War in Ukraine: What to remember on the 467th day of the Russian invasion

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Olga MALTSEVA / AFP 08:27, June 06, 2023

THE ESSENTIALS

The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, located in the Russian-occupied areas of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, was partially destroyed on Tuesday, with Moscow and Kiev accusing each other of being responsible. Ukrainian forces carried out "multiple strikes" on the Kakhovka dam on the night of Monday to Tuesday, the mayor of the city of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontiev, said on Telegram, claiming that they had destroyed the dam's valves and caused an "uncontrollable discharge of water".

"The dam is not destroyed and it is an immense happiness," he said. For its part, the Ukrainian army accused Russia in a statement of staging an explosion on the dam. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urgently convened his Security Council, announced the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Andriy Iermak, on Telegram, denouncing a "war crime".

The rise in water was observed in several localities near the dam without the situation becoming critical, according to the administration of the Kherson region, installed by Russia. "If necessary, we are ready to evacuate the inhabitants of the riverside villages," the head of the government of the Kherson region, Andrei Alekseyenko, said in a statement on Telegram, stressing, however, that their lives are not threatened and calling for "not to give in to panic".

The Kakhovka dam, taken at the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, makes it possible to supply water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014 by Moscow. Built on the Dnieper River in 1956, during the Soviet period, the structure is partly built of concrete and earth. It is one of the largest infrastructures of its kind in Ukraine.

Wagner conductor describes Russian balance sheets as "delusions"

The head of the paramilitary group Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin on Tuesday described as "delusions" the balance sheets of Ukrainian losses claimed by Moscow, which claims to have repelled two major offensives in two days. "This is just delusion," Prigozhin said in a Telegram post. The Russian Defense Ministry said it had repelled two large-scale Ukrainian offensives on Sunday and Monday in southern Donbass, killing "more than 1,500 Ukrainian servicemen" and destroying "28 tanks".

The Ukrainian government, while claiming territorial gains near the ravaged eastern city of Bakhmut, has downplayed the scale of its "offensive actions" and has provided no balance sheet. Killing 1,500 soldiers in one day is "quite a massacre," Wagner's boss quipped, mocking Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. "Actually, why not add up all the numbers given by Konashenkov. I think we've already destroyed the whole of planet Earth five times," he quipped.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is accustomed to sensational statements against the Russian General Staff, which he accuses in particular of not providing enough ammunition to Wagner's men, who were on the front line in the fighting around Bakhmut.