Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Recovery of Ukraine, Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, held an operational meeting on the situation in the south of Ukraine in Kherson. The meeting was also attended by Ihor Klymenko, Head of the Headquarters for Elimination of Consequences of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant Dam Explosion/ Minister of Internal Affairs, Oleksiy Kuleba, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office, Oleksandr Prokudin, Head of Kherson Regional State Administration, heads of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv Regional State Administrations, and rescuers.

"We discussed the current state of affairs and identified the necessary response measures. The first and most important thing. The work is being carried out as actively as possible in the context of hostilities and almost daily shelling of Kherson region. The average water level in Kherson is now more than 5 metres above normal. We expect that water will continue to arrive at least until the end of the day," the Deputy Prime Minister said.

He added that, according to preliminary estimates, more than 2,000 houses had been flooded. More than 80 settlements are in the zone of possible flooding. There are environmental threats, such as the spread of household and industrial waste. Measures are being taken to disinfect the water.

"More than 1,700 people have already been evacuated with evacuation continuing. We are providing transportation with the help of Ukrzaliznytsia, regional and local authorities, private bus carriers and volunteers. I am sincerely grateful to everyone who lends a shoulder. We are communicating with international organisations to help evacuate people from more than 20 communities in the temporarily occupied territories," said Oleksandr Kubrakov.

According to him, one of the most acute problems now is water supply to those regions that depended on the Kakhovka reservoir. These are the towns and villages of Kherson, Mykolaiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia regions.

"I would like to note that there are water reserves, they are sufficient to meet all the needs of the communities. Additionally, we have a decision to modernise more than a hundred existing wells and drill new ones. Yesterday, the Government also allocated UAH 1.5 billion for the construction of main water pipelines in the south of Ukraine and more than UAH 845 million to the affected regions to upgrade the system of providing drinking water to the residents of these regions," the official stressed.