Status: 09/15/2022 08:26 a.m
According to Ukraine, a dam in the city of Kryvyi Rih was the target of rocket fire. UN Secretary-General Guterres believes that the Russian war of aggression will come to an end anytime soon.
According to Ukrainian sources, rocket fire caused massive damage to a dam in the central Ukrainian industrial city of Kryvyi Rih. As a result, the drinking water supply in the city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants has now largely failed.
According to the Ukrainian side, seven or eight rockets were fired at the dam. The head of the administration of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentin Resnichenko, spoke of cruise missiles of the type Ch-22, which had been shot down from a distance by Russian fighter jets. Russia has not yet confirmed the attack. The information cannot be verified independently.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
Parts of the city threatened by flooding
The pumping station of the dam was also destroyed by the shelling. Now the Inhulez River is threatening to burst its banks. According to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Deputy Chief of Staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, several districts in Kryvyi Rih are at risk of flooding. So far, however, the situation is under control and is being closely monitored.
About 625,000 people live in Kryvyi Rih. The drinking water supply is currently interrupted for a large part of the population, the Ukraine said. According to the head of administration Resnichenko, the rocket fire also targeted the city’s infrastructure and transport routes. However, he did not speak of casualties from the shelling.
Kuleba condemns “act of terrorism”
President Zelenskyy condemned the attack. Coming from Kryvyi Rih himself, he spoke of an attempt to flood his hometown. “All the occupiers can do is sow panic, create an emergency, leave people without light, heat, water or food. Can that break us? Not at all,” Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram channel.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the attack a “war crime and an act of terrorism”. “Because they were defeated by the Ukrainian army on the battlefield,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter, the Russian troops are now waging war “against our infrastructure and civilians.”
Guterres sees only a minimal chance of a peace agreement
The Ukrainian army had recently reported military successes from the Kharkiv region. According to estimates by the British Ministry of Defense, the country’s own troops can further consolidate their position in this area. The Russian troops would have largely withdrawn west of the Oskil River.
However, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, an end to the war is not in sight any time soon. He spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday evening. “I have the feeling that we are still a long way from peace,” Guterre concluded after the conversation:
I have no illusions. At the moment, the chances of a peace agreement are minimal.
Von der Leyen expected in Kyiv
According to Guterres, a possible ceasefire is “not in sight”. Chancellor Olaf Scholz had already pushed for such a thing on Tuesday in the first telephone call with Putin after several months of radio silence. Scholz had demanded that Russia must completely withdraw its troops from Ukraine and recognize Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen left for Ukraine on Wednesday to discuss further support for Ukraine. In the course of the day she is to meet in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv for talks with Selenskyj. According to von der Leyen, the focus should be on connecting Ukraine more closely to the European single market.