June 8, 2023 Russia-Ukraine war news

A top US national security official sharply criticized Moscow over Ukraine's claim that Russian forces are shelling Ukrainian-held parts of the Kherson region as rescue workers try to evacuate civilians from flood zones. 

“This is a life and death situation here, and it's a situation caused by this devastating flood that we want to make sure we get humanitarian assistance in there,” he added.

Kirby pointed to humanitarian efforts from USAID to assist in the rescue and evacuation of civilians following the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam earlier this week, noting agencies were working with humanitarian partners on the ground to provide transportation, water purification equipment and rescue capabilities in the region.

“We have been at this really since just a couple of hours after the breach, and we're going to stay committed to that,” he said. “We’ve got good eyes on and good partners on the ground there, and so we're gonna keep doing that — there'll be more support coming from the United States as needed.”

Key context: Both Russia and Ukraine are accusing each other of shelling during the evacuations. Kyiv and Moscow also accuse each other of causing the breach in the first place, although it is unclear whether the dam was deliberately attacked, or whether the collapse was the result of structural failure.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he spoke to his US counterpart Antony Blinken on Thursday about the Nova Kakhovka dam disaster.

The collapse in southern Ukraine is one of the biggest industrial and ecological disasters in Europe for decades.

“The U.S. is helping us mitigate the consequences of the Russia-caused Kakhovka disaster,” Kuleba tweeted.

Ukraine has blamed and condemned Russia for the dam’s collapse, and the subsequent shelling of the southern Ukrainian-held city of Kherson during mass evacuations due to the breach.

It’s still impossible to say whether the dam collapsed because it was deliberately targeted — or if the breach could have been caused by structural failure. Russia, for its part, has pointed the finger of blame at Ukraine.

Kuleba did not share further details about how the US was helping in the flood response.

The foreign minister said he and Blinken also discussed US military aid and hopeful outcomes for this summer’s NATO summit.

Russian defense systems have shot down targets over the Belgorod region, the governor there said.

Belgorod is near the border with Ukraine.

Some background: Russia has seen the effects of its war on Ukraine increasingly reverberate back onto its own territory in recent months.

Belgorod has seen a series of drone attacks. Last week, a “massive” shelling attack injured four people in the region. Eight apartment buildings, four homes, a school and two administrative buildings were damaged during the shelling in Shebekino, a village in the border region of Belgorod.

More recently, Ukrainian forces carried out heavy shelling of the region overnight Wednesday, Gladkov had said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region was not a natural disaster or evidence of climate change.

Instead, he said:

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is one of the biggest industrial and ecological disasters in Europe for decades. The catastrophe has destroyed entire villages, flooded farmland, deprived tens of thousands of people of power and clean water, and caused massive environmental damage.

In the Russian-occupied part of the territory, where about a dozen settlements are flooded, "no evacuation is carried out at all," Zelensky claimed in a video address to representatives of the world environmental protection community. People have been stuck on rooftops, "trapped in water" for days without drinking water, food, or medical care, he said.

"We do not know the number of dead and injured yet," he added. "In more than 30 settlements, life is ruined. For hundreds of thousands of people in many towns and villages, access to drinking water has been greatly impeded."

Some background: Both Russia and Ukraine are accusing each other of shelling during the evacuations. Also, Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of causing the breach in the first place, although it is unclear whether the dam was deliberately attacked, or whether the collapse was the result of structural failure.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine is still able to pump water from the nearby Kakhovka reservoir despite this week's dam collapse, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday.

Water levels have dropped below the point where it was previously estimated pumps would not be able to operate, but the system has not been disrupted, explained Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. That's bought the plant more time before it has to switch to alternative cooling sources.

Since the dam collapse, the reservoir’s water level has dropped by just over 4 meters (around 13 feet), and it's losing between 4 and 7 centimeters each hour, Grossi said. A power plant review has found that it will likely be able to keep pumping water from the reservoir even if it drops by another meter or two — and possibly lower.

Once it can no longer use the reservoir to cool its six reactors, Grossi said alternative water supplies — which include a large cooling pond next to the plant, several smaller ponds and onsite wells — can provide required cooling water for several months.

Grossi said IAEA teams on the ground have requested access to areas surrounding the plant and reservoir so they can learn more.

About the plant: The Zaporizhzhia plant, with its six reactors, is the largest nuclear power station in Europe. Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear power, with about half of its electricity coming from reactors at four plants around the country.

The plant is held by Russian forces but operated mostly by a Ukrainian workforce. Fighting around the plant and the perilous workplace environment for its staff have made Zaporizhzhia NPP a subject of constant concern for the IAEA and other international observers.

Rescuers are facing resource challenges while carrying out evacuations in Ukraine-controlled Kherson due to the scale of the flooding caused by the collapse of Nova Kakhovka dam earlier this week, an emergency services officer told CNN.

There is a shortage of resources as Russians continue shelling the western bank of the Dnipro river, said Maksym Trykur, an officer at Ukraine’s State Special Transport Service.

The catastrophe is “unprecedented and the challenge is it's impossible to accumulate all the resources in such a short time,” Trykur told CNN.

