that Russian forces had withstood fierce overnight attempts by Ukrainian troops to break through the frontline in Zaporizhzhia and had inflicted heavy losses on them, according to Reuters.
The Russian defence ministry on Thursday evening released a video clip of an interview in which a commander called Col Gen Alexander Romanchuk was seen explaining how Russian forces had held off the Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia.
Updated
A group of leading Russian independent media organisations together with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have called on big tech companies to establish a working group to prevent Russia’s online information shutdown.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has blocked or closed down nearly all independent media outlets. The Kremlin has also blocked major western social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
In part, the letter said:
The Russian authorities are preparing for Vladimir Putin’s re-election in 2024. No other discourse than official propaganda will be tolerated. We have strong suspicions that YouTube and Telegram could be totally blocked in Russia no later than this autumn. After that, more than 140 million people would be hostages of the state propaganda narrative.
Only two major platforms have partially survived this purge for now. Telegram and YouTube are the only spaces left for Russian journalists to try to inform their fellow citizens about the reality of the war waged in their name by Vladimir Putin.
The joint statement continued “We do not want to live in a new cold war era. There is an urgent need to reconnect Russian citizens with pluralistic information, and with the rest of the world.”
“It is the essence of the internet to provide this function,” continues the statement addressed to the heads of global tech giants including the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, the Twitter CEO, Elon Musk, and the Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, saying: “What we need now is to establish a communication channel between representatives of the platforms and us, to build together solutions to reconnect Russian citizens with their independent press in exile.”
It added: “Russian citizens will find themselves locked in the dark alone with their president” if free information on the internet is not supported.
Updated
The past few days have seen a very marked intensification of fighting south of Zaporizhzhia in the direction of the key town of Tokmak. While the situation remains highly confused, some Russian military bloggers have been speculating that this might be the beginning of the long anticipated Ukrainian summer offensive.
Nasa’s satellite monitoring of fires in that area of the frontline confirms what Russian bloggers have been saying: that the area around Tokmak and Orihiv first under very heavy preparatory shelling followed by a Ukrainian attempt to break through Russian defences towards Tokmak.
This area of the front has long been seen as a likely axis for a Ukrainian assault towards Melitopol, not least because Tokmak itself is a major railway junction and Russian logistical hub that has key lines of communication with both Mauripol and Berdiansk.
Russia has long feared a Ukrainian advance here building multi-layered defences including zigzag trenches, dragon’s teeth, minefields and other obstacles also reinforcing the area with both troops and medical personnel.
On Telegram, the Russian military blogger channel War Gonzo said it remained “too early to say” that the Ukrainian offensive had become bogged down, describing a “hard night” for Russian forces around Orihiv.
It added:
It is reported from the scene that in the direction of Orehiv-Tokmak the enemy infantry continues to approach and try to gain a foothold. Enemy artillery and tanks are still intensively working on our positions.
Our troops hold the line and do not allow a breakthrough of the front, destroying enemy manpower and equipment. According to information from the field, our fighters managed to knock out a tank similar to the Leopard, but it is still impossible to identify the destroyed equipment for certain.
Other Russian online sources spoke of an assault with armour and infantry with the village of Robotyne being a focus of Ukrainian assaults in the past 24 hours with both Ukrainian and Russian aviation active in the sector.
On Thursday there were also reports that the Russian occupation administration had ordered evacuations from settlements around Tokmak.
It remains unclear, however, whether the fighting in the Tokmak area represents Ukraine’s main effort. While it appears to be more substantial than a reconnaissance in force, it is possible that the push in recent days could be a so called “demonstration” designed to persuade Moscow that the main advance will be in the direction of Melitopol.
Ukraine’s general staff will also be using the current assault to gather active intelligence on the quality of Russia’s defensive positions as it moves forward.
Updated
Nuclear plant cooling pond 'at risk of collapse' after dam destruction
The cooling pond at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is in danger of collapse as a result of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and the draining of its reservoir, according to a French nuclear safety organisation.
Without the reservoir on the other side to counteract it, the internal pressure of the water in the cooling pool could breach the dike around it, a report by the Paris-based Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said.
Officials at the Ukrainian nuclear energy corporation, Energoatom, said that any collapse in the dike around the cooling pond would be partial even in a worst case scenario and there would still be sufficient water to keep reactor cores and spent fuel cool, but a loss of the cooling pool would dramatically increase safety concerns over the plant.
