#flood in ukraine

[flameohotfamily]

i do not mean to devalue other countries' problems but when there were disasters elsewhere i saw posts all over tumblr. now i only see few posts mainly from ukrainians. I don't get why everyone is silent. i guess i truly lost faith in humanity

[ultimatraditor]

Fucking hell

Russians blew up the Kakhovka Dam and basically destroyed the entire hydroelectric power plant.

Some regions in southern Ukraine are being flooded right now, others are going to lose access to fresh water. Even after the war ends, it will take years to rebuild the destroyed structures, and it will take decades (and enormous amount of resources) to reverse the ecological damage. Some things are going to be irreversible.

This will change the face of Ukrainian south for decades to come.

I want those responsible for this ecocide to eat glass, shit glass, sweat glass

[thelittleukrainianwell-armedgirl]

Today russian terrorist forces blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on June 6. Large parts of the south of Ukraine are in danger of severe flooding. This is a terrible, barbaric act of ecocide. And russia will pay.

Photo: Maxar, May 28 and May 5

Photo: Energoatom, May 6

[eyeswithnohope]

Being Ukrainian means fitting your whole life into one backpack.

Kherson. Nova Kakhovka dam. Destroyed by russians. Ecocide, terrorism... Call it whatever you want. I know that right now, there are thousands of Ukrainians that are drowning and hoping for help. But, the part of the Kherson region is still under occupation. And russians don't let them evacuate. The other part, where volunteers, soldiers and civilians are trying to evacuate other people and animals is sheiling by russians.

More than 85 villages will go underwater. Would you happen to know what else it means? People under occupation, people whom the russian occupation authorities imprisoned and tortured in specially designated premises, and dungeons, as was the case in Bucha, Irpin, Izyum and many other cities of Ukraine, are now underwater. Their bodies will be there now until the water goes.

Numbers of endangered species of animals and plants in the South of Ukraine will disappear. And you know what the UN and Red Cross doing? One is celebrating the day of the russian language the other is writing an article about how hard moscow works on the development of humanitarian law. Have any eco-activist, organisations written a word about it? Nothing. No one is helping. No one cares.

Yesterday, I received a letter from an eco-community. About saving bees. Funny things? Ukraine is one of the largest honey-exporting countries. But no one cares what's going on here. Because you all tried to be so good at words, but never at actions. It's easier to close your eyes and tolerate russia. Read their books, listen to their music, learn and celebrate the day of their language. It's easier to block a publication from Ukrainian because they said something bad about big and dear russia, but it's hard to share and speak about all the horrible things they are doing here. So hypocrisy.

I won't be easy in my words, while people here are drowning, being killed and tortured and the whole world is silent because they are scared. I won't ever share a post about plastic, straws and other shit, while there is russia, that can destroy a dam, cause a flood, destroy thousands of lives, kill animals and plants, and get away with it.

I don't believe in this world and in this society. You all have already forgiven russia.

[somebluenovember]

Right now, russians are shooting at the rescue teams trying to evacuate civilians from the severely flooded areas of Ukraine – several rescue teams are reporting from the ground that they are under russian artillery fire. 

First russia blows up the water reservoir, creating a disaster of gargantuan proportion, killing civilians and animals, and now they bomb humanitarian efforts. 

Not my own words, but someone put it aptly: russia is a failed, decomposed society, a country that chooses death and destruction at every turn.

[tutanxomoon]

‼️Russia is a terrorist country‼️

Hydroelectric power plant in Ukraine blown up!

And no one came to our aid! And like an earthquake in Turkey, everyone immediately jumped up and ran to save them!

Why is this happening?

[alicesloughbridge]

The drowned village that turned the Welsh against the English

[jaskierx]

slava ukraini. today and every day.

[ouppyboy]

Stand with Palestine, and with Cuba, and Sudan, and Ukraine, and Brazil

Stand with those the media refuse to look at

🇵🇸🇸🇩🇺🇦🇧🇷🇨🇺 and more

Don't turn away at genocide, slavery, war, or disaster

Resource post

Education+resource

Help Brazil

[ohsalome]

I went down the rabbit hole to check if maybe the original poster was a bot, and no, it's so much worse.

