In this region already badly scarred by the Russian occupation and the incessant fighting for 15 months, the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam and the floods that followed are another ordeal for the inhabitants.
Residents of the Kherson region, until then accustomed to crossing the Dnipro without even thinking about it, have had to learn to live on a daily pounded and now flooded front line, due to the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on Tuesday. June 6. The river separates this region of southern Ukraine into two: a liberated zone on the right bank and a zone occupied by the Russians on the left bank.
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>>> War in Ukraine: the destruction of the Kakhovka dam marks the beginning of a “great ecological disaster”, analyzes a hydrologist from Kherson
In the spring of 2022, Vladimir Jurakhovky left his home in Kherson, a city taken over by the Ukrainian army in November 2022, to settle in his dacha, his country house on the other side of the Dnipro. He was thinking of spending the summer quietly there, but his wife fell ill. The couple could not return to Kherson until the fall. Then the war did the rest: the Russians who occupied the whole region had to retreat to the only left bank of the river, the one where the dacha is located, and Vladimir found himself stuck in the Russian zone, without the possibility of crossing again. “When Kherson was liberated the Russians blocked the river. When a boat came, they shot in front to stop it and ordered it to turn back”he recalls.
A river that has become a front line
Vladimir was in the middle, with the Russian and Ukrainian shells crossing above his head. “We hear them and we know: a shell, it whistles and BOOM, the explosion. We recognize: ‘Oh well, it’s ours who are shooting over there. Oh well, smoke, that means that they hit their target. Congratulations!” he says, laughing.
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The islands in the middle of the Dnipro were the first to be submerged after the explosion of the Kakhovka dam. “We took refuge on our pontoon because everything was already flooded. We could only see 30 or 40 centimeters of the roof of our two-storey house.”
“People around had climbed onto their roof. We were on our pontoon waiting for help for 24 hours.”
Vladimir Jurakhovkyfranceinfo
Vladimir, his wife and six neighbors were lucky enough to be rescued by the Ukrainian army, when they were in an area in principle controlled by the Russians, but the latter had retreated as soon as the waters rose. It was therefore enough for Vladimir, former coach of the local rowing team, to call on his knowledge of the side of Kherson to call for help. “We called a friend who called the military, told them where we were and how to find us. They came with three Zodiacs and on a fourth, there was a former rowing champion that I trained. I sent him to rescue our neighbors stuck on their roof”he says.
Today, the old coach is recovering from his emotions in Kherson. He knows he won’t be seeing his dacha again anytime soon. The floods have brought to the surface mines that threaten to explode at any moment.