Since the collapse of the Kakhovka dam on Tuesday, for which Ukraine, the UN, EU and other world leaders are holding Russia responsible, its reservoir has been draining into the Dnipro river and the Black Sea beyond, and will soon drop below the water intakes used to pump water into an array of spray ponds used to cool the reactor cores.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi said:
It is vital that this cooling pond remains intact. Nothing must be done to potentially undermine its integrity.
Karine Herviou, the IRSN’s deputy director general for nuclear safety, said that because all six reactors at the Zaporizhzhia plant had been shut down some months ago as a result of fighting in the area, the plant’s cooling needs are limited and could be met by other means.
“If the dyke is destroyed as a result of the water pressure, there are other means to replenish the spray ponds, like pump trucks bringing water from the Dnipro or other water basin located nearby,” Herviou told the Guardian.
The president of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said today that the current water supply at Zaporizhzhia is enough “to keep the nuclear power plant in a safe mode of operation” but he warned of the threat of Russian sabotage.
“The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is heavily mined - both the interior and the access roads to it,” he said. “We currently have no information about whether the Russians have mined the plant’s equipment. This will become known after the plant is liberated.”
Updated
The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh has tweeted from the village of Bilozerka, west of Kherson, where two dozen houses were underwater.
Today we were in the village of Bilozerka, west of Kherson, where two dozen houses were underwater. It took 24 hours for the flood to come, when it did some were inundated within an hour and a half. A lifetime of possessions lost, many pets and animals too pic.twitter.com/wUf8lu7iKa
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) June 8, 2023
The World Health Organization has rushed emergency supplies to flood-hit parts of Ukraine and are preparing to respond to an array of health risks including trauma, drowning and waterborne diseases such as cholera, officials said on Thursday.
Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for the bursting of the Soviet-era Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which sent waters cascading across the war zone of southern Ukraine in the early hours of Tuesday, forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes.
Reuters reports:
“The impact of the region’s water supply sanitation systems and public health services cannot be underestimated,” the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a press briefing.
“The WHO has rushed in to support the authorities and health care workers in preventive measures against waterborne diseases and to improve disease surveillance.”
Asked specifically about cholera, WHO technical officer Teresa Zakaria said that the risk of an outbreak was present since the pathogen exists in the environment.
She said that the WHO was working with Ukraine’s health ministry to put mechanisms in place to ensure that vaccines can be imported if needed.
“We are trying to address quite a wide range of health risks actually associated with the floods, starting from trauma to drowning, to waterborne diseases but also all the way to the potential implications of disruption to chronic treatment,” she added.
The huge Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River separates Russian and Ukrainian forces and people have been affected on both sides of its banks. WHO’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, said the WHO has offered assistance to Russian-controlled areas but that its operational presence was “primarily” on the Ukrainian side.
He said Russian authorities had given them assurances that people living in areas it occupies were being “well monitored, well cared for, well fed [and] well supported”.
“We will be delighted to be able to access those areas and be able to monitor health as we would in most situations wish to do,” he said, adding it would be for the Ukrainian and Russian authorities to agree how that could be achieved.
Updated
Ukraine could lose several million tons of crops because of flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the south of the country, the Ukrainian agriculture ministry said on Thursday.
“Without a source of water supply, it is impossible to grow vegetables. Grain and oilseeds will be grown using an extensive model with low yields,” the ministry said in a statement, Reuters reports.
The ministry said the dam’s destruction would flood tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land in southern Ukraine and could turn at least 500,000 hectares of land left without irrigation into “deserts”.
The ministry said the flooded land would require a full agro-ecological assessment of the soil condition and in most cases special soil restoration methods would need to be applied.
It said vegetables, melons, grains and oilseeds were the main products which were grown on the affected land.
Ukraine is a major global grain and oilseeds grower and exporter. The destruction of the dam on Tuesday, which Ukraine and Russia blame on each other, has also made it impossible to navigate parts of the Dnipro River and deprived Kyiv of an important agricultural export route, shipping authorities said.
The agriculture minister, Mykola Solsky, also said the farm sector’s losses could be much higher than previously expected because the disaster inflicted “years” of damage on irrigation.
Updated
Drone footage shows the extent of flooding after the Ukraine dam collapse.
Russia accused of shelling civilians during flood evacuations
Russian shelling killed a civilian in the Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday as people were being evacuated because of flooding caused by the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, Ukraine‘s prosecutor general claimed.
The prosecutor general’s office said two other people were wounded in the incident and that four were hurt in a separate location, and that a war crimes investigation had been opened.
