Iran reopened its embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on June 6, Saudi media reported, months after the two regional rivals agreed to end a diplomatic rift under a China-mediated deal. Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed in March to reestablish relations following years of hostility that has endangered stability in the Middle East and fueled regional conflicts including in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. The deal was struck seven years after Sunni Saudi Arabia severed relations with Shi'ite Iran following the storming of its embassy in Tehran during a dispute over the execution of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Russian anti-war activist and anarchist Aleksei Rozhkov was deported from Kyrgyzstan in late May and is currently in pretrial detention in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg for allegedly setting the building of a military recruitment center in the town of Beryozovsky on fire in March 2022, the Zona Solidarnosti (Solidarity Zone) rights project said on June 6. Rozhkov left Russia for Kyrgyzstan in December after Russian authorities equated arson attacks targeting military recruitment centers to terrorism amid a sharp rise in such incidents after Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

Belarusian tennis star Aryna Sabalenka says she does not want her country to be in any conflict and she does not support the war in Ukraine or its authoritarian ruler. "I don't support war, meaning I don't support Alyaksandr Lukashenka," Sabalenka told a press conference on June 6 after her quarterfinal victory against Elina Svitolina of Ukraine at the French Open. Sabalenka opted out of press conferences last week, citing mental health reasons after being grilled about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Belarus being used as a staging ground for Russian troops. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Prosecutors have asked the Minsk City Court to sentence self-exiled opposition activist Vadzim Prakopyeu to 25 years in prison on multiple charges, including coordinating an attempted arson attack at the house of a pro-government lawmaker, the chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus, Aleh Haydukevich, in June 2021.

Prosecutor Maksim Chuprys asked Judge Syarhey Khrypach on June 6 to convict Prakopyeu on 14 charges related to terrorism and the illegal possession of firearms.

Prakopyeu and two former law enforcement officers, Ihar Chamyakin and Dzyanis Khamitsevich, are being tried separately in absentia after they fled the country and whose current whereabouts are unknown.

Fifteen other defendants in the case are involved in a separate trial that started on March 6.

Also on June 6, the @MAYDAYMog human rights group said that police in the city of Barysau near Minsk had arrested noted rights defender Aleh Matskevich on unspecified charges last week.

Separately, the Belarusian Interior Ministry published a video on June 6 which shows the leader of the People's Student Chorus at the Belarusian State University, Volha Minyankova, offering an apology for her refusal to bring her chorus to parts of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region controlled by Russian troops.

It is not clear whether Minyankova's "repentance" video statement was recorded under duress, or if she is currently in custody.

Many journalists, rights activists, and representatives of democratic institutions have been jailed in Belarus since an August 2020 presidential election where Lukashenka was officially announced as the winner.

Rights activists and opposition politicians say the poll was rigged. Thousands have been detained during countrywide protests over the results and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown.

Lukashenka has refused to negotiate with the opposition and many of its leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country.

The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the crackdown.

The United States has imposed sanctions on more than a dozen people and entities in Iran, China, and Hong Kong, accusing them of supporting Iran's missile and military programs. The U.S. Treasury Department said the network conducted transactions and facilitated the procurement of sensitive and critical parts and technology for key actors in Iran’s ballistic missile development, including Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, which is under U.S. sanctions. Among those hit with sanctions was Iran's defense attache in Beijing, Davoud Damghani, whom the Treasury accused of coordinating military-related procurements from China for Iranian end-users. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Jailed Kazakh journalist Duman Mukhammedkarim's father, Almaz Tilepov, has joined his son's hunger strike to demand his immediate release. Tilepov started his hunger strike on June 6 in front of a district prosecutor’s office in Almaty. Mukhammedkarim launched his hunger strike on May 28 after he was handed a 25-day jail term over a video he posted online that called on Kazakhs to defend their rights. Just two days before that, Mukhammedkarim finished serving a similar sentence over his online calls for Almaty residents to rally against the government's move to introduce visa-free entry to Kazakhstan for Chinese citizens. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here.

