22 settlements still flooded in Kherson Oblast, but Water recedes in Mykolaiv

Vitalii Kim, Head of Mykolaiv Oblast Military Administration, during the national joint 24/7 newscast reported that out of 375 houses that were flooded, all 375 are no longer flooded. The State Emergency Service is working on drainage; there are additional pumps, so the situation is stable. Furthermore, the two bridges that went underwater, which the Konotop Road Repair Regiment is building with the help of UNITED24 [the Ukrainian government-run platform launched to raise money for supporting Ukraine during the Russian invasion – ed.] (one wooden and one concrete), have survived and are now open for traffic.

"I think the situation will be sorted out soon; the water has receded. We still have 50 centimetres of water in [the settlement of] Snihurivka, but this is already below the critical point. We can say that Mykolaiv Oblast is no longer flooded at all," Kim added.

The situation is more complicated in Kherson Oblast, where, according to the Internal Ministry, as of the morning of 19 June, 22 settlements remain flooded: five on the right bank part of Kherson Oblast and 17 on the temporarily occupied territory.

Russians attacked Beryslav district of Kherson Oblast

On the afternoon of 19 June, the Russians launched artillery attacks on the settlements of the Beryslav district in Kherson Oblast, injuring three people.

Residential buildings and outbuildings have been damaged in the attacks. Law enforcement officers are conducting priority measures for documenting Russian crimes.

World is not helping Ukraine to bring back children deported to Russia – child ombudswoman

Daria Herasymchuk, Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights and Child Rehabilitation, believes that so far, there is no international structure that could at least suggest a mechanism for bringing the deported Ukrainian children back to Ukraine.

"Concerning the deported children, we handed all the lists and personal information over to certain international organizations. Unfortunately, no action followed.

So at the moment, there is not a single international structure, which could suggest a reliable mechanism of bringing our deported children back," - she said.

Herasymchuk thinks that "Ukraine faced the total absence of the system of child protection worldwide: "It does not exist at all."

She added that there are well-written documents within international law – Geneva Convention, the UN Convention about Children’s Rights and others, and theoretically, they should have worked if all signees followed these rules."

One of the signers couldn't care less about all these rules it has itself signed: "It understands them how it wants, explains its actions how it wants, that is using its perverse imagination."

"The whole world relied on the organization which has the broadest mandate in the issues connected with deported and forcibly displaced persons – this is the International Red Cross Committee.

And it does not only concern the deported persons, as at the moment it is about the victims of the tragedy of the Kakhovka HPP. It is all the same here: we hoped that it was the International Red Cross Committee that should have been the first organization on site and saving people but, sadly, in reality, it was not the case in Ukraine," - concluded Daria Herasymchuck.