“Due to targeted strikes by the occupiers during evacuation measures in the city, a civilian died,” it said in a statement, Reuters reports.
The interior ministry said eight people had been wounded during Russian strikes on Kherson but mentioned no deaths. The ministry said the Russian shelling had begun “precisely during the evacuation of citizens whose homes were flooded”.
Updated
Ukraine: enemy 'actively on the defensive' in Orikhiv area of Zaporizhzhia
Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has said that Russia is “actively on the defensive” in the Orikhiv area of Zaporizhzhia region, a possible confirmation that Ukraine is attacking in that direction.
In an update on Telegram she said:
In the east, our troops are active in the Bakhmut direction. Fighting continues. In some places, the enemy tries to go on the offensive, but without success … in the Zaporizhzhia direction in the Orikhiv area, the enemy is actively on the defensive.
Russian military bloggers on Telegram today have been posting about activity in the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu is quoted by Tass as saying an attack has been repulsed. [See 13.59 BST]
Tass quotes him saying:
Today at 1.30am in the Zaporizhzhia direction, the enemy attempted to break through our defences with the forces of the 47th mechanised brigade, numbering up to 1,500 people and 150 armoured vehicles.
The Tass report goes on to say that Shoigu claimed “as a result of a two-hour battle, the armed forces of Ukraine lost 30 tanks, 11 infantry fighting vehicles, and up to 350 personnel. Thus, the enemy’s specially trained reserve forces for the implementation of this breakthrough did not fulfil their task.”
Speaking of the Russian defence minister, our central and eastern Europe correspondent Shaun Walker has this report:
The investigations team of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has released a new video in which it claims to have found a son of Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu, whose name was previously not known to the public. Over the past year, Shoigu’s alleged son has been making cheesy pop songs in English while his father is sending tens of thousands of Russians to war in Ukraine.
Previously, Shoigu was known to have two daughters, but Navalny’s team say the defence minister had a secret second family in the early 2000s, and obtained documents it claimed showed his mistress had received a vast, lavish property despite a modest official salary.
Navalny’s team claimed 22-year-old Danila Shebunov was one of three children from Shoigu’s second, secret, relationship, and said he also owned prime real estate in central Moscow. These properties allegedly bring Shebunov a sizeable income from rent, and were allegedly obtained thanks to his father’s connections. Shebunov, who goes by the name Sheba Singer, has a rich social media presence, although few followers, and recently has produced a steady output of pop songs and lifestyle videos, usually in English and often involving him undressing.
Maria Pevchikh of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, who presented the video investigation, asked ironically why it was that Shebunov was producing this kind of output rather than suffering in a trench in Ukraine along with thousands of Russian soldiers his age.
Это приманка, чтобы вы прямо сейчас пошли смотреть расследование про сына Шойгу. Разбираемся, чем занимается элитный сынуля во время войны https://t.co/0ngqeG1VhS pic.twitter.com/ovgrWBxAz0
— Maria Pevchikh (@pevchikh) June 8, 2023
For years, Navalny’s team has made videos it says expose corruption and hypocrisy in Putin’s elite. The latest video, 19 minutes long, had clocked up more than 100,000 views on YouTube within an hour of being posted. Neither Shoigu nor Shebunov have yet commented on the video.
Updated
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Thursday that his forces had repelled overnight attempts by Ukrainian forces to break through the frontline in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Shoigu was cited by the Interfax news agency as saying that four separate Ukrainian attacks along the front had been halted and that Kyiv’s forces had been forced to retreat “with heavy losses”.
These claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
At least three people were wounded in Russian shelling of the Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday as people were being evacuated because of flooding caused by the collapse of the nearby Kakhovka dam, police said.
Ukraine’s interior ministry said in a statement:
The shelling began precisely during the evacuation of citizens whose homes were flooded.
It reiterated accusations that Russia had abandoned people in territory it occupied in the Kherson region, adding:
And it continues to prevent Ukraine from saving the most valuable – human lives.
Updated
The Russian embassy has said the responsibility for the “unfolding tragedy” in Kherson due to the destruction of the Kakhovka dam lies with Kyiv and western countries who have supplied Ukraine with weapons, in what they describe as a “terrorist plot”.
In a statement, permanent representative Vassily Nebenzia at the UN security council (UNSC) briefing on the situation around the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant said:
On the night of 5 June to 6 [June], the Kyiv regime committed an unthinkable crime. They blasted the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, which resulted in an uncontrolled release of water downstream of the Dnipro River.
