President Zelensky personally goes to the field; Russia denounces Ukraine in the Court of Justice

Continue to update developments on the Kakhovka dam collapse in Kherson, southern Ukraine, as President Volodymyr Zelensky personally arrives at the scene to find a solution, while Moscow and Kiev take each other to the Court of Justice over the incident.

Vụ vỡ đập Kakhovka: Tổng thống Zelensky thân chinh đến thực địa; Nga tố cáo Ukraine ở Tòa công lý. (Nguồn: DPA)

President Zelensky (second from left) inspects the southern Kherson region to find a solution to the Kakhovka dam collapse. (Source: DPA)

On June 8, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had visited the flooded southern region of the city of Kherson and discussed the situation after the Kakhovka dam collapse.

Posting on Telegram , Mr. Zelensky wrote: "We discussed many important issues such as the actual situation in the disaster area, evacuation of people from flood-risk areas, lifting the state of emergency after the dam break, organizing support activities in the flood area..., prospects for restoring the region's ecosystem and the military situation in the disaster area."

On the same day, Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said that about 600 ^square kilometers of Kherson province were under water, of which 68% was on the left bank of the Dnipro River controlled by Russia, and the remaining 32% was on the west bank. As of the morning of June 8, the average water level was up to 5.61 meters.

Evacuation of people from flooded areas continues despite fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Previously, during an inspection trip on the Dnipro River on June 7, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov warned of the consequences of mine explosions, epidemics and the spread of toxic chemicals after the collapse of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam.

According to him, the dam disaster affected more than 80 residential areas. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated people from at least 24 flooded residential areas.

In Kherson, residents have set up temporary boat landings for police, rescue workers and volunteers to get around.

Ukraine has now allocated 120 million hryvnia ($3.25 million) to ensure water supplies in Mykolaiv and 1.5 billion hryvnia has been prepared for rebuilding the water supply system devastated by floods.

The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnipro River, in the Russian-controlled part of Kherson province, collapsed on June 6, causing water in the reservoir to overflow downstream, submerging many residential areas, villages and some urban areas along the river.

Both Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the dam collapse, calling for an international investigation.

On the same day, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague (Netherlands), rejecting Ukraine's accusations that Russia was responsible for the dam collapse, Moscow accused Kiev of "not only conducting large-scale shelling of the dam on the night of June 6, but also intentionally raising the water level of the Kakhovka reservoir to a dangerous level."

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