Japan, Netherlands pledge emergency aid to Ukraine after dam blast
Japan and the Netherlands have become the latest countries to pledge emergency aid in the wake of flooding after the destruction of a major dam in the south of Ukraine, according to news reports.
A flooded area in Kherson, Ukraine, June 9, 2023.Photo: EPA/MYKOLA TYMCHENKO
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday that his country would provide water pump installations and rescue boats „for emergency assistance and evacuation,” news outlets reported.
Earlier on Friday, Japan offered emergency aid to Ukraine, the Reuters news agency reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that he was „shocked” at what he described as the failure of the United Nations and the Red Cross to help after the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam in the south of his country, according to Reuters.
The massive dam in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region was blown up by Russian forces in the early hours of Tuesday, causing flooding in vast areas along the Dnipro River, according to Ukrainian officials.
Poland’s envoy to the United Nations, Krzysztof Szczerski, has condemned the destruction of the dam, calling the incident „another outrageous act of Russian barbarity” and an apparent war crime.
Addressing the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Szczerski said the attack posed a direct threat to civilians living along the Dnipro banks downstream and to the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the south of Ukraine.
Szczerski warned that the incident could cause an environmental disaster with unprecedented consequences, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The Polish foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that Poland „will make every effort to hold Russia accountable before the international community and to punish the perpetrators of this criminal act, and will insist on it through relevant international institutional and legal mechanisms, including humanitarian and environmental ones.”
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
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Source: IAR, PAP, Reuters, ukrinform.net