Feeling its total impunity and being encouraged by western sponsors, the Kyiv regime decided to fulfil this terrorist plot this time.
The responsibility for this unfolding tragedy fully rests with the Kyiv regime and its western masters who pump up Ukraine with weapons.
Updated
The water level at a reservoir in southern Ukraine is approaching a dangerous low after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, the state company overseeing the facility said on Thursday, which could affect the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
Moscow and Kyiv blamed one another for the collapse of the dam on Tuesday, which unleashed water from the Dnipro River into a wide area of the Kherson region, Reuters reports.
Ihor Syrota, general director of the energy company Ukrhydroenergo, told Ukrainian television that a drop below the current water level at the Kakhovka reservoir could affect the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station and water supply to other regions.
He said:
We are reaching this dead zone, which is 12.70 (meters), after which there will be not be any water intake either for the cooling ponds at the Zaporizhzhia station … or. … for all regions.”
Ukraine’s nuclear energy company said on Thursday the situation was “stable and under control” at the Zaporizhzhia plant on Thursday morning. Syrota added that Ukrhydroenergo was ready to work on an overlay across the damaged hydroelectric station and dam as soon as Russian forces left the eastern side of the Dnipro, and that it would take about two months to complete.
Britain has announced a new sanctions package against Belarus on Thursday for its role in facilitating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including import bans and new measures aimed at preventing internet propaganda.
Belarus, led by president Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, is Russia’s staunchest ally among ex-Soviet states and allowed its territory to be used to launch the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Last month Russia moved ahead with a decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.
James Cleverly, the British foreign secretary, said in a statement:
This new package ratchets up the economic pressure on Lukashenko and his regime which actively facilitates the Russian war effort and ignores Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
The new package includes banning the import of gold, cement, wood and rubber from Belarus and blocking exports to Belarus from Britain of banknotes and machinery, as well as goods, technologies and materials that could be used to produce chemical and biological weapons.
Britain said it would also be able to prevent designated Belarusian media companies from “spreading propaganda in the UK” with social media companies and internet service providers restricting access to the websites of sanctioned Belarusian media organisations.
Flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine has forced Russian troops to retreat by distances of five to 15km (three to nine miles) in the Kherson region, a military spokesperson said.
Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, told Ukrainian television the redeployment had “practically halved” Russian shelling in the region, Reuters reports.
Russia has not yet commented.
The Russian-installed governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said on Thursday that Ukraine had shelled an evacuation point for civilians affected by the Kakhovka dam breach in the town of Hola Prystan, killing two people, Reuters reports.
Updated
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said in a statement posted on Telegram that two settlements in the region had been attacked by drones.
Belgorod, which borders Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, has come under repeated attack from Kyiv’s forces in recent weeks.
These claims have not been independently verified.
More information to come …
The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked the staff at one of Kherson’s hospitals for their work in helping people affected by the explosion at the Nova Kakhovka dam during a visit.
In a tweet, he described medics as “heroic people” and wished patients good health.
У пункті евакуації на базі одного з медзакладів Херсона поспілкувався з нашими людьми, які постраждали внаслідок руйнування Каховської ГЕС.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 8, 2023
Ми допоможемо, і все, що треба відновити, ми відбудуємо. Дякую вам і бажаю здоров’я.
Хочу подякувати всьому персоналу медзакладу за роботу… pic.twitter.com/8omzH8pVzy
The Kremlin on Thursday accused Ukraine of shelling Russian rescue workers in the area flooded after the huge Kakhovka dam in Ukraine’s Kherson region was breached earlier this week.
It did not provide any immediate evidence for its assertion.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also said that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, did not currently have any plans to visit the disaster area.
Updated
Here are some more images that have been sent to us over the news wires, showing the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visiting people at a hospital that is being used as one of Kherson’s evacuation points.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the Kherson region that has been impacted by flooding after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam. In a post to Telegram, Ukraine’s president said the main issues discussed during the visit were “the operational situation in the region as a result of the disaster, evacuation of the population from potential flood zones, elimination of the emergency caused by the dam explosion, organisation of life support for the flooded areas”.
In an address on Wednesday evening, Zelenskiy said it was impossible to predict how many people would die in Russian-occupied parts of Kherson due to the flooding, urging a “clear and rapid reaction from the world” to support victims. He also severely criticised the UN and the Red Cross who he said were not helping the relief effort. “Our military and special services are rescuing people as much as it is possible, despite the shelling. But large-scale efforts are needed,” he said. “We need international organisations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, to immediately join the rescue operation and help people in the occupied part of Kherson region.