The International Cycling Union (ICU) has suspended Savely Laptev, a member of Kazakhstan's Astana Qazaqstan DT cycling team, over his online support of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Laptev, who is Russian, was suspended last week from participating in UCI's tournament. His father said on June 5 that the decision was "a misunderstanding" and claimed that his son's social network account had been hacked. The UCI ruled earlier that Russian and Belarusian riders can resume their participation in its events as neutral athletes on condition that they stay away from supporting Russia's aggression against Ukraine. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here. https://www.azattyq.org/a/32445513.html

A Kazakh court has sentenced a woman to three years in prison for saying online that Russia should "take over North Kazakhstan and its capital, Petropavl, like it took Crimea" from Ukraine in 2014. Media reports in Petropavl said on June 6 that the woman, identified as Tatyana, was sentenced last week. The charge stemmed from the woman’s statement she made in a Chatroulette messenger chat in September 2021. In April, three members of a group called the People's Council in Petropavl were arrested on separatism charges and face up to seven years in prison if convicted. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here.

Bulgaria's parliament on June 6 approved a coalition government led by Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov, giving the Balkan member of the EU and NATO a new government after five elections within two years.

The government has the backing of the parliament's two biggest political groups -- the center-right GERB and Continue the Change/Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB).

Lawmakers held three separate votes, one to approve Denkov for the position of prime minister, one to establish the composition of the cabinet, and one to nominally approve each member of the cabinet.

Last week, the GERB-PP-DB coalition announced it had reached an agreement on the composition of the government.

According to the agreement, Denkov, from the PP-DB, will be premier for the first nine months and then the position will be taken over by Maria Gabriel from GERB, who until then will be deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

A total of 132 lawmakers supported the government -- all from the PP-DB coalition, all but one from GERB, and two MPs from DPS - while 69 people's representatives voted against.

The cabinet was chosen after negotiations that lasted more than two months following the fifth consecutive parliamentary elections on April 2, in which former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's GERB came first but it failed to gather support to form a one-party government.

According to the agreement, the coalition government will have a pro-European Union agenda, with obtaining membership in the Schengen passport-free area and the euro monetary union as top priorities along with fighting Russian influence in Bulgaria's security sector.

Bulgaria has been governed mainly by caretaker governments appointed by President Rumen Radev since public anger over years of corruption boiled over into massive protests in 2020. In February, Radev dissolved parliament and announced the April 2 vote.

Last year in June, the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Kiril Petkov fell after a no-confidence vote in parliament after only six months in power.

Petkov and his fragile coalition took over in December 2021 following eight months of political impasse and two interim administrations after protests against high-level corruption ended the decade-long rule of Borisov -- the head of GERB.

The political crisis has prompted Bulgaria to postpone adopting the euro by one year to 2025. In December, Austrian and Dutch opposition blocked Bulgaria and neighboring Romania from being admitted in the Schengen area.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Russian authorities failed to adequately investigate the poisoning in 2020 of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, thus violating his right to life and a proper investigation under the European Convention of Human Rights.

Navalny fell violently ill during a flight in Siberia in August 2020 and was then urgently flown to Germany where he was treated and survived what Western laboratories later established had been an attempted poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent.

The findings led the European Union to impose sanctions on six Russian officials and a state research institute.

Russian doctors claimed that tests performed in their laboratories before Navalny was flown to Germany had found no trace of a poisonous substance in his blood and refused to open a criminal investigation into the incident.

Navalny has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning. The Kremlin has denied any involvement.

The ECHR said in its June 6 ruling that it "found in particular that the inquiry conducted by the Russian authorities had not been open to scrutiny and had made no allowance for the victim’s right to participate in the proceedings."

The Russian authorities' measures "had not been capable of leading to the establishment of the relevant facts and the identification and, if appropriate, punishment of those responsible," the ruling said, adding, that "it therefore could not be considered adequate."