This is not a russian babushka brainwashed by state TV. This is their national elite, the cream of the crop, the intelligentsia that has vast international connections and unlimited access to information.

And yes, his twitter consists of "hail putin"-s and chinese apologism.

[gamer2002]

Chronology of the terrorist attack by Russian terrorists. Or how to poop and smear shit on your face.

At two o'clock in the morning, the Russians blow up the Kakhovskaya HPP, but they don't see how much. It is not very visible, but it can shine and fly.

1. The Russians still think that they carefully blew up a small part of the HPP and are sinking our military on the islands. At 6:06 a.m., the Gauleiter of Novaya Kakhovka, Leontiev, says that blowing up the HPP is nonsense. Well, we don't know why the water rose there. Here is the link of Ria news arch ive. is/aTyK8

2. Russian OSINT intelligence community Rybar, picks up the thesis and says, detonation of a small area at 6:51 Link arch ive. ph/flapa

3. At 6:51 a.m. in the new Kakhovka, they see that the dam is fubar, the mother's strategists begin to realize that they are in deep shit. The Gauleiter of Nova Kakhovka sharply changes his rhetoric and says that there was no detonation, then there was already shelling from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Link arch ive. ph/LFFKF

5. Other telegram channels that cooperate with the military jump joyfully on one leg, hooray, because of the explosion of the Kakhov dam, the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the islands are being flooded , the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to evacuate and save themselves, and then they publish joyful videos of how they inflict damage on the positions of our guys on the islands. 08:25 Link arch ive. ph/c0iHL

[vintage-ukraine]

Podil during a spring flood, 1900s

[ukrainenews]

Update June 7, 2023

(There are a lot of accusations flying around as to why the Kakhovka Dam ruptured. Ukraine says one thing, Russia says another. Propaganda is everywhere. I personally do not believe that Ukraine blew up their own dam, endangering the lives of thousands of people, ruining acres of farmland, killing countless animals, and disrupting electricity to thousands more. However, I can just report what the news is saying and do my best not to post something I can prove is fake news. Links here and here for charities in Ukraine.)

Under the cut:

Ukraine warned of the danger of floating mines unearthed by flooding and the spread of disease and hazardous chemicals on Wednesday as senior officials inspected damage caused by the collapse of the vast Kakhovka hydro-electric dam.

Ukrainian troops have advanced up to 1,100 metres near the eastern city of Bakhmut in the past 24 hours, Kyiv said on Wednesday, the first gains it has reported since Russia said Ukraine had started a counter-offensive.

Engineering and munitions experts point to a deliberate explosion as the most logical reason behind the Kakhovka dam explosion, the New York Times reported on June 7. A mass humanitarian and ecological disaster unfolded after the Kakhovka dam collapsed around 2:50 a.m. on June 6. According to the Ukrainian authorities, the dam was blown up by Russian forces to prevent a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Britain has said it will increase funding to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, by £750,000 to support nuclear safety work in Ukraine. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant gets its cooling water from the reservoir of the Kakhovka dam, which collapsed on Tuesday.

Fighting around Bakhmut “remains the epicenter of hostilities,” Ukraine’s deputy defense minister said Wednesday.

Ukraine warned of the danger of floating mines unearthed by flooding and the spread of disease and hazardous chemicals on Wednesday as senior officials inspected damage caused by the collapse of the vast Kakhovka hydro-electric dam.

Visiting the city of Kherson on the Dnipro river that bisects the country, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said that over 80 settlements had been affected in a disaster which Ukraine and Russia blame on each other.

Blaming the dam's collapse on Russia, Kubrakov said: "They did it in order to free up troops in this direction by flooding this bit of the front line."

Russia, whose troops seized the dam soon after they invaded in February last year, has said Ukraine sabotaged the dam to distract attention from a counteroffensive it said was "faltering".

"I can't even speak now, I can't collect myself," said Lyubov Buryi, 67, who was evacuated from Kherson to a hospital on Tuesday with her 40-year-old son Roman.

"I'm of course awfully angry at (the Russians), I can't even describe it … I don't know what awaits us, our house seems to be destroyed," she said.

Regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said the water had reached a depth of 5.34 metres (17.5 ft) in some places of Kherson, though he said the rise had slowed and could peak by the end of Wednesday.

In Kherson, a large city about 60 km (37 miles) downstream from the destroyed dam, residents have set up makeshift embarkation points for dinghies that police, rescue workers and volunteers are now using to get around.

Kherson faces the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro, and some residents have come under fire from Russian artillery as they go about their rescue and recovery work. The thud of artillery is heard almost constantly in the distance.

"Water is disturbing mines that were laid earlier, causing them to explode," Kubrakov, dressed casually in a grey T-shirt, told reporters. As a result of the flooding, chemicals and infectious bacteria were getting into the water, he said.

He said Ukraine had allocated 120 million hryvnias ($3.25 million) allocated to secure the water supply in Mykolaiv, another southern city, and 1.5 billion hryvnias had been set aside to rebuild water mains systems ruined by the flood.

EVACUATION The chief doctor of a Kherson hospital, who asked not to be named because he did not want the hospital to risk retribution, said 136 people had been admitted for treatment because of the flooding. Many were elderly.

"These people had difficulties with their psychological state. These are usually older people. (Some of) these people have chronic illnesses which could get worse," the doctor said.

Ukrainian authorities have evacuated people from 24 flooded settlements and at least 20 settlements are flooded on territory occupied by Russian forces, Kubrakov said.

"We see that the occupation authorities are not evacuating people," he said, calling for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to help evacuate flood victims in Russian-occupied regions.

Kherson, a city of 279,000 before Russia's full-scale invasion in February last year, was occupied by Russian forces for over eight months until November.

Kubrakov said the water level in the city had risen by 12-16 cm an hour on Tuesday but was now rising at one-two cm an hour.

"It's one of the most terrifying terrorist acts of this war," he said.

($1 = 36.9290 hryvnias)

-via Reuters

~

Ukrainian troops have advanced up to 1,100 metres near the eastern city of Bakhmut in the past 24 hours, Kyiv said on Wednesday, the first gains it has reported since Russia said Ukraine had started a counter-offensive.

Moscow said this week Kyiv had launched a series of assaults in its partially occupied region of Donetsk, which it said it thwarted, and described them as the start of the planned Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Ukrainian officials have said little directly in response to the Russian assertions although a senior security official on Wednesday denied the broad counter-offensive had begun.

"We have made advances of from 200 to 1,100 metres (220-1,200 yards) on various sections (of the front line) in the Bakhmut direction over the past day," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram messenger, without providing further details.

Ukrainian troops, she said, had been on the offensive in the area for several days and Russian troops were on a defensive footing, aiming to hold on to their positions.

"Our troops have switched from the defensive to the offensive in the direction of Bakhmut," Maliar said.

Russia said last month its forces had captured Bakhmut, site of the longest and bloodiest battle since its February 2022 invasion, though Kyiv said it retained a small presence in the ruined city and was advancing on the flanks.

The Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday Ukraine had mounted attacks near Bakhmut, but that they had been unsuccessful.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation on the battlefield.

Maliar said in separate, televised comments that Russia lacked forces in Bakhmut and was bringing in troops from other positions.

Kyiv hopes its counter-offensive will be a turning point in the war but has portrayed assaults under way as localised.

"When we start the counter-offensive, everyone will know about it, they will see it," Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, told Reuters.

-via Reuters

~

Engineering and munitions experts point to a deliberate explosion as the most logical reason behind the Kakhovka dam explosion, the New York Times reported on June 7.

A mass humanitarian and ecological disaster unfolded after the Kakhovka dam collapsed around 2:50 a.m. on June 6. According to the Ukrainian authorities, the dam was blown up by Russian forces to prevent a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

According to experts cited by the New York Times, hard evidence of a deliberate explosion was "very limited" given that the dam was located in an active warzone, but "an internal explosion was the likeliest explanation for the destruction of the dam, a massive structure of steel-reinforced concrete that was completed in 1956."

The breach would have required "hundreds of pounds of explosives" to cause the kind of destruction that occurred and "an external detonation by bomb or missile would exert only a fraction of its force against the dam," the experts added.