About 230 square miles (600 sq km) of the Kherson region was under water on Thursday, the regional governor said. Oleksandr Prokudin said 68% of the flooded territory was on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River. The average level of flooding in the Kherson region on Thursday morning was 5.61m (18.41ft), he said. He said almost 2,000 people had left flooded territory as of Thursday morning.
Five people have died due to flooding after the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station according to the Russian-imposed mayor of occupied Nova Kakhovka, the nearest settlement to the dam. Russian media has claimed that over 14,000 houses were flooded, and almost 4,300 people were evacuated in occupied Kherson, but the claims have not been independently verified.
Volodymyr Litvinov, the head of the Beryslav district administration in Kherson region, reported that there was a risk of flooding further inland, due to rising level of the Inhulets River, which feeds into the Dnipro.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that it will strengthen its presence at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant amid concerns over water supplies for cooling the plant’s reactors.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass reported that “missiles flew over Luhansk, several explosions were heard in the city”.
The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has issued a new statement about the situation with shelters in Ukraine’s capital, saying that the city’s council will warn the owners of private premises with shelters that if they are not properly maintained, or people are not admitted during an air raid, these premises may be seized from them. It follows the deaths last week of three people who were unable to get into a locked shelter and were then hit by falling debris from a Russian missile attack.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, had a telephone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, during which he briefed Putin on the forthcoming African leaders’ peace mission to Russia and Ukraine, the South African presidency said.
The US president, Joe Biden, is to welcome the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, for wide-ranging talks on Thursday as the British leader makes his first White House visit as premier. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the 15-Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “top of mind”.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Mabel Banfield-Nwachi will be here shortly to take you through the next few hours of our live coverage.
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Russian Industry and Trade minister Denis Manturov said on Thursday that Moscow has no access to the damaged part of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline, and does not expect to be granted it, the Interfax news agency reported.
Russia has made the restart of the pipeline, which before the war carried ammonia from Russia to Ukraine for export, central to future renewal of a deal allowing Ukraine to export its grain safely from its Black Sea ports.
Reuters reports that both Russia and Ukraine this week claimed there was damage to a section of the pipeline that runs through the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. The two sides have blamed each other.
The water level in the North Crimean Canal, which carries water from the Kakhovka reservoir behind the breached Kakhovka dam to the Crimean peninsula, remains stable, Reuters reports the Russian-imposed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Thursday.
Crimea relies heavily on water transported by the canal. After Moscow seized the peninsula in 2014, claiming to have annexed it, Kyiv blocked the canal.
Dam flood water uprooting and dispersing mines, Red Cross warns
Mines uprooted and dispersed by flood waters surging downstream from the breached Kakhovka dam across swathes of southern Ukraine could pose a grave danger to civilians for decades to come, the Red Cross said.
“In the past we knew where the hazards were. Now we don’t know. All we know is that they are somewhere downstream,” said Erik Tollefsen, head of the Weapon Contamination Unit at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“It is with a certain horror that we look at the news coming out,” Reuters reports Tollefsen said in an audio clip, adding that the second world war mines found underwater in Denmark in 2015 were still active.
Besides anti-personnel mines, both sides have used vast amounts of artillery shells and anti-tank mines. The exact number of mines in Ukraine is unclear, said Tollefsen. “We just know the numbers are massive,” said Tollefsen.
Tollefsen said the issue with mines was not necessarily the nominal number of mines but where they were laid – especially in a heavily agricultural country such as Ukraine.
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Here are some of the first images to be released of Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kherson. They show Ukraine’s president touring the flooded area and speaking to Ihor Klymenko, the head of the national police.
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Volodymyr Litvinov, the head of the Beryslav district administration in Kherson region, reports that there is a risk of flooding further inland, due to rising level of the Inhulets River. He has posted to Telegram:
In connection with the explosion of the Kakhovskaya HPP dam, there was an uncontrolled flow of water from the Dnipro River downstream.
There is a rise in the water level in the Inhulets River, which flows into the Dnipro.
Listing several villages near Kalynivske, which is about 22 miles (35km) from the Dnipro, Litvinov warned: “Due to the flooding of the bridge, it is not possible to travel to the village of Zapovit. The water is getting close to the homes of residents.”