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5 Things To Know About Russian Opposition Leader Aleksei Navalny

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Navalny recovered and voluntarily returned to Russia in 2021, where he was arrested upon arrival and sent to prison for charges that he and his supporters say are politically motivated.

"As evidence obtained with the assistance of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) indicated that Mr Navalniy had been poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the [internationally banned] Novichok group, Russia, as a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, had been under an obligation to open a criminal investigation into any activities breaching the prohibition of chemical weapons," the ECHR said in its ruling.

The EHCR ordered the Russian state to pay Navalny 40,000 euros ($42,800) in damages.

Putin in June last year signed a law under which Russia will not follow ECHR's rulings made after March 15, 2022.

However, since Russia was a member of the Court and the Council of Europe at the time of the alleged poisoning, the judgment must be enforced, an ECHR spokeswoman told Reuters.

With reporting by Reuters

A former member of Iran's police force who resigned in protest against the suppression of demonstrators, is said to have died under what colleagues say were suspicious circumstances.

Medical officials in the southwestern Iranian province of Ilam confirmed the death of Mansureh Sagvand, a law student from Abadan who had previously resigned from her collaboration with the Law Enforcement Force.

The official news agency IRNA quoted Seydnour Alimoradi, the head of the pre-hospital emergency department of Ilam University, as saying the cause of Sagvand's death was "cardiac and respiratory arrest".

But friends of Sagvand said they doubted the official report.

Issa Baziar, a civil activist from Abadan living abroad, revealed on his Twitter page that Sagvand, died after being released from detention.

Meanwhile, Sagvand herself had reported a death threat on her Instagram account just hours before she perished, writing: "They scare us with death, as if we are alive. Forever and ever, my life is a sacrifice for the homeland. Long live Iran."

This incident follows numerous reports of "suspicious deaths" during recent nationwide protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody for a dress-code offense last September.

The Twitter account "Voice of Shahrivar," which covers protest news, noted that Sagvand was formerly a member of the Law Enforcement Force and that she cut off cooperation with this entity during the recent nationwide protests. She had been in custody for a while, it said, without giving a specific time period.

An Instagram account under the name "Mansoreh Sagvand" featured a picture of her in the uniform of women working in the Law Enforcement Force.

"I am Mansureh Sagvand from Lorestan, I used to work in the honorary police of the Law Enforcement Force of Khorramabad. From now on, I will not have any cooperation with the armed forces and I will proudly stay with my compatriots," the caption read.

Following widespread reactions among Iranian social network users regarding the suspicious death of Sagvand, IRNA dismissed the speculation as "baseless" and attributed the rumors to "opposition media."

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda

Students at the Turkmen Cultural Institute in Ashgabat have been forced by their teachers to go to theaters at least once a week. Some students told RFE/RL that they have been forced to buy tickets to the theaters distributed by their teachers. According to the students, they have neither the money to buy the tickets that cost between 10-30 manats ($2.8-$8.5) nor the time. The administration of the Cultural Institute was not available for immediate comment. Theaters, schools, and other public institutions are under the government's full supervision in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, click here.

A top Ukrainian diplomat called Russia a "terrorist state" on June 6 as he opened his country's case against Moscow at the United Nations' highest court, and lawyers argued that Russia bankrolled a "campaign of intimidation and terror" by separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Anton Korynevych was addressing judges at the International Court of Justice in a case brought by Kyiv against Russia linked to Moscow's 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the arming of separatists in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine wants the world court to order Moscow to pay reparations for attacks in the regions, including for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. To read the original story by AP, click here.

