WAR IN UKRAINE: June 12, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 474
Three people were killed after Russia attacked a boat carrying evacuees from a flooded area in Kherson, the regional governor said. Ukraine has been trying to rescue people trapped on the Russia-held eastern bank of the Dnipro River since the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed by a Russian explosion. Oleksandr Prokudin said Russian troops shelled the evacuation boat and shot a 74-year-old man dead - BBC
Ukraine says it has liberated three villages in the south-east of the country in the first victories of its much-anticipated counter-offensive. Footage on social media showed Ukrainian troops celebrating in the neighbouring settlements of Blahodatne and Neskuchne in the Donetsk region. Kyiv's deputy defence minister said nearby Makarivka was also taken - BBC
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the notorious Wagner mercenary group, said he will not obey a new Russian Defense Ministry decree obliging all volunteer formations to sign a contract directly with the ministry in his latest spat with the nation’s military leadership - RFE/RL
The flooding of areas in the lower Dnieper below the destroyed Nova Kakhovka dam and the drying of the areas above it, as well as the contamination of the Black Sea, will put entire ecosystems of flora and fauna at risk of irreversible loss, Ivan Moysiyenko, chief of the Botany Department at Kherson State University and a member of Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, told RFE/RL. According to Moysiyenko, more than 19 endangered species listed in the Red Data Book and dozens of species protected by the Berne Convention will disappear from these places forever. Hundreds of species and hundreds of thousands of animals and plants will be affected, and in the case of some endemic species, as much as 20 percent of the world population could be extinct, he said. The environmental disaster will affect territories that have never been under water, such as the Oleshky Sands National Nature Park, Europe's biggest desert, and destabilize places such as the UNESCO-protected Black Sea Biosphere Reserve. "This is an international ecological catastrophe, and as long as the fighting goes on, not much can be done for the environment," Moysiyenko said
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 11 that the International Criminal Court had already launched an investigation following Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Kherson Oblast on June 6. According to the president, court representatives have already visited Kherson Oblast and saw “with their own eyes the consequences of this Russian terrorist attack and heard for themselves that Russian terror continues…The most cynical and brutal shelling of the flooded territory continues,” Zelensky said. He added that the Ukrainian side is contributing as much as possible to the investigation. “All our law enforcement officers and other institutions are greatly involved in this process,” Zelensky said. “We provide full access to the affected areas, to witnesses, to all information and evidence. This investigation is very important for the security of the whole world.” - Kyiv Independent
Required reading…
‘We Rescue People and Animals, and We get Them to Safety’: Saving Lives in Kherson Under Russian fire
Thousands of people have been evacuated, but much more are abandoned on Russia-occupied territories
“We’re here, and we’ll stay and do what needs to be done,” says Ivan Shmatko. A Kyiv resident, he arrived in Kherson a day ago to help locals however he could.
“Everything changes really fast, so what was needed an hour ago may not be necessary anymore,” he adds, “So it’s important to coordinate everything and update the necessities.”
The man came to Kherson on the next day after the catastrophe. He was a call on Facebook by a well-known Ukrainian journalist, Bohdan Logvynenko, who urged people to send help to the affected areas as well as drive there if they could.
“So I reached out, and soon, we were all in a big chat of volunteers coordinating their arrival to Kherson,” Ivan explains.
He drove to the affected area with a group of roughly 20 more cars. More keep coming and going regularly, delivering more aid, and transporting animals and people to safer parts of Ukraine.
Read the full Byline Times report here