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Here are some images that have been sent to us over the news wires from occupied Ukraine, showing the impact of flooding in Nova Kakhovka, where the local Russian-imposed official has said five people have died.
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Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has posted to Twitter video footage released by Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office of his meeting in Kherson.
Разом з Президентом @ZelenskyyUa та командою перебуваємо на Херсонщині.
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) June 8, 2023
Проведена координаційна нарада щодо ліквідації наслідків підриву греблі Каховської ГЕС. pic.twitter.com/XruHPMHnli
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If you wanted something to listen to, today our Today in Focus podcast features my colleague Dan Sabbagh on the ground in Kherson talking about the aftermath of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. You can listen to it here.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy vists Kherson after destruction of dam
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the Kherson region that has been impacted by flooding after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
Three people are known to have died on the Ukraine-controlled bank of the Dnipro River, while occupying authorities on the left-bank have said at least five people were killed.
Ukraine’s regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, has said about 230 sq miles (600 sq km) of the region is under water, and that Ukraine has so far evacuated almost 2,000 people.
In a post to Telegram, Ukraine’s president wrote:
Working trip to Kherson region. A coordination meeting on the liquidation of consequences of the Kakhovka HPP dam explosion.
Many important issues were discussed. The operational situation in the region as a result of the disaster, evacuation of the population from potential flood zones, elimination of the emergency caused by the dam explosion, organization of life support for the flooded areas. Also, the prospects for restoring the region’s ecosystem and the operational military situation in the man-made disaster area.
It is important to calculate the damage and allocate funds to compensate residents affected by the disaster and develop a programme to compensate for losses or relocate businesses within the Kherson region.
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Five dead due to flooding in occupied Nova Kakhovka – reports
Five people have died due to flooding after the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, Tass reports, citing the Russian-imposed mayor of occupied Nova Kakhovka, the nearest settlement to the dam.
The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has issued a new statement about the situation with shelters in Ukraine’s capital. He has been under pressure after people were killed when they were unable to get into a shelter. On Telegram, Klitschko wrote:
Today, the Kyiv city council has to adopt a comprehensive draft decision concerning shelters. In particular, to warn the owners of private premises that if they are not properly maintained or people are not admitted during the air raid, these premises may be seized from them.
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About 230 square miles (600 sq km) of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine was under water on Thursday after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, the regional governor said.
Oleksandr Prokudin said 68% of the flooded territory was on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnipro River. The average level of flooding in the Kherson region on Thursday morning was 5.61m (18.41ft), he said.
“We’re already working. We will help everyone that has ended up in trouble,” Reuters reports he said in a video statement of the flooding, caused by the collapse of the dam.
“Despite the immense danger and constant Russian shelling, evacuation from zones of flooding is continuing,” Prokudin said.
He said almost 2,000 people had left flooded territory as of Thursday morning.
Russian media reports that almost 4,300 people have been evacuated in the occupied area of Kherson.
The claims have not been independently verified.
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Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, citing the regional authority head of Kherson, reports that as of this morning “almost 2,000 people have been evacuated from the flooded zone” in the Ukraine-controlled right bank of the Dnipro River.
The left bank of the Dnipro and southern portion of Kherson is occupied by Russia.
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Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass has reported that “missiles flew over Luhansk, several explosions were heard in the city”.
The occupied city is the largest in the Luhansk region, one of four Ukrainian regions the Russian Federation claimed to have annexed in late 2022.
More details soon …
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South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, had a telephone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, during which he briefed Putin on the forthcoming African leaders’ peace mission to Russia and Ukraine, the South African presidency said on Thursday.
Putin expressed his desire to receive the peace mission, Reuters reports the presidency statement said.
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Maxar has supplied these satellite images of the Nova Kakhovka dam. The first was taken on 5 June.
The second shows the condition of the dam yesterday, on 7 June.
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14,000 homes flooded, almost 4,300 people evacuated in Russian-occupied Kherson
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass, citing emergency services in the occupied southern portion of Ukraine’s Kherson region, has said up to 14,000 homes have been flooded and nearly 4,300 people evacuated.
In a status update on Telegram, Tass reported:
Over 14,000 houses were flooded after the breakthrough of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, and almost 4,300 people were evacuated, emergency services report.
Twenty-three people were seen by doctors of which 21 were hospitalised, medical services reported.