Russian authorities said on June 6 the number of people killed by tainted cider in the regions of Ulyanovsk, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, and Udmurtia had risen to 30. Poisonings with surrogate alcohol are common in Russia as people look to save money on cheaper drinks. In 2021, 34 people were killed by surrogate alcohol in the Urals region of Orenburg. In December 2016, 78 people died in the Siberian region of Irkutsk after drinking a scented herbal bath oil, which contained methanol, a highly poisonous type of industrial alcohol. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

A Russian court on June 6 sentenced Ukrainian activist Bohdan Zyza from Russian-occupied Crimea to 15 years in prison on terrorism charges. Zyza was arrested in May 2022 after he splashed yellow and blue paint -- the colors of the Ukrainian flag -- on a building of the Moscow-imposed administration in the Crimean city of Yevpatoria. He also threw a Molotov cocktail at it. At his trial, Zyza said he will go on hunger strike from July 10, demanding the Russian citizenship forcibly imposed on him by occupying Russian authorities be annulled and all Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia or territories it controls be released. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Crimea.Realities, click here.

The administration of a prison in Russia's Vladimir region has barred journalists from entering the facility, where the preliminary hearing into a new criminal case against already jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny is set to start on June 6.

Navalny's press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, wrote on Twitter that journalists were barred from entering the penitentiary's territory hours before the hearing.

"They are doing this because there is no evidence in the case. And the only way for them to save face (as they think) is to fully classify [the case]," Yarmysh tweeted.

Navalny faces charges of creating an "extremist" group, making calls for "extremism," creating a nonprofit organization that violates citizens' rights, financing of "extremism," involving a minor in criminal activities, and rehabilitating Nazism.

When first making public the new case in April, Navalny called the charges "absurd."

Navalny also said another case charging him with propagating terrorism and Nazism was launched in October over his self-exiled associates' statements on the Popular Politics YouTube channel. The comments criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government and condemned Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed in April that Navalny's associates, along with Ukraine's secret services, were involved in the assassination of pro-Kremlin journalist and propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg.

Navalny has been in prison since February 2021 after he was arrested a month earlier upon his return to Russia from Germany -- where he had been undergoing treatment for a near-fatal poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent that he says was ordered by Putin.

The Kremlin has denied any role in Navalny's poisoning, even though experts say only state actors have access to such a nerve agent.

On June 6, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, ordered Russia to pay 40,000 euros ($42,800) to Navalny for refusing to investigate his poisoning.

TASHKENT -- The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan has rejected appeals by Karakalpak journalists Dauletmurat Tajimuratov and Lolagul Kallykhanova against the lengthy prison terms they were handed over mass anti-government protests in the country's Karakalpak Autonomous Republic last year.

According to Tajimuratov's lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, the Supreme Court, which looked into the appeals of 18 men and women sentenced in the high-profile case, also ruled on June 5 that the prison sentences of eight defendants must be changed to parole-like sentences, while six more had their prison terms shortened.

Tajimuratov, a lawyer for the El Khyzmetinde (At People's Service) newspaper, where he previously was the chief editor, was sentenced on January 31 by the Bukhara regional court along with the other defendants. His 16-year prison sentence was upheld.

Kallykhanova, a founder of the Makan.uz website, was sentenced to eight years in prison. Her sentence was also left unchanged.

In March, another 39 Karakalpak activists accused of taking part in the protests in Karakalpakstan's capital, Nukus, were convicted, with 28 of them sentenced to prison terms of between five and 11 years, while 11 were handed parole-like sentences.

SEE ALSO:

Civil Society The Biggest Casualty Of Crackdowns In Tajikistan And Uzbekistan's Autonomous Regions  

Uzbek authorities say 21 people died during the protests in early July 2022, which were sparked by the announcement of a planned change to the constitution that would have undermined the region's right to self-determination.

The violence forced President Shavkat Mirziyoev to make a rare about-face and scrap the proposal.

Mirziyoev accused "foreign forces" of being behind the unrest, without further explanation, before backing away from the proposed changes.

Karakalpaks are a Central Asian Turkic-speaking people. Their region used to be an autonomous area within Kazakhstan before becoming autonomous within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1930 and then part of Uzbekistan in 1936.

The European Union has called for an independent investigation into the violence.

