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Ukrainian border guards: Black Sea in Odesa Oblast turning into 'garbage dump and animal cemetery'

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The Black Sea in the southern Odesa Oblast is turning into a "garbage dump and an animal cemetery" as house fragments, furniture, as well as mines and ammunition are floating in the water after Russia's blow-up of the major dam, the State Border Guard said on June 10.

It added that fish plague has also begun due to the disaster.

"The consequences of the ecocide are terrible," the State Border Guard said in a Facebook post.

The State Border Guard urged residents to be careful and contact the authorities when they find dangerous objects.

On June 6, Russia destroyed the dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant across the Dnipro River, occupied by Russian forces, sparking a large-scale humanitarian and environmental disaster across southern Ukraine.

Evacuation is underway in the flooded southern areas even as Russian forces continue to shell the west bank of the Dnipro River.

At least four people in Kherson Oblast and another one in Mykolaiv Oblast were killed due to the flooding, and 13 more are considered missing, the Interior Ministry reported on June 9.

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Asami Terajima

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Asami Terajima is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent covering Ukrainian military affairs and front-line developments. She is the co-author of the weekly War Notes newsletter. She previously worked as a business reporter for the Kyiv Post, focusing on international trade, infrastructure, investment, and energy. Originally from Japan, Terajima moved to Ukraine during childhood and completed her bachelor's degree in Business Administration in the U.S. She is the winner of the Thomson Reuters Foundation's Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism 2023 (Local Reporter category) and the George Weidenfeld Prize, awarded as part of Germany's Axel Springer Prize 2023. She was also featured on the Media Development Foundation's 2023 "25 under 25: Young and Bold" list of emerging media makers in Ukraine. She is among the finalists for the U.K.'s One World Media Award 2026 in the Print category and the French Bayeux Calvados-Normandy award 2025 for war correspondents in the Young Reporter category.

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