James Waterhouse
Ukraine correspondent, in Kherson

Image source, Reuters

Hundreds of people have been posting on the Telegram app, asking to be rescued from the severe floods in Kherson.

"Help me please!" writes Svitlana, who says there are 35 trapped people at one address on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro river.

"They're all on a nearby roof - children are screaming and crying," she pleads.

"Three days without food and water. We are dying, slowly. Please, please."

The majority of cries for help are coming from people on the left bank, which is under Russian control.

On one local list, published today, we’ve seen the names of at least 150 people who are reportedly missing.

Aliona posts: "Asking urgently! There is a 1939-born grandmother and 1958-born disabled woman. They need to be evacuated. Help!"

Officials in Kherson have advised rescue volunteers to pause, after the city came under heavy shelling yesterday.

On social media, dozens of people across Ukraine have responded with their addresses and an offer to provide accommodation after their rescue.

Image source, PLANET LABS PBC/Reuters

The cause of the Kakhovka dam breach is still unclear, but new evidence about how it may have been damaged is emerging.

Seismic signals recorded in Bukovina, Romania, 620km (372 miles) away from Nova Kakhovka, indicate an explosion took place at 2:54 on Tuesday.

Norsar, the Norwegian Seismic Array which analysed the signals, says the timing and location coincide with the collapse of the dam.

Furthermore, only a very large quantity of explosives could have produced the signal detected almost 400 miles away, says BBC World Affairs correspondent Paul Adams.

From the start, Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up the dam.

They say they now have evidence to back up that accusation, with its domestic security service claiming to have intercepted a telephone call between two Russian-speaking men stating the dam breach was the result of the activities of a Russian sabotage group.

Moscow, in return, has denied it is to blame. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it an act of "sabotage" that would deprive the Crimean peninsula - an area annexed by Russia in 2014 - of water.

Five people have died in the flooding following the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, Ukraine's interior minister has said.

In an update on the Telegram messing app, Ihor Klymenko says 13 people are missing and more than 2,400 people have been rescued in the Kherson region so far.

He adds 48 settlements have been flooded in the Kherson area - 34 on the Ukrainian bank of the Dnipro and 14 in Russian-occupied areas.

In Mykolaiv region, one person has died and more than 800 evacuated from 23 flooded settlements, Klymenko says.

Image source, Reuters

Hundreds of thousands of people's access to drinking water has been "greatly hampered" following the breaching of the Kakhovka dam earlier this week, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says.

In a tweet, external, he says authorities are working to rescue "as many people as possible" from flooded areas and that evacuations are ongoing.

"In more than 40 settlements, life is broken," he says.

"Russia must be held accountable for this deliberate crime against people, nature and life itself," he adds.

Russia has denied being responsible for the destruction of the dam, though new evidence is now emerging that back up the suggestion Russia is indeed to blame.

The collapse of the Kakhovka dam unleased a torrent of water downriver, destroying thousands of homes and leaving many stranded on either bank of the Dnipro.

Thousands have been evacuated from the floods, sharing their experiences of fleeing the disaster.

If you're just joining us, or need a recap, here's an update:

Kakhovka dam floods

• The Dnipro river is continuing to swell since the Kakhova dam, in southern Ukraine, collapsed on Tuesday
• The cause of the dam breach is still unclear, but new evidence about how it may have been damaged is emerging
• Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without supplies of drinking water in a number of towns and cities that once depended on the dam and the reservoir

The battlefield

• Ukraine appears to be on the offensive on multiple fronts, with attacks in play in Bakhmut, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia
• Russian-installed local officials and military bloggers have reported Ukrainian attacks in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, as troops try to advance south towards the Sea of Azov.

Stay with us as we bring you live updates.

Image source, .

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent, in Ukraine

Two potentially important pieces of evidence have emerged in the past few hours over how the dam in Nova Kakhovka was breached in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Norsar, the Norwegian Seismic Array, says that it has analysed seismic signals from a regional station in Bukovina in Romania (620km away from Nova Kakhovka). The signals indicate an explosion at 02.54 on Tuesday. According to Norsar, the timing and location coincide with the collapse of the dam.