Kyrgyzstan's State Committee of National Security (UKMK) said on June 6 that a group of men and women suspected of plotting to seize power had been apprehended. According to the UKMK, the group was led by the leader of the Eldik Kenesh (People's Council) political party, who, along with four associates, confessed to the charge. The statement gave only the initials of some of the suspects. the Eldik Kenesh party is led by Roza Nurmatova. The UKMK statement came a day after local media reported mass arrests. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here.

Belarusian rights activist Yana Pinchuk, who was extradited to Minsk from Russia in August 2022, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges rights groups say are politically motivated.

Judge Tatsyana Falkouskaya of the Minsk City Court sentenced Pinchuk on June 6 after finding her guilty of inciting social hatred, creating an extremist group, involvement in the creation of a terrorist group, calling for the disruption of the constitutional order, and harming national security.

Rights watchdogs insist that the charges are politically motivated to punish Pinchuk for joining protests after Belarusian authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka was declared the winner of an August 2020 presidential election despite allegations of widespread voter fraud that triggered Western sanctions.

Police in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, arrested Pinchuk in early November 2021 at the request of Minsk. She was later extradited to Belarus and went on trial on April 10.

The Crisis In Belarus

Read our ongoing coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election, widely seen as fraudulent.

Belarusian authorities accuse Pinchuk of administering the Vitsebsk97% Telegram channel, which was critical of Lukashenka's regime and has been labeled as "extremist" in Belarus.

Pinchuk has rejected all of the charges, saying she immediately closed the Telegram channel after it was officially designated extremist.

She is one of many Belarusians who have faced multiple charges linked to the mass protests following Lukashenka's contested reelection.

Thousands have been arrested and much of the opposition leadership has been jailed or forced into exile. Several protesters have been killed and there have also been credible reports of torture during a widening security crackdown.

Belarusian authorities have also shut down several NGOs and independent media outlets.

The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the crackdown.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on June 6 unveiled what it said was the first domestically produced hypersonic ballistic missile amid growing concerns in the West over the country's missile program.

The missile, named Fattah, or Conqueror in Persian, is capable of "penetrating through all missile defense systems," the IRGC's aerospace forces said on June 6, without offering evidence for the claim.

The missile was unveiled during a ceremony attended by IRGC commanders and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who also chose the name for the new weapon, state media reported.

"We feel today that a deterrent power has been established," Raisi said at the event. "This power is an anchor of lasting security and peace for the regional countries," he said in footage presented by state media.

Aerospace forces' chief Amirali Hajizadeh, was quoted as saying the missile had a range of 1,400 kilometers and could reach a speed of 15,500 kilometers per hour.

Western military experts say that Iran sometimes give exaggerated figures for the capabilities of its weapons.

Iran has continued to develop ballistic missiles despite U.S. sanctions, arguing that they are for purely defensive and deterrence purposes.

Last month, Iran presented what it said was the fourth generation of its Khorramshahr ballistic missile, called Khaibar, with a range of 2,000 kilometers and a warhead weighing 1,500 kilograms.

Over the past several days, Iran's Ministry of Defense said it was building yet another ballistic missile named "Khyber," which belongs to the Khorramshahr class of ballistic missiles.

In March 2022, Washington imposed sanctions on an Iran-based procurement network of companies for providing assistance to Iran's ballistic-missile program.

Iran's missile program is perceived as a serious threat by Tehran's arch-enemy, Israel, and other U.S.-allied countries in the Persian Gulf region.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

The European Union envoy for dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, Miroslav Lajcak, and the U.S. envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, have told Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti he needs to calm the situation in the north of Kosovo, hold new municipal elections, and return to dialogue with Serbia on normalizing relations. The two diplomats met with Kurti late on June 5 in Pristina. Tensions over the seating of ethnic Albanian mayors sparked clashes between ethnic Serbs and NATO peacekeepers last week, leaving dozens injured. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, click here.

