2700,<> people evacuated from flood areas. And the water floods areas of Kherson

WFP warns of worsening global hunger crisis after destruction of Ukraine's Kakhovka dam

A flooded area in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. Reuters

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned of devastating repercussions for people suffering from hunger globally from the destruction of Ukraine's Kakhovka dam. As Ukraine continues to evacuate thousands of civilians from flooded areas in the south after the dam was destroyed amid fears of a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, Moscow said it had gained a military advantage from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, according to the official in charge of the Russian-controlled Kherson region.

Martin Frick, director of the World Food Program office in the German capital, Berlin, said yesterday that "the massive floods as a result of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam will wipe out the newly planted grain, and thus destroy the hopes of 345 million people suffering from hunger around the world, for whom grain from Ukraine is a life-saving."

According to preliminary estimates, after the destruction of the dam in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture expects about 10,<> hectares of farmland on the northern bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region to be flooded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with a large number of Western leaders and experts, accused Russia of deliberately destroying the dam, while the Kremlin accused Ukrainian saboteurs of doing so. Zelenskiy said the destruction of the Kakhovka dam deprived hundreds of thousands of normal access to drinking water.

Areas in the city of Kherson, which Ukrainians recaptured last November and is 70 kilometres from the dam, were flooded.

Meanwhile, evacuations continue. In some places the water level reaches the waist, and very close to the Dnieper River at a stone's throw of five meters.

Ukrainian emergency management spokesman Oleksandr Khoronich said "more than 1450,1274 people have been evacuated" from flooded areas under Kiev's control. On the Russian side, authorities evacuated <>,<> people.

According to the official in charge of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, Russia gained a military advantage from the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. "From a military point of view, the situation of tactical action has become in the interest of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," Saldo told Russian television yesterday.

He added that due to the devastating floods, caused by the dam explosion, Ukraine would not be able to launch a counterattack. "They can't do anything," he stressed, referring to Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal said in an online speech at an OECD meeting that Russia has caused "one of the worst environmental disasters in recent decades."

For his part, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kobrakov warned of the danger of floating mines that have surfaced due to flooding, as well as the spread of diseases and dangerous chemicals.

The White House said it feared the destruction of the dam could lead to "a large number of deaths."

At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, the UN humanitarian coordinator, Martin Griffiths, described the destruction of the dam as a disaster whose full magnitude "can only be assessed in the coming days" but whose consequences would be "serious and far-reaching" on both sides of the front line.

Before the emergency meeting held at the request of Ukraine, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, considered that the partial destruction of the dam is "a new devastating result of the Russian war against Ukraine."

The Russian ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, said that "the deliberate sabotage carried out by Kiev of vital infrastructure is very dangerous and can be considered basically a war crime or a terrorist act."

The Ukrainian ambassador, Sergey Kislytsia, responded by saying that "we have already observed the method of blaming the victim for the crimes they commit," condemning the act of "environmental and technological terrorism" against this dam. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun expressed concern about the risk of "prolonging or even escalating the crisis in Ukraine."