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The death toll from the June 6 collapse of the Kakhovka Dam is up to 45 people, 29 of them in Russian-occupied territory and 16 in areas held by Ukraine.
In some of the southern Ukraine provinces downstream from the dam, water contamination is becoming an increasingly dire problem following the massive flooding that has devastated dozens of towns along the lower Dnieper River and led to an ecological catastrophe, threatening crops and killing millions of fish.
And the evidence increasingly points to an explosion set off by Russia as the cause.
A New York Times report Sunday said the Russians knew the weak spot in the Soviet-era dam, a passageway that ran through the concrete block at its base, and most likely detonated explosives there to create the breach.
“The evidence clearly suggests the dam was crippled by an explosion set off by the side that controls it: Russia,’’ said the Times, which cited engineers in reaching its conclusion and also said the American government subscribes to that theory.
Earlier in the weekend, a group of international legal experts helping Ukrainian authorities investigate the disaster came to the same conclusion, Reuters reported. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War has also determined the Russians probably were behind the explosion.
Ukrainian officials have blamed the invading forces all along for the attack, suggesting it was orchestrated to slow down Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The Kremlin has said Ukrainian shelling caused the dam to fail.
Developments:
∎ Ukrainian forces destroyed a “very significant” ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk in Kherson province, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson of the regional government in Odesa province.
∎ Ukraine recaptured the village of Piatykhatky in Zaporizhzhia province, said Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Moscow-appointed administration in that partially occupied region.
∎ The delegation of African leaders who met with the heads of the warring parties Friday and Saturday did not report any progress toward their goal of mediating peace talks.
Heavy casualties on both sides early in counterattack
The first 10 days or so of the counteroffensive have yielded small gains for Ukraine and some effective defensive operations by Russia, both coming at a high cost in casualties, “with the Russian losses likely the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March,’’ the British Defense Ministry said in its latest war assessment.
The update also said much of the heavy fighting has been concentrated in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, the western part of the neighboring Donetsk province and the areas around Bakhmut in that region.
Ukrainian officials said three civilians were killed and eight wounded in the previous day by Russian strikes in Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces.
The country’s military said Russia had carried out 43 airstrikes, four missile strikes and 51 attacks from multiple rocket launchers in the last 24 hours. According to a statement by the Ukraine’s General Staff, Russia’s offensive operations remained focused on the industrial east, and there have been 26 combat clashes around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Marinka and Lyman in Donetsk province.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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