Russia Ukraine war dam attack: Putin’s troops ‘swept away’ in flooding from dam collapse, says Kyiv

A military officer in Ukraine’s armed forces said that Ukrainian troops witnessed Russian soldiers being swept up in flood waters after the Nova Khakovka dam burst. Many Russian soldiers were also seen fleeing the east bank of the Dnipro River, Capt Andrei Pidlisnyi told CNN.

The officer said many Russian troops were killed or injured in the aftermath of the dam collapse.

“No one on the Russian side was able to get away. All the regiments the Russians had on that side were flooded,” the armed forces officer told CNN.

It is likely that Russia deliberately attacked the dam to interfere with Ukraine’s plans for the upcoming offensive, he said.

The Russians blew up the hydro power plant to “raise the water level to flood the approaches and the left bank of the Dnipro river, as well as the settlements located there”, he said.

This was also done to “make it impossible” for the Ukrainian armed forces to advance in the region in the future, the official said.

Extensive flooding in southern Ukraine with the region’s Nova Kahkovka dam and hydroelectric station largely destroyed has been captured on satellite images taken yesterday afternoon by Maxar Technologies.

The critical dam, which lies along the Dnipro River in the parts of Ukraine‘s Kherson region now held by Russia, collapsed on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the war zone along the frontline.

Maxar said the images of more than 2,500 square km (965 square miles) between Nova Kakhovka and the Dniprovska Gulf southwest of Kherson city on the Black Sea, showed numerous towns and villages flooded.

“The Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric plant has been largely destroyed and few structures remain,” Maxar said in a statement.

Nearly 42,000 people remain at severe risk from flooding in Russian and Ukrainian controlled areas along the Dnipro River after the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed, as the United Nations aid chief warned of “grave and far-reaching consequences.”

Ukrainian officials estimated about 42,000 people were at risk from the flooding, which is expected to peak today.

The dam breach “will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the front line through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods,” the UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council.

Both nations have blamed each other for the collapse of the massive dam yesterday, which sent floodwaters across a swathe of the war zone and forced thousands to flee.

A Moscow court on Tuesday set the date for a new trial of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny that could keep him in prison for decades.

The Moscow City Court held a preliminary hearing behind closed doors to discuss technical issues related to the trial of the Kremlin‘s arch foe before it begins on June 19.

Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said that the trial will be held at a maximum security prison 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Moscow where Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court.

Destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine would mark a “new low” in the conflict if Russian forces were found to be responsible, prime minister Rishi Sunak has said.

Mr Sunak said the immediate priority was the humanitarian response to the catastrophe, which has flooded villages, endangered vital crops and threatened drinking water supplies.

Speaking to reporters as he travelled to Washington for talks with US president Joe Biden, the British PM said if it was an intentional act to blow up the dam it would be “the largest attack on civilian infrastructure” since the start of Vladimir Putin’s war.

Ukrainians hope events on the battlefield might precipitate the change in Russia that removes Putin. Askold Krshelnycky meets the troops preparing to move out, and hears what they have planned

US Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley said Tuesday that fighting in Ukraine has increased, but he cautioned against reading too much into each day’s operations.

“There’s activity throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine and fighting has picked up a bit,” Milley said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France — the final resting place of almost 9,400 troops who died 79 years ago, during the allied June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion.

Milley said it was up to Ukraine to announce whether its counteroffensive campaign has formally begun, but he said the Ukrainians are ready for this fight. As time goes on, however, he said that the fighting will vary.

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NATO allies should aim to further boost their support for Ukraine and for its aspiration to become a member of the alliance, the leaders of nine Central and Eastern European countries said Tuesday.

The presidents of an informal group known as the Bucharest Nine, the nations in the easternmost parts of the NATO alliance, met in Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, to discuss their common approach at the NATO summit scheduled for July 11–13 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

“We aim for a more robust, multi-year, and comprehensive support package for Ukraine, which will reinforce its defence capabilities also by implementing NATO standards and increasing interoperability with NATO,” they said in a statement to conclude their meeting, which was also attended by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.