INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Ukraine's Russian-occupied city of Kherson was cut off from water and electricity supplies Sunday after an air strike and a key dam in the
Ukrainian side on the Beryslav-Kakhovka highway that saw three concrete poles of high-voltage power lines damaged."Energy specialists were
working to "quickly" resolve the issue, the Russian-backed authorities said, as they called on people to "remain calm."But the head of the
regional administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych, blamed Russia for the power outages.He said that in Beryslav city around 1.5 kilometers (just
there will be no light in Beryslav until the city is completely de-occupied," he wrote on the Telegram social media platform."It is
done."News of the outage followed reports that the Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled region of Kherson was "damaged" by a Ukrainian
strike."Today at 10:00 a.m
there was a hit of six HIMARS rockets
Air defense units shot down five missiles, one hit a lock of the Kakhovka dam, which was damaged," Russian news agencies quoted local
emergency services as saying.The RIA Novosti news agency quoted a local Moscow-backed official saying the damage was not "critical."Ukraine
southern Ukraine was captured by Moscow's forces at the start of their offensive
the country."We are also aware of the fact that the terrorist state is concentrating forces and means for a possible repetition of massive
attacks on our infrastructure, primarily energy," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening speech, referring to Russia."In
particular, Russia needed Iranian missiles for this
We are getting ready to respond," Zelensky said.Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said he does not rule out a full blackout in Ukraine's capital
"We are calculating various scenarios in order to withstand this and be prepared," he said.Russian strikes over the past month have
destroyed around a third of Ukraine's power stations and the government has urged Ukrainians to conserve electricity as much as possible.But
until now, Ukraine had only rarely struck Russian-held civilian energy infrastructure in territory annexed by Moscow, preferring to target
Russian army supply lines.As Ukraine presses a counteroffensive in the south, Moscow's occupational forces in Kherson have vowed to turn the
city into a "fortress."Russian forces have for weeks organized a civilian pull-out from the Kherson region as Ukrainian troops advance,
which Kyiv has called "deportations."Moscow-installed Kherson governor Vladimir Saldo said he was moving people further into the region or
to Russia because of the risks of a "massive missile attack."The dam's destruction would lead to flooding of the left bank of the Dnipro
River, he said.Zelensky said last month that Russian forces had mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant with the intent of blowing it
up.Its destruction could cause flash-flooding for hundreds of thousands of people, he warned.He said cutting water supplies to the south
volunteered to fight in Ukraine has died on the battlefield, Taipei's foreign ministry said, in what is believed to be the first person from
the island killed in the conflict.And in a final address on his visit to Bahrain, Pope Francis on Sunday urged congregants to pray "for
Ukraine, which is suffering so much," and for an end to the war.