The dam had previously sustained damage during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion last year, but the plant was "built to withstand an atomic bomb," Ihor Syrota, the head of Ukraine's state-owned energy company Ukrhydroenergo, said.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba criticized international media on June 6 that entertained Russian narratives that Ukraine might somehow be responsible for the Kakhovka dam's destruction, saying that it "puts facts and propaganda on equal footing."

Over 1,300 people have been rescued or preemptively evacuated from flood zones in the past 24 hours, according to the Interior Ministry, and relief efforts are ongoing.

Meanwhile, the President's Office reported that at least 150 tons of oil had spilled into the Dnipro River following the destruction of the dam, with the risk of 300 additional tons leaking.

The Agriculture Ministry also predicted on June 7 that the disruption caused to the biodiversity in the region by flooding would have unprecedenced economic and environmental consequences for years to come.

-Kyiv Independent

~

Britain has said it will increase funding to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, by £750,000 to support nuclear safety work in Ukraine.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant gets its cooling water from the reservoir of the Kakhovka dam, which collapsed on Tuesday.

Ukrainian and UN experts have said the dam’s destruction and the draining of the reservoir behind it does not pose an immediate safety threat to the plant further upstream, but warned that it will have long-term implications for its future.

IAEA head Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Tuesday that “our current assessment is that there is no immediate risk to the safety of the plant.” But there are long-term concerns, both over safety and the possibility of the plant becoming operational again in the coming years.

Reuters reports the UK’s permanent representative to the IAEA, Corinne Kitsell, as saying:

Russia’s barbaric attacks on Ukraine’s civil infrastructure and its illegal control of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant runs contrary to all international nuclear safety and security norms.

She added:

I commend the work of the IAEA’s staff in Ukraine and I am pleased that the UK’s additional funding will help to facilitate its vital work, particularly given the additional risk posed by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

-The Guardian

~

Fighting around Bakhmut “remains the epicenter of hostilities,” Ukraine’s deputy defense minister said Wednesday.

Speaking on Telegram, Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian forces have made gains ranging from 200 meters (656 feet) in some areas to 1,100 meters (3,609 feet) in others, but did not say where exactly.

Maliar also noted that Wagner fighters had largely withdrawn, noting they “remain in some places in the rear” and the large majority of the fighting is now being conducted by regular units of the Russian Federation, including airborne units.

The head of the Wagner military group in Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused Russia of sabotaging his withdrawal from Bakhmut last week, claiming exit routes were mined.

Some context: Bakhmut sits toward the northeast of the Donetsk region, about 13 miles from the Luhansk region, and had long been a target for Russian forces. Since last summer the city has been a stone’s throw from the front lines.

Last month, Russian forces said they had finally captured the embattled eastern city. It followed a months-long slog where Russian soldiers had to grind for every inch of territory.

-CNN

[tomorrowusa]

Several oblasts (regions) in southern Russia and areas in neighboring Kazakhstan have been hit with some of the worst flooding since Stalin's time.

Much of the flooding was caused by the bursting of a dam which was built just 14 years ago. Massive runoff from melting snow in the Urals and Western Siberia may be another byproduct of climate change; Russia's massive economic reliance on exporting fossil fuels is coming back to haunt it.

Crowds in the flooded city of Orsk, second largest city in Orenburg oblast, protested the inadequate government response. Some chanted Позор! (Shame!) and Путин, помоги! (Putin, help!) at municipal authorities and at emergency administrators from Moscow.

Putin himself had no plans to inspect the flooded areas. He's too busy directing his disastrous war in Ukraine.

Speaking of Ukraine, a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea, the missile corvette Serpukhov, was said to have been damaged by Ukraine. Yes, that's the Baltic – not the Black Sea.

Russian missile ship set on fire near Kaliningrad, Ukraine's intelligence claims

Putin's 3-day "special operation" is entering its 779th day. His pathological obsession with Ukraine only makes him look increasingly deranged.

The poor flood response in the south of Russia is yet another result of Putin neglecting the basics of governance in favor of his fantasy of becoming the Peter the Great of the 21st century.

[notthelemurking]

tfw an occupied country is ready and willing to help your country with the natural disaster ravaging it rn and you still dare to call them the bad guys