The Kakhovka dam disaster is front-page news in most Russian media this morning, except for Rossiyskaya Gazeta – the official newspaper of the Kremlin – which has relegated the news to page three in favour of a story about rubbish.
The paper sticks to the Russian government’s line that Ukraine is responsible for blowing up the dam.
Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, has taken a look at how Russian media are covering the dam’s collapse.
As our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams wrote earlier, the breach of the Kakhovka dam came just a day after Ukraine’s long-anticipated counter offensive appeared to get under way. And the country’s deputy defence minister has given a fresh update on troop movements today.
Forces have advanced from 200 to 1,100 metres in “various sections of the Bakhmut direction”, Hanna Maliar writes on the Telegram messaging app. She says her forces have switched from being on the defensive to the offensive in the area.
Maliar issued a similar update yesterday, without confirming whether the long-anticipated counter-offensive had officially begun.
We can’t independently verify the situation on the battlefield. There’s there’s been intense fighting in Bakhmut in recent months – and both Kyiv and Moscow have claimed to be in control of the city.
Deaths reported as fighting continues across Ukraine
Let’s look more broadly at the situation across Ukraine now. Officials have given reports of fresh Russian attacks, with some deaths reported.
At least one person was killed and another injured in a shelling attack on Kherson, while the southern city deals with flooding and evacuations, according to the regional governor.
And a separate attack, using drones, has killed two civilians and wounded one other in the Sumy region in the north-east, according to Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office.