AP Investigation Reveals Russia's Undercounting of Deaths in Ukraine Dam Collapse

Hundreds Died in Oleshky Alone, Far More than Russia's Claim of 59 Deaths Across Occupied Territory

An investigation by the Associated Press (AP) has found that Russian occupation authorities vastly and deliberately undercounted the number of deaths resulting from the catastrophic explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka Dam in the southern Kherson region of Ukraine.
Russian authorities took control of the issuance of death certificates, immediately removed bodies not claimed by family, and prevented local health workers and volunteers from dealing with the dead, threatening them when they defied orders.
Russia claimed that 59 people drowned in the territory it controls, but the AP investigation found the number is at least in the hundreds in Oleshky alone, a town in the area flooded by the dam.
Health workers estimate that 200-300 people died in the town, with many still missing, their bodies likely still trapped in homes.
Bodies were hurriedly buried in mass graves in the first days of the floods, with at least one confirmed in the yard of the Orthodox Pokrovska Church in the center of Oleshky.