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KYIV, Ukraine: Russian strikes on Monday damaged a dam near the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian authorities said, warning nearby villages could be threatened by rising water levels.
Ukraine also said Russian attacks killed at least three people in the center of the country, with rescue operations ongoing in the city of Kryvyi Rig.
They came after the warring countries hit each other with massive drone strikes at the weekend and as the long-term future of US support for Ukraine hangs in the air after the election of Donald Trump.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for nearly three years.
Moscow’s army is now rapidly advancing in the Donetsk region and closing in on the town of Kurakhove, which lies next to the reservoir and had a pre-war population of around 10,000 people.
“The Russians damaged the dam of the reservoir of Kurakhove. This strike potentially threatens residents of settlements on the Vovcha River, both in Donetsk and Dnipro regions,” the region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
“As of 16:00, the water level in the river within the Velykonovosilkivska community has risen by 1.2 meters (four feet). No flooding has been reported so far!” he posted on social media.
The dam lies in the village of Stari Terny, west of Kurakhove.
International environmental groups have warned of the devastating effects of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine’s nature.
In June last year, a massive Soviet-era dam in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region was blown up, pouring billions of liters of water downstream and flooding dozens of villages on the banks of the Dnipro River.
Kyiv said Russia, whose troops controlled the dam at the time, blew it up to thwart a Ukrainian counter-offensive. Moscow blamed Ukraine.
Dozens were killed in the floods that followed the blast, which has also caused vast environmental damage to southern Ukraine.
Russia also targeted the central Ukrainian cities of Nikopol and Kryvyi Rig on Monday.
Moscow’s shelling killed two people in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region governor Sergiy Lysak said.
In Kryvyi Rig, the home city of President Volodymyr Zelensky, a search and rescue operation was underway, with at least one dead and 14 people wounded after Russian strikes on the city.
The head of the city, Oleksandr Vilkul, said the body of a woman was pulled out of the rubble.
Kryvyi Rig has been regularly hit by Russian strikes.
The attacks came a day after Moscow and Kyiv launched record drone attacks on each other on Sunday.
Trump’s election has raised questions about the future of the conflict, with the Republican being vocally critical of United States aid to Ukraine.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed that he would end the war swiftly, without giving details as to how.
Visiting Ukraine on Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that letting Russia win in Ukraine would represent a loss for the United States.
“Certainly it would not be a victory for the American leadership if Ukraine crumbles down and Putin wins the war,” Borrell told AFP on the first trip to Kyiv by a senior EU official since Trump’s election triumph.

THE HAGUE: Karim Khan’s job as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requires a scrupulous and meticulous examination of evidence to bring cases against alleged perpetrators of the world’s worst crimes.
Now the 54-year-British lawyer faces his own probe, into allegations of misconduct reportedly against a member of his own office, that he firmly denies.
When Khan was sworn in as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, he said the court should be judged by its acts — “the proof of the pudding should be in the eating.”
And by seeking arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Hamas figures, Khan has shown he is not afraid to take on the world’s most controversial cases.
The application followed an arrest warrant issued last year for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, which promptly slapped arrest warrants on Khan himself.
But Khan has faced down controversy throughout a career that has included stints defending Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor against allegations of war crimes in Sierra Leone.
Other high-profile clients have included Kenya’s President William Ruto in a crimes-against-humanity case at the ICC that was eventually dropped, and the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, Seif Al-Islam.
Asked about “crossing the floor” — working as both prosecutor and defense — Khan told specialist publication OpinioJuris that it helps lawyers stay “grounded.”
It also prevents “corrosive traits such as thinking that defense counsel is the devil incarnate or that as a prosecutor you are doing ‘God’s work’,” he said.
Criticized initially for not acting fast enough to prevent atrocities in Gaza, Khan touched off a firestorm when applying for arrest warrants over the war.
Netanyahu called it a “moral outrage of historic proportions.” For US President Joe Biden, it was “outrageous.”
Even before Khan’s application, senior US Republicans penned a letter threatening to bar him and his family from the United States, ending ominously “you have been warned.”
But Khan told CNN: “This is not a witch hunt. This is not some kind of emotional reaction to noise... It’s a forensic process that is expected of us as international prosecutors.”

Born in Scotland, Khan was educated at the private Silcoates School in northern England, before studying undergraduate law at King’s College, London.
His father was Pakistani, his mother British and he is a member of the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, sometimes sprinkling his speeches with “inshallah” (God Willing).
Called to the bar in 1992, he went on to cut his teeth in international law at the former Yugoslav and Rwandan war crimes courts from 1997 to 2000.
He later represented survivors and relatives of victims of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia at its UN-backed court in the late 2000s.
His other roles have included a stint at The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to bring to justice the killers of Lebanese ex-PM Rafic Hariri in 2005.
More recently, he headed the UN special probe into Daesh group crimes and called for trials like those at Nuremberg of Nazi leaders.
Initially absent from a list of candidates for the top ICC prosecutor job, Khan was added reportedly at the insistence of the Kenyan government.
The ICC selection panel described him as a “charismatic and articulate communicator who is well aware of his achievements.”
“I did apply because I thought I could do the role. If the Search Committee thought this was arrogance, then I’m guilty as charged,” Khan said.
In his speeches, he is forthright with a strong command of oratory, sprinkled with dashes of British humor.
“From what I’ve observed, Karim Khan seems like a no-nonsense lawyer, which I quite respect,” Melanie O’Brien, visiting professor in international law at the University of Minnesota, told AFP.
An ICC prosecutor “has to have a certain fortitude because you know that you are going to be up against people who don’t agree with you and don’t agree with the court generally,” she added.