Separately, Ukraine’s domestic security service (SBU) has released a recording of what they say is a phone conversation between two unnamed Russian military men, discussing how Russia was responsible for blowing up the dam. In the recording, which the BBC cannot verify, one says a Russian sabotage group was responsible, but that the explosion went further than expected.

The suggestion that the dam’s collapse was the result of a botched Russian sabotage operation has been circulating since earlier this week.

Now Ukraine says it has evidence.

"The invaders wanted to blackmail Ukraine," the SBU says, "by blowing up the dam and staging a man-made disaster in the south of our country".

Let's turn again now to the catastrophic flooding in southern Ukraine after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

The BBC's James Waterhouse has been reporting upstream from the dam, in Mykolaiv.

Watherhouse says the "consequences are still being felt" 50 km away, where he is standing.

We are hearing more about the alleged drone attack in the Russian city of Voronezh, which lies about 200km from the border with Ukraine.

Russia's intelligence services are investigating the incident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says.

The regional governor says three people have been lightly wounded, previously two were reported injured.

Photos posted on social media appear to show damage to the facade of an apartment block.

The BBC cannot verify the claims, and there has no immediate response from Ukraine.

The "much-heralded" Ukrainian counter-offensive is beginning, a former head of the British Army has told the BBC.

General Richard Dannatt, who served as chief of the general staff between 2006 and 2009, says the flooding of the Dnipro river following the destruction of the Kakhovka means there is no way the Ukrainians can advance through Kherson to Russian-occupied Crimea.

Speaking to BBC Radio Norfolk, he says Ukraine's counter-offensive is starting more slowly, probing for weaknesses in the Russian line to be attacked by units armed with Western-supplied tanks and other heavy weapons.

Dannat said he thinks a successful push from Ukraine could "break the morale of the Russian army".

Ukraine's domestic security service (SBU) say they have intercepted a telephone call proving a Russian "sabotage group" blew up the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine.

The destruction of the dam on Tuesday led to mass flooding in the region, forcing thousands of residents to flee.

The SBU posted a one-and-a-half minute audio clip on its Telegram channel of the alleged conversation.

In the audio clip two men appear to be discussing, in Russian, the fallout from the disaster.

"They [the Ukrainians] didn't strike it. That was our sabotage group. They wanted to, like, scare [people] with that dam," said one of the men, described by the SBU as a Russian soldier.

"It didn't go according to plan, and [they did] more than what they planned for."

The SBU did not offer further details of the conversation or its participants.

The BBC is unable to verify the claims as of now.

Russia now claims there has been a drone attack on one of its towns, about 200 km (124 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Voronezh regional governor Alexander Gusev said that two people were wounded on Friday "in an apparent drone strike".

The claims have not been verified by the BBC.

Voronezh lies to the north-east of Belgorod, a border region which Russia claims has seen cross-border incursions from Ukraine.

Image source, Reuters

Speaking to Radio 4's Today, Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, says: "The Ukrainians clearly determined now is the point where they can start to try and displace the Russians from their defensive positions."

He also says that this action will take months.

"The Ukrainians will need to force the Russians to commit reserves in different directions. ​Then they can judge where the vulnerable points are to break through these defence lines.

"That will be difficult and will cost a lot of casualties. But if they can, that creates the opportunity for a breakthrough of exploitation."

Watling thinks that the West was late on providing the military equipment, he says, "A couple of months were wasted."

Quentin Sommerville
Reporting from Zaporizhzhia region

There are attacks in Bakhmut, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia - where it looks like Ukraine is attacking on multiple fronts.

We've seen footage of Ukrainian tanks and infantry at close quarters taking Russian trenches. It looks like they're making some progress, but there has also been some setbacks.

