Ukraine

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces Thursday shelled a southern Ukrainian city inundated by flooding in a catastrophic dam collapse, Ukrainian officials said, forcing a suspension of some rescue efforts hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to the area to assess the damage.

The fresh fighting returned security issues to the region, two days after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River set off a scramble to evacuate residents in dozens of flooded areas and get aid to those still there.

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — Exclusive drone footage of the collapsed Ukrainian dam and surrounding villages under Russian occupation showed the ruined structure falling into the flooded river, hundreds of submerged homes, greenhouses, even a church — and no evidence of an attack from above, as Russia alleges.

An Associated Press team flew a drone over the devastation on Wednesday, a day after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River.

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — Authorities rushed drinking water to areas flooded by a collapsed dam in southern Ukraine on Wednesday as they managed a growing humanitarian and ecological disaster along a river that forms part of the front line in the 15-month war.

The collapse of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam and emptying of its reservoir on the Dnieper River added to the misery the region has suffered for more than a year from artillery and missile attacks.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The fallout from the breach of a river dam along a front line of Russia’s war in Ukraine continued to wreak havoc on lives, livelihoods and the environment on Wednesday.

When the Kakhovka dam ruptured on Tuesday, it sent a torrent of water from Ukraine’s largest reservoir into streets and homes downstream on the Dnieper River where tens of thousands of people live — in the thick of a combat zone where shelling regularly takes place.

It’s not clear what caused the breach: the structure had already been damaged in the war.

KYIV, June 5 (Reuters) - Moscow said on Monday it had thwarted a major offensive against its forces in eastern Ukraine, but Ukrainian officials dismissed the report and both sides said Kyiv's military had made small gains elsewhere along front lines.

It was unclear whether the attacks represented the start of Ukraine's long-heralded counteroffensive against Russia's invasion, and Ukrainian officials made no mention of any broad, significant new campaign or sidestepped questions on the matter.

KYIV, June 4 (Reuters) - The Ukrainian military on Sunday renewed its plea for operational silence around a long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces, the latest in a stream of messages by Kyiv as it prepares for the assault.

Anticipation has mounted around what is expected to be a broad attack by Ukrainian forces to retake Russian-occupied territory in the east and south.

But Ukrainian officials have repeatedly discouraged public speculation over the operation, saying it could help the enemy.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia’s war, now in its 16th month, has killed at least 500 Ukrainian children.

Zelenskyy provided the number hours after rescue workers found the body of a 2-year-old girl who died in one of the latest Russian strikes.

The president said in a statement that “Russian weapons and hatred, which continue to take and destroy the lives of Ukrainian children every day,” killed the hundreds who had perished since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started on Feb. 24, 2022.

OUTSIDE BAKHMUT, Ukraine (AP) — Watching imagery from a drone camera overhead, Ukrainian battalion commander Oleg Shiryaev warned his men in nearby trenches that Russian forces were advancing across a field toward a patch of trees outside the city of Bakhmut.

The leader of the 228th Battalion of the 127th Kharkiv Territorial Defense Brigade then ordered a mortar team to get ready. A target was locked. A mortar tube popped out a loud orange blast, and an explosion cut a new crater in an already pockmarked hillside.

KYIV, June 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Saturday.

"We strongly believe that we will succeed,” Zelenskiy told the Wall Street Journal.

"I don’t know how long it will take. To be honest, it can go a variety of ways, completely different. But we are going to do it, and we are ready."

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Concerns around civilian safety spiked in Ukraine on Saturday, as officials announced that an inspection had found nearly a quarter of the country’s air-raid shelters locked or unusable, just days after a woman in Kyiv allegedly died waiting outside a shuttered shelter during a Russian missile barrage.

The Ukrainian interior ministry said through its press service Saturday that of the “over 4,800” shelters it had inspected, 252 were locked and a further 893 “unfit for use.”