Earlier Thursday, local officials said at least nine people had been injured by shelling as civilians evacuate Kherson city.

Here other key developments related to the dam collapse and Russia's war in Ukraine:

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is one of the biggest industrial and ecological disasters in Europe for decades. The catastrophe has destroyed entire villages, flooded farmland, deprived tens of thousands of people of power and clean water, and caused massive environmental damage.

Here are the three main theories on what caused the dam collapse – and what experts and officials say about each:

Did Russia do it? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his government and the country’s military were quick to blame Moscow for the disaster. They said Russian forces blew up the reservoir from inside, with Zelensky quoting a report by Ukrainian intelligence last year that claimed occupying troops had mined the dam.

The Ukrainians point out that the facility has been under Russian control for the past year, making it easy for Russian forces to plant explosives. Social media posts indicate that people in the area heard the sound of explosions around the time the dam was thought to have been damaged.

The wider timing of the incident is not insignificant. While Moscow and Kyiv have previously accused each other of plotting to blow up the Soviet-era dam, this collapse coincided with Ukrainian forces gearing up for their widely expected summer counter-offensive.

Could it have been a missile attack by Ukraine? Russia has denied any involvement in the disaster and in turn accused Ukraine of destroying the dam, without providing evidence.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed the attack was “planned and carried out by order received from Kyiv, from the Kyiv regime,” aiming to “deprive Crimea of water” and to distract from the battlefield. Ukraine has denied the accusations.

The reservoir supplies water to large swaths of southern Ukraine, including to the Crimean peninsula which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. Crimea has experienced water issues ever since Ukraine cut its supply shortly after the annexation. Russian forces captured the North Crimea Canal – which is fed by the Kakhovka reservoir – and began restoring the water supply in the first days of their invasion in 2022..

Structural failure? The Nova Kakhovka dam — the largest reservoir in Ukraine in terms of volume – is also the furthest downstream of a cascade of six Soviet-era dams on the Dnipro River. The fact that the facility has been operating for many decades has prompted speculation around a possible technical failure.

"This is a very common type of dam all around the world. They’ve been built for hundreds of years and if they were designed and built well and are maintained adequately, then the chance of a failure is very, very low. It would be extremely unusual for this type of dam to fail with no warning,” Craig Goff, the technical director and lead of the Dams and Reservoirs team at HR Wallingford, a civil engineering and environmental hydraulics consultancy, said.

However, it is unclear how well the dam has been maintained under Russian occupation. The surrounding area has been one of the most heavily contested regions since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the dam has sustained some prior damage.

Read more.

CNN’s Sam Kiley, Natasha Bertrand, Alex Marquardt, Jim Sciutto and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.

The city of Uman in Ukraine’s central Cherkasy region was hit by a missile attack on Thursday, according to Ihor Taburets, head of the Cherkasy region’s military administration.

“We have two hits: on an industrial facility and a car wash. In the second case, a fire broke out as a result of the hit,” he said.

Eight people were injured, two seriously, Taburets said, citing preliminary information.

The loud and repetitive metallic thudding echoes through the workshop as a worker hammers away at a large engine. He pauses, tilts his head for a quick check at what he’s done and then gets back at it.  

He’s one of many — whose names CNN has agreed not to disclose to protect their identity — working inside a warehouse in a secret location in Ukraine. They are ordinary civilians, but their work is vital for Ukraine’s war effort. They repair damaged vehicles, such as tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, so that Kyiv can send them back to the front lines. 

One such vehicle stands out: Its tracks are a mangled mess of metal, twisted after it struck a land mine. It was Russian, and its body is riddled with "Z" signs all over, the mark of Moscow’s full-scale invasion. 

“This is a transport vehicle that we are going to modify into a medical evacuation machine,” says Bohdan Ostapchuk, project coordinator at the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation, who is responsible for this warehouse. 

It’s one of a dozen or so armored vehicles — including armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and even a tank — being repaired at the shop. But patching these up is not the only thing the Ukrainians are doing: They are also modifying and improving them. 

“We are trying to make them safer and more comfortable for use on the battlefield,” he says. 

Despite recent Western donations, Russian-made equipment — including hardware salvaged or captured from Moscow’s armies — has been used by the Ukrainian military since the early days of Russia's invasion.

They coordinate with the military to find the missing pieces and build whatever else they cannot find, but it’s a process that takes time and consumes resources. They eventually find a way, and Ostapchuk said they have been able to repair more than 30 types of vehicles, including some Western-made ones. “I can’t go into detail,” he quickly adds. 

It’s one of the reasons why this workshop is so vital and their work so intricate — and secretive.

As Ukraine prepares to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive, Ostapchuk says that —despite the dozen or so vehicles currently being worked on — the warehouse is unusually empty, compared to other times. Here too, they’ve been feeling the calm before the storm. 

The next armored vehicle to go to the front lines, a T-72 B3M main battle tank, stands at the entrance of the warehouse, looking almost brand-new. 

In a moment’s notice, a Ukrainian technician fires up the tank’s engine, filling the warehouse air with fumes. The workshop grinds to a halt as the powerful noise turns heads toward the tank.