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Our First Edition morning newsletter today features my colleague Esther Addley talking to our defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh, who is in Kherson. Here is an extract:
“This is a huge crisis,” said Dan Sabbagh, adding that there is “something elemental” about the scale of the flooding. “It’s just a massive river. We don’t know where the river boundary will end up. We don’t know what the new landscape will look like.”
The water was still rising, though more slowly than before, when Dan spoke to me yesterday from central Kherson. He was standing at a crossroads that ordinarily would be hundreds of metres from the riverbank; instead, he said, the kerb had become “quite a busy little port” as rescue boats came and went.
For eight months last year, Kherson was occupied by Russian forces; parts of it have been heavily damaged by shelling and many people had already left the city by the time the floods hit. “Younger people tend to get out as fast as they can,” said Dan. “The residents who have stayed on are mostly older, and have point blank refused to go.”
For many of those who remained, though, the flooding has forced them out of the homes they resolutely refused to quit. As we spoke, Dan described an inflatable dinghy arriving, carrying a woman in her 70s and an older man who was unable to walk, who had been rescued along with “the obligatory dog”. A basket of five brown cats had been brought in a little earlier; in the background a dog was barking.
“There are a lot of abandoned pets – you see them everywhere. It’s just a feature of a war zone.”
Read more here: Thursday briefing – The Kherson dam disaster has left thousands of Ukrainians adrift, and that’s just the start
You can sign up for our free daily newsletter First Edition.
The British ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, has this morning insisted that, in the wake of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, the war is not regarded as a conflict between neighbours. She tweeted:
There is no equivalence in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s not a “conflict” between neighbours. It is an illegal invasion by Russia. Whose efforts have gone beyond stealing Ukrainian land to destroying it and the Ukrainian people who live peacefully on it.
There is no equivalence in the 🇷🇺 invasion of #Ukraine. It’s not a “conflict” between neighbours. It is an illegal invasion by 🇷🇺. Whose efforts have gone beyond stealing 🇺🇦 land to destroying it and 🇺🇦 people who live peacefully on it.
— Dame Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) June 8, 2023
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
The Associated Press reports that Sunak is also looking to make the case to Biden for UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace to succeed outgoing Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who is set to end his term leading the 31-member alliance in September.
Stoltenberg is slated to meet with Biden in Washington on Monday, and leaders from the alliance are set to gather in Lithuania on 11-12 July for their annual summit.
Ukraine to be 'top of mind' when Biden and Sunak meet
President Joe Biden is welcoming Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for wide-ranging talks on Thursday as the British leader makes his first White House visit as premier.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the 15-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine will be “top of mind”, the Associated Press reports. The US and UK are the two biggest donors to the Ukraine war effort and play a central role in a long-term effort announced last month to train, and eventually equip, Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.
“The two leaders will review a range of global issues including our economic partnership or shared support of Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s war of aggression, as well as further action to accelerate the clean energy transition,” Jean-Pierre said.
“The president and the prime minister will also discuss the joint US-UK leadership on critical emerging technologies as well as our work to strengthen our economic security.”
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In an address on Wednesday evening, Zelenskiy said it was impossible to predict how many people would die in Russian-occupied parts of Kherson due to the flooding, urging a “clear and rapid reaction from the world” to support victims.
He also severely criticised the UN and the Red Cross who he said were not helping the relief effort.
“Our military and special services are rescuing people as much as it is possible, despite the shelling. But large-scale efforts are needed,” he said. “We need international organisations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, to immediately join the rescue operation and help people in the occupied part of Kherson region.
That update from the International Atomic Energy explains that while all six of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plan’t reactors are “in shutdown mode” cooling water is still needed “to prevent fuel melt and a possible release of radioactive material”.
UN nuclear watchdog to strengthen presence at Zaporizhzhia plant
The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that it will strengthen its presence at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant amid concerns over water supplies for cooling the plant’s reactors.
“In view of the IAEA’s intensifying activities under the newly established principles, he will also strengthen the IAEA’s presence at the site, replacing the current team with a larger group travelling with him across the frontline,” the IAEA announced in an update on Wednesday.
It quoted Director General Grossi as saying, “The possible loss of the plant’s main source of cooling water further complicates an already extremely difficult and challenging nuclear safety and security situation”.
The update outlines threats to the water supply for ponds that feed cool the plant’s nuclear reactors. The agency said that it was working to ensure that there was as much cooling water in reserve as possible in the event that it could no longer access the Kakhovka reservoir. The reservoir’s water levels were continuing to drop, the agency said.
