KHERSON, Ukraine — 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.
Officials on both sides said least 14 people were killed in the flooding, thousands are homeless and tens of thousands are without drinking water after the collapse. Kyiv accused Moscow of blowing up the dam and its associated hydropower plant, which the Kremlin’s forces controlled, while Russia said Ukraine bombarded it.
The ensuing flooding has ruined crops, displaced land mines, wrought widespread environmental damage, and set the stage for long-term electricity shortages. Exclusive drone footage captured by The Associated Press showed the ruined dam falling into the river and hundreds of submerged homes, greenhouses and even a church.
Upriver from the dam, a supply of water used to cool Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was nearing critically low levels, Ukraine’s state hydroelectric company said. But the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog said Wednesday that work was under way to ensure the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear…
