UN agrees to conduct evacuations from flooded Russian-occupied areas

Ukraine and the United Nations (UN) agreed that the UN would deploy personnel to the flood-affected left bank of the Dnipro River, occupied by Russia.

The UN workers will provide aid and conduct evacuations, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry announced on June 8.

Kyiv pointed out that the UN has already provided humanitarian aid to the affected territories. Based on this agreement, the amount of aid should increase.

The UN also promised to form two working groups in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that will be deployed to the occupied parts of the left bank of the Dnipro River to provide humanitarian aid on the ground and organize evacuations.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba promised to provide the UN with security guarantees for humanitarian operations, including safe passage to the occupied territories.

The UN is yet expecting similar provisions from Moscow. Once the Russian side agrees to provide safe passage and security guarantees, the UN personnel will be deployed.

Russia destroyed the Kakhovka dam on June 6, triggering a large-scale humanitarian and environmental disaster.

Kherson Oblast and other regions of southern Ukraine were severely hit by floods.

According to Ukraine's officials, Russian authorities are not assisting residents of the occupied territories with evacuation and are not providing aid.

On June 7, President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to international organizations to join rescue efforts on the afflicted left bank of the Dnipro River.

"Every dead person there is a sentence to the existing international architecture, to international organizations that have forgotten how to save lives. If now there is no international organization in the zone of this disaster, it means that it does not exist at all, which means that it's ineffective," Zelensky said.

‘They are destroying us.’ People plea to escape flooded Russian-occupied areas

Editor’s note: For this story, we spoke to people living or having family in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. For their safety, they are identified by first name only. After destroying the Nova Kakhovka dam and stranding thousands of Ukrainians in the catastrophic flood zone, Russians prevent…

The Kyiv IndependentDaria Shulzhenko