It explained that the reservoir’s water levels had already fallen by 2.8 metres since Tuesday, but that the hourly rate of loss had slowed to “ between 5 and 7 centimetres per hour from a peak of around 11 cm/hour yesterday”.
“If the level falls below 12.7 metres, the ZNPP will no longer be able to pump water from the reservoir to the site.” it said, adding that this level could be reached in two days.
“Preparing for such a possibility, the ZNPP is continuously replenishing its water reserves – including the large cooling pond next to the plant as well as its smaller sprinkler cooling ponds and the adjacent channels – by fully utilising the water of the Kakhovka reservoir while this still remains possible.”
Three die in flooding
Three people have died as a result of flooding from the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, local media have reported, in what would be the first confirmed deaths, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy voiced fears for the lives of Ukrainians in Russian-held areas hit by the disaster.
Citing the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, Yevhen Ryshchuk, the Kyiv Independent reported that “three people drowned” in the Kherson region.
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Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
At least three people have been confirmed dead as a result of flooding from the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, Ukrainian media outlets reported on Wednesday, citing the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in Kherson region.
And the International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that it will strengthen its presence at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant amid concerns over water supplies for cooling the plant’s reactors.
More on these stories shortly. Here are the other key recent developments:
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address that it was impossible to predict how many people would die in Russian-occupied areas due to the flooding, urging a “clear and rapid reaction from the world” to support victims. “The situation in occupied parts of the Kherson region is absolutely catastrophic. The occupiers are simply abandoning people in frightful conditions. No help, without water, left on the roofs of houses in submerged communities,” he said. “If an international organisation is not present in the disaster zone, it means it does not exist at all or is incapable.”
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been left “without normal access to drinking water” after the destruction, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned. The Ukrainian leader said the evacuation of people and the urgent provision of drinking water were top priorities.
The World Bank will support Ukraine by conducting a rapid assessment of damages and needs, a top bank official said on Wednesday. Anna Bjerde, the World Bank’s managing director for operations, said the destruction of the Novo Kakhovka dam had “many very serious consequences for essential service delivery and the broader environment.”
Drone footage showed roads and buildings in Kherson completely submerged by flood water. The critical dam, which lies along the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s Kherson region – now held by Russia – collapsed on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the war’s frontline.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told Putin in a phone call on Wednesday that a comprehensive investigation was needed into the destruction of the dam. Erdoğan told Putin that an international commission that includes the UN and Turkey could be formed to look into the issue, a statement from the Turkish president’s office said.
Britain cannot yet say Russia is responsible for the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, prime minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday. Asked during a visit to the US whether Russia was responsible, Sunak said: “I can’t say that definitively yet” but that “if true it will represent a new low. It’s an appalling act of barbarism on Russia’s part.”
The US “cannot say conclusively” who was responsible for the destruction of the dam, national security council spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday. “We’re doing the best we can to assess”, he told reporters at the White House, noting “destruction of civilian infrastructure is not allowed by the laws of war”.
France will send aid to Ukraine “to meet immediate needs” after the destruction of the dam, President Emmanuel Macron has said. Macron said he expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine in the aftermath of what he described as an “atrocious act which is endangering populations”.
A top Moscow-backed official in a part of Ukraine controlled by Russia has said that the collapse of the dam has handed the Russian military a tactical advantage. Vladimir Saldo said he believed Kyiv was to blame for the disaster but that the dam’s destruction and resulting flood waters would make it easier for Russia to defend against any Ukrainian counter-offensive in the area.
Relief workers on the Ukraine-controlled right bank of the river have reported having to work under fire. The UN’s humanitarian aid agency warned the disaster “will likely get worse in the coming hours”, with access to drinking water and health risks associated with contaminated water among the most pressing concerns.
Ukraine has not yet launched a planned counteroffensive to win back territory occupied by Russia, a senior Ukrainian security official said on Wednesday. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, dismissed statements by Russian officials who have said the counteroffensive has already begun, adding that its start will be obvious to everyone when it happens.
Russia’s defence ministry has said “Ukrainian saboteurs” had blown up a section of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline on Monday, which carries fertiliser from Russia to Ukraine in Kharkiv region. There was no immediate comment on the allegations from Ukraine.
A group of Nato countries may be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine if member states do not provide tangible security guarantees to Kyiv at the alliances’s summit in Vilnius, the former Nato secretary general Anders Rasmussen has said. Current Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance must discuss options for giving Ukraine security assurances for the time after its war with Russia.
