Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday urged international humanitarian organizations to immediately join rescue efforts for people affected by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, in Russian-occupied territory.
“We need international organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross to immediately join rescue efforts and help people in the occupied part of the Kherson region”underlined the Ukrainian head of state in his usual daily evening speech on the Telegram social network.
Zelensky stressed that the Ukrainian army and special services are “rescuing as many people as possible despite the bombings”.
“But large-scale efforts are needed”orphan.
“If there is now no international organization in the area of this disaster, it means that it does not exist, that it cannot function”he also warned.
The governor emphasized that too “it is impossible to determine with certainty how many people in the temporarily occupied area of the Kherson region could die without rescue, without clean water, without food, without medical assistance”.
On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of mining and blowing up the dam, blocking the way for a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the southern part of his country.
His Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, said today it was a “barbaric act” to blame on Kiev.
This dam supplies water to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, and is on the route of Ukrainian troops to recapture the occupied territories.
The destruction of the dam caused an abrupt fall of water flows into the flow of the Dnieper River, forcing several thousand people to leave the flooded areas and raising fears of ecological catastrophe.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: DN
