The Russian-occupied town across the river from the city of Kherson had a prewar population of 24,000. The latest disaster in the region began Tuesday, when the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) upstream from the town of Oleshky, collapsed, sending torrents of water down the Dnieper and across the war’s front lines. Russian President Vladimir Putin “has no plans at the current moment” to visit affected Moscow-occupied areas, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the area to assess the damage. Authorities there have aggressively evacuated civilians and brought in emergency supplies. It’s a sharp contrast to Ukrainian-controlled territory flooded by the dam collapse. The AP could not independently verify reports of boat seizures or that only Russians were being evacuated, but the account is in line with reporting by independent Russian media. Her grandmother, aunt and more than a dozen other people are taking shelter in the attic of a two-story house.ĭetails of life in Russian-occupied Ukraine are often unclear. “My relatives said that Russian soldiers were coming up to the house today by boat, but they said they would only take those with Russian passports,” she told The Associated Press. Viktoria Mironova-Baka said she has been in touch from Germany with relatives stuck in the flooded region. Others have been turned away from rescue. “They are afraid of saboteurs, they suspect everyone.” “Russian soldiers are standing at the checkpoints, preventing (rescuers) from approaching the most-affected areas and taking away the boats,” said one volunteer, Yaroslav Vasiliev. Some say the soldiers will only help people with Russian passports. Lucky for her and her family, they were Ukrainian.Īccording to those stranded and their desperate Ukrainian rescuers, Russian forces are taking rescuers’ boats. “We were scared, we were trying to understand, ‘Who’s approaching us? Are they Russian or not?’ We raised a flag,” Shkrygalova said. That way, they survived in the war zone until Shkrygalova, 60, spotted a group of people in a boat and raised yellow, white and pink fabrics to get their attention. Her family began using their boat to scavenge for food, and find houses on higher ground with dry places to sleep. Water climbed waist-high on the second floor of Shkrygalova’s two-storey house.
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