citizens of war-battered Kherson was never easy. But this week it got a whole lot worse. For the second day, emergency workers and volunteers battled to contain the damage from an unfolding ecological disaster. The partial destruction of theearly on June 6th has already led to dozens of settlements in the region being submerged. Rescuers work in dinghies and rafts, under mortar and artillery fire, evacuating the mostly elderly and bewhiskered.
The sequence of events on June 6th is also still being stitched together. Some, though not all, locals report hearing an explosion in the morning. Ukraine had by that point begunin other sections of the frontline farther east. But it is understood that at least some Ukrainian units had moved out from Kherson city in the days leading up to the blast. They may have been attempting a risky cross-river operation over or near the Kakhovka dam and bridge. Perhaps Russia acted to make that impossible.