The Ukrainian President’s Office says Russian soldiers fired on a lifeboat in the flooded region around Kherson, killing three people. Ten others are said to have been injured by the shelling. “Russians are cowardly terrorists,” said the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, in his blog on the Telegram news channel on Sunday. “They shot the civilians in the back.” The injured made it across the Dnipro River to the city of Cherson, which is controlled by Ukrainian forces.
Most of the Kherson region is occupied by Russian troops. The warring parties have been accusing each other of shelling for days, while after the destruction of the Kachowka dam, helpers there are trying to get residents to dry. The information provided by the warring parties often cannot be independently confirmed.
The Ukrainian military governor of the region, Olexander Prokudin, said that a 74-year-old man was fatally shot while trying to protect a woman with his body. The Interior Ministry in Kiev said there were a total of 21 people on the boat who wanted to get to safety and published photos of the rescued people. Again and again, rescue workers fetch people from the left bank of the Dnipro, which is under Russian control. Regardless of the size of the case, there are always injuries. The Attorney General gave their number on Sunday as a total of 23 people.
After the destruction of the dam on Tuesday, the number of flood victims was now 14, eight of them in the Russian-controlled part of the Cherson region. Thousands of people were evacuated to safety on both sides. 35 people are still missing in the Cherson region, including seven children.
The flood is now falling. According to military governor Prokudin, the area of the flooded area decreased from 139 to 77.8 square kilometers. Experts speak of a serious environmental disaster.