The deputy governor of Afghanistan's northern Badakhshan Province was killed by a car bomb on June 6, the provincial spokesman said. "Nissar Ahmad Ahmadi, with his driver, has been killed and six civilians were injured," said the head of the provincial information office, Mahzudeen Ahmadi. It was not clear who was behind the attack, which was the first known major blast in Afghanistan in several weeks. The Taliban administration has been carrying out raids against members of Islamic State, which has had claimed several major attacks in urban centers, including Kabul. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up a huge Soviet-era dam on the Dnieper River in a Moscow-occupied area in the south, sending millions of liters of water cascading through the region in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called an act of "terror."

Ukrainian authorities said tens of thousands of people had evacuated from areas threatened by massive flooding downstream in the Kherson region after the attack in the early hours of June 6. Within hours, water levels had already risen by 10 to 12 meters, they added.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensives, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

Within hours, water levels rose by up to 12 meters in some areas with the mayor of Novaya Kakhovka, Volodymyr Kovalenko, telling News of Azov, a project of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, that the the lower part of the river's bank had already flooded the Kazkova Dibrova zoo, a summer cinema, a park area, and stadiums, while architecturally significant buildings were threatened by the rising water, which is likely to remain for several days before receding.

"The Kakhovska [dam project] has actually been destroyed, it's hard for me to imagine whether it will be possible to do something with it once the war has ended. The destruction is of such a scale that a lot of water will come out and there will be flooding, especially in the old part of the city," Kovalenko said.

Ihor Syrota, the head of Ukrhydroenergo, said in an interview on state television that a power station that formed part of the dam was wiped out in the attack.

"The station cannot be restored, it is completely destroyed... The hydraulic structure is being washed away," he said.

The Nova Kakhovka dam -- which is 30 meters tall and 3.2 kilometers long -- is part a vital route for transport and irrigation, as well as supplying water to Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, which are both under Russian control.

With the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant also in possible peril, Zelenskiy called an emergency meeting of the country's National Security and Defense Council to discuss the situation.

"Russian terrorists," Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter, where he posted a video of the broken dam and the water rapidly flowing through the huge breach.

"The destruction of the [Nova] Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land. Not a single meter should be left to them, because they use every meter for terror.... The terrorists will not be able to stop Ukraine with water, missiles or anything else," Zelenskiy wrote, adding that all services were working.

Russia denied it carried out the attack, with the Kremlin instead calling it "deliberate sabotage" by Kyiv.

SLIDER IMAGE: The Kakovka Dam Before And After The Explosion

Speaking later in a video address to the Bucharest Nine summit being held in Bratislava, Zelenskiy said the Russian claims were impossible given the size of the structure, which Moscow had controlled for more than a year.

"It is physically impossible to blow it up somehow from the outside - with shelling. It was mined. It was mined by the Russian occupiers and blown up by them," he said.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said it has asked the United Nations Security Council to hold an urgent meeting and levy new sanctions on Russia -- especially targeted at its missile and nuclear sectors -- over the strike.

"Russia destroyed the Kakhovka dam inflicting probably Europe’s largest technological disaster in decades and putting thousands of civilians at risk. This is a heinous war crime," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a tweet.

Natalya Humenyuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine's southern military command, said Russia blew up the dam to keep Ukrainian troops from being able to cross the Dnieper as it prepares to go on the counteroffensive to push Russian troops out of the region.

"They were aware that the movement of the (Ukrainian) defense forces would take place and in this way tried to influence the defense forces so that the crossing of the Dnieper, which they feared, would not happen." she told an online briefing, calling it a "hysterical reaction."

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Water Rising To 'Critical' Levels, Says Ukrainian Official After Dam Break

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While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was monitoring the situation, Ukraine's nuclear energy agency warned that the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam could pose a danger for the safety of the Zaporizhzhya plant -- Europe's biggest nuclear plant -- which uses water from the reservoir for the cooling process.

"Water from the Kakhovka reservoir is necessary for the station to receive power for turbine capacitors and safety systems. Now the station's cooling pond is full: as of 8 a.m., the water level is 16.6 meters high, which is enough for the station's needs," Enerhoatom, the plant's operator, said, adding later that the situation was "not critical."