It's very difficult to judge, on a play-by-play basis, how this early counter-offensive is going - and it's probably foolish as well because this is expected to last for months.

Zaporizhzhia's strategic importance becomes clear if you think about Russian occupation as a crescent on the eastern flank of Ukraine, which stretches all the way down to Crimea.

What Ukraine wants to do now is tear through the Zaporizhzhia region, which would give them access to Crimea.

So that's where a lot of Russian forces are concentrated and are deeply embedded. They have been building fortifications for months, creating very elaborate defences and laying mines.

Image source, .

Russia's military has reported heavy fighting in the southern Zaporizhia region and eastern Donetsk regions of Ukraine.

A spokesman for Russia's Vostok group of forces said 13 Ukrainian tanks were destroyed in Zaporizhzhia clashes and eight in Donetsk, the Reuters news agency reports.

The BBC is not able to verify claims.

Ukraine has refused to comment on any attacks that may be underway and accused Russia of spreading lies.

The Russian military was forced to delete a video which had claimed to show the destruction of a western-made Leopard tank earlier this week, after it turned out to be a training video targeting a combine harvester.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on the phone, with military aid being one of the topics discussed.

Kuleba tweeted: "I spoke with [Secretary] Blinken. The US is helping us mitigate the consequences of the Russia-caused Kakhovka disaster. We also focused on military aid. The US will continue efforts to supply more weapons and ammo."

Image source, Reuters

We have an update on the air strikes Ukraine says were unleashed by Russia overnight. Ukrainian authorities are reporting that at least one person was killed, and several wounded.

One civilian was killed and three wounded in the town of Zvyahel, Zhytomyr Region, the city council said on Telegram.

Eight other civilians have been wounded in Russia's missile attack on Uman District in Ukraine's Cherkasy Region, the Ukrainian ICTV channel has reported, citing regional head Ihor Taburets.

The Ukrainian military said they shot down four out of six missiles launched during the attack.

Ukrainian authorities say that the attack took around six hours.

More from Zelensky's message late on Thursday, which also provided an update on the situation in flood-hit Kherson.

He repeated accusations that Russia has shelled rescue and evacuation efforts, as well as asserting the Kremlin-installed authorities in occupied areas is abandoning people to their fate.

"The catastrophe has been expanding there for two days now. And this is also an absolutely conscious choice of the Russian leadership," Zelensky said.

Ukraine's president also continues to be highly critical of international relief organisations, describing the "absence of their assistance" to Ukrainians living under Russian control as wrong and self-destructive for these organisations.

He also stressed Ukraine would do everything possible to ensure people had enough drinking water, as many communities along the Dnipro river are reliant on the emptying Kakhovka dam.

Image source, Volodymyr Zelensky/Telegram

President Volodymyr Zelensky has praised Ukraine's armed forces for gains in heavy fighting in the eastern Donetsk region.

In his regular video update on the war, Zelensky said there were "very tough battles" ongoing, although he did not provide any details on any combat successes.

"But there is a result, and I am grateful to everyone who ensures this result! Bakhmut - well done. Step by step. I thank each of our warriors," he added.

Ukraine's leader was speaking on a train following a visit to the flooded Kherson region, devastated by the flooding which has followed collapse of the Kakhovka dam earlier this week.

Images accompanying the post showed him meeting with senior military commanders in the field.

Image source, .

Jaroslav Lukiv
BBC News

Several Russian pro-Kremlin military bloggers reported late on Thursday that Ukraine had resumed its attacks overnight.

They said armoured personnel carriers and drones directing artillery fire were also deployed.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed local official, said there had been "active fighting" in the area between Orikhiv and Tokmak, with Russian troops holding their positions.

The town of Tokmak is seen by many military experts as a key target for Ukraine as it seeks to advance to the Sea of Azov.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the earlier reported Ukrainian assault had been repelled, harming the enemy. The minister provided no evidence to back his claim.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said in a brief statement on Thursday that Russian forces were currently "in active defence" on the Zaporizhzhia direction.