What happened in the last few hours
These are the big news stories of the war as of 12:00 this Tuesday, on the 468th day since the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying a strategic dam on the Dnieper to halt the counter-offensive. The Nova Kajovka dam collapsed on Tuesday morning. The Ukrainian government assures that a detonation destroyed a sector of the containment dam of one of the most important reservoirs on the Dnieper River. Nova Kajovka, located in the southeast of the country, is a city occupied by Russia, in a sector of the front where the Dnieper marks the demarcation line between the two armies. Kiev has accused Russia of blowing up the dam to stop the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The Russian version is that the infrastructure was broken after being attacked by Ukrainian artillery. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian troops blew up the dam “from the inside”.
About 80 cities at risk of flooding, according to the Ukrainian prime minister. Up to 80 cities are at risk of flooding due to the destruction of the Kajovka Dam, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denís Shmihal said. Up to 22,000 people live in the potentially flooded area, according to Russian-imposed authorities in the province. Kherson’s military administration said at least a dozen cities were at risk of flooding following the destruction of the Dnieper River dam, including the provincial capital of Kherson, which was recaptured by Ukrainian troops last fall.
kyiv says that the destruction of the dam does not pose a threat to the country’s energy stability. The destruction of the Kajovka hydroelectric power plant dam poses no direct threat to the country’s electricity supply, the Energy Ministry said on Tuesday. “The explosion does not directly affect the situation of the country’s energy system. There are no threats to the stability of the electricity supply”, explained the ministry in a statement, in which it added: “The production of electricity is sufficient to cover the needs of consumers”.
Stoltenberg, on the destruction of the dam: “It demonstrates the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general, said the destruction of the Nova Kajovka dam shows the brutality of Russia’s war against the European country. “The destruction of the Kajovka dam today puts thousands of civilians at risk and causes serious environmental damage,” Stoltenberg wrote in a message on the social network Twitter. “This is a horrific act that once again demonstrates the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine,” he added.
Ukraine intercepts 35 missiles launched by Russia in a new night bombing of Kyiv. The Ukrainian Air Force said it intercepted 35 cruise missiles in the country’s airspace at dawn, all launched by Russia against Ukrainian territory in a new air offensive on the capital and other regions of the country. “On the night of June 6, 2023, between 00:30 and 04:00, the occupiers launched airstrikes against Ukraine with Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles,” the Air Force report read. . According to the source, the six Russian warplanes that launched the attack fired those rockets from the Caspian Sea region.
Russia raises radioactive dirty bomb threat with start of Ukrainian offensive. The danger of a dirty bomb (a conventional explosive surrounded by radioactive material) looms on the horizon just as Ukraine has begun its counteroffensive. The Kremlin had already accused Kiev in the fall of last year of preparing such an attack, just as Moscow’s troops were retreating to the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. And now, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has pressed that argument once again with the publication of a series of interrogations of some allegedly captured plane pilots last year.