The IAEA said the plant should have enough water to cool its reactors for "some months" from a pond located above the reservoir created by the dam.

"It is therefore vital that this cooling pond remains intact. Nothing must be done to potentially undermine its integrity. I call on all sides to ensure nothing is done to undermine that," IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement.

The Nova Kakhovka dam -- which is 30 meters tall and 3.2 kilometers long -- is part a vital route for transport and irrigation, as well as supplying water to Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula as well as the Zaporizhzhya plant, which are both under Russian control.

International condemnation of the attack was swift, with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg calling it "an outrageous act," while European Council President Charles Michel expressed “shock” saying Russia should be held accountable for the "war crime" of destroying civilian infrastructure.

"The destruction of the Kakhovka dam today puts thousands of civilians at risk and causes severe environmental damage. This is an outrageous act, which demonstrates once again the brutality of Russia's war in Ukraine," Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also put the blame squarely on Moscow for the destruction of the dam, saying that while it was "too early" to make any kind of meaningful assessment of the details, "it's worth remembering that the only reason this is an issue at all is because of Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine."

Ukraine has called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss what it called a "Russian terrorist attack" on the Kakhovka dam. It also said it wanted the IAEA's board of governors to discuss the incident and demanded new international sanctions on Russia, and in particular on the Russian missile industry and nuclear sector.

• RFE/RL
• Reuters
• AP
• TASS

The Nova Kakhovka dam in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine was destroyed on June 6, prompting mass evacuations and fears of large-scale devastation as Kyiv accused Moscow’s forces of committing an act of "ecocide."

Officials continue to scramble to move residents out of the area, with Oleksandr Prokudin, the governor of the Kherson region, saying water levels will reach a "critical level" in the early afternoon.

"I specifically appeal to the residents on the left bank [of the Dnieper]: do everything possible to protect yourself and save your life -- immediately leave the dangerous areas," Prokudin said earlier on Telegram.

"As of 7:30 a.m., the following settlements are completely or partially flooded: Tyahynka, Lviv, Odradokamyanka, Ivanivka, Mykilske Tokarivka, Ponyativka, Bilozerka, and the Ostriv microdistrict of the city of Kherson. Other settlements will be flooded, we're prepared," he told national television.

The evacuation of approximately 16,000 people from the threatened area on the right bank of the Dnieper was already under way, Prokudin added.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential administration, accused Russia of "ecocide" in a message on Telegram.

"Another war crime by Russian terrorists. The president convenes the National Security Council. This is ecocide," Yermak wrote.

Presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak accused Russia of committing a "premeditated crime" in an attempt to delay any chance of ending the conflict.

"The purpose is obvious: to create insurmountable obstacles on the way of the advancing [Ukrainian forces]; to intercept the information initiative; to slow down the fair end of the war. On a vast territory, all life will be destroyed; many settlements will be ruined; colossal damage will be done to the environment," Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

Officials in Russian-occupied parts of Kherson rejected the accusation, blaming the damage on Ukrainian strikes in the contested area.

The Moscow-installed administrator of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, said Ukrainian strikes on the dam destroyed its valves, and "water from the Kakhovka reservoir began to uncontrollably flow downstream."

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Irene Khan, UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, expressed concerns over the rise in hate speech in Serbia following two mass-killing incidents in the Balkan nation. “Serbia must take immediate and effective measures against hateful and divisive rhetoric in public discourse which fuels violence in society,” a UN statement said. “The shootings have traumatized the entire country. It is unconscionable to use this tragedy as yet another occasion to stir up hatred, demonizing and vilifying independent media, human rights defenders, political opponents, and others critical of the government.” To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Balkan Service, click here.

Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history, was found dead in his prison cell in the U.S. state of Colorado on June 5, prison officials said. The 79-year-old Hanssen was arrested in 2001 and pleaded guilty to selling highly classified material to the Soviet Union and then Russia. He was serving a life sentence. Hanssen began spying in 1979.