3:32 pm: 35 people are missing after Ukraine floods, minister says
Thirty-five people, including seven children, went missing in southern Ukraine on Sunday in the wake of devastating floods that prosecutors called “the worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl.”
The Russian-controlled Kakhovka Dam along the front line in the Kherson region was destroyed on June 6, forcing thousands to flee and raising fears of humanitarian and environmental disasters.
Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the dam on the Dnipro River, while Moscow says Kiev fired on the structure.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said that 77 towns and villages were flooded in the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv. Klimenko said that 35 people are missing in the Kherson region, including seven children.
As a result of the flood, five people died in the Kherson region, and one person died in the Mykolaiv region.
The minister added in a statement that 3,700 people were evacuated from their homes in the two regions.
2:46 pm: Russia’s Defense Ministry says a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter was shot down in the Kherson region
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian forces had shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet in the area Kherson The area, where the breach of the Kakhovka Dam on Tuesday led to major flooding.
The ministry said that Russian forces also repulsed three attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Zaporizhia region.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
2:40 p.m.: The Ukrainian military releases a video showing the liberation of a village in the Donetsk region
A video appeared on the official Facebook page of the 68th Brigade of the Ukrainian Army, purporting to show the liberation of a village in the Donetsk region. This is the first alleged official liberation of a village since this phase of counter-offensive operations began. This marks a turning point in the war, with the Ukrainians now officially declaring that they have recaptured at least one area.
France 24’s Gulliver Cragg tells us more.
1:51 p.m.: Russia repels Ukraine’s attack on a warship in the Black Sea, Defense Ministry says
Russia The Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that Ukraine He made an unsuccessful attempt to attack a ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet that was protecting natural gas pipelines.
The ministry said the ship was monitoring the situation along the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines in the Black Sea.
11:28 am: Potential dialogue with Ukraine has no basis, Kremlin says
The Kremlin said there was no basis for any possible dialogue with Ukraine, but there were no preconditions for possible talks.
There is virtually no precondition for an agreement at the moment. Moreover, there is no basis, even a flimsy one, for any kind of dialogue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Rossiya state television.
10:25 am: Ukraine says Russian forces blew up the dam to prevent the attack
On Sunday, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said that Russian forces blew up the Khakhovka Dam to prevent Ukrainian forces from advancing into the southern Kherson region.
Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam from inside its associated hydroelectric power station. The site has been under Russian occupation since the first weeks of the Russian invasion in February of last year.
Moscow blamed Ukraine for the dam’s destruction. Each side accused the other of bombing civilians while rescue efforts were under way.
“It seems that the explosion of the hydroelectric power station in Kakhovka was carried out with the aim of preventing the Ukrainian Defense Forces from launching an offensive in the Kherson sector,” Malyar said on the Telegram messaging app.
Key developments from Saturday 10 June:
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky He said on Saturday that offensive and defensive counter operations were taking place in Ukraine, while declining to give more details.
The nuclear energy agency Energoatom says it has put the last working reactor at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, into a “cold shutdown” – a precautionary measure amid catastrophic flooding from the collapse of the nearby Kakhovka Dam.
Read yesterday’s live blog to see how today’s events unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, The Associated Press and Reuters)
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