A hydraulic structure damaged by Russian missile strike near Kryvyi Rih
(Picture: via REUTERS)Residents have been ordered to evacuate after a dam was destroyed as cruise missiles hit Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town of Kryvyi Rih.
Officials said more than 100 houses were flooded after the Russian missiles hit the major reservoir dam by the central Ukranian city.
Ukraine said the strike was revenge by Russia for its recent counter-attack that has taken more than 6,000 square kilometres of territory occupied by Vladimir Putin’s forces.
The Karachunivske reservoir had “no military value” and hundreds of thousands of civilians depend on it daily, Mr Zelensky said.
He described Russia as a “terrorist state” following the attack which he said appeared to be an attempt to flood the city.
“You are weaklings who fight civilians,” Mr Zelensky said in his late night address on Wednesday. “Scoundrels who, having escaped from the battlefield, are trying to do harm from somewhere far away.”
Ukraine is concerned that Russia will continue to target Ukraine’s infrastructure in retribution for its success in regaining occupied territory.
Russia has claimed throughout the war it is not targeting civilians.
Mr Zelensky, who was born in Kryvyi Rih, on Wednesday made a surprise visit to Izium near Kharkiv in the east of the country, where he watched as the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag was raised in front of the charred city council building.
It had been Russia’s main bastion and logistics hub in the region before it was retaken by Ukraine.
“Our law enforcers are already receiving evidence of murder, torture, and abductions of people by the occupiers,” Zelensky said in his address.
“They only destroyed, only seized, only deported. They left devastated villages, and in some of them there is not a single surviving house,” he added.
Mr Zelensky was later involved in a car crash after returning to Kyiv from the visit.
