HAS Demydiv, Lydia lived in her cellar for three weeks alone with her dogs, before fleeing when Russian soldiers arrived on her street. On returning, she can only see the damage: the water is stagnating in her cellar. “There was water, up to the ceiling of the cellar, three meters high! she describes. And there, look, it barely went down… Inside, I had stored potatoes, my preserves and glass jars. I had a tractor full of my potatoes, I wanted to plant them but all is lost,” she regrets.
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This situation is however far from being a natural disaster: to slow down the advance of the Russians towards kyiv, the Ukrainians destroyed a bridge and a dyke which protected the small village of Demydiv of a large reservoir lake. Result: the village was flooded. Lydia tries to console herself with what she can: if her garden is still under water, the daffodils on the edge have taken advantage of the sun to come out. As for the Russian army, it has installed its command center in the house of its neighbours. “In my vegetable garden, I had to plant tomatoes and potatoes, but it’s under water. And then I bought and planted small trees for 100 Hryvnia each (the equivalent of three euros)the Russian soldiers broke them”she laments.
Leaving the village, the Russian soldiers destroyed, in turn, the dam upstream, aggravating the floods deliberately caused by the Ukrainian defense. Since then, Lydia has been waiting for help: “Everywhere here, Russian soldiers have laid mines. We were told to walk very carefully”.
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In the last house at the foot of the large dike, Natalia and Yvan stayed during the Russian occupation, “their tanks passed right here, they were going very fast”. The pump is broken and the water level is slowly dropping.
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Yvan welcomes the strategy of the Ukrainians to give way to the dikes and a bridge in the village.
“It was not the Ukrainian army that did this but our volunteer territorial defense fighters. As they retreated from the Russians, they voluntarily destroyed the dykes and bridges.”
Yvan, resident of Demidyvat franceinfo
The village of Demidyv has found itself isolated, but Natalia does not see this as a sacrifice. “Now and thank God, maybe we saved kyiv by this! If we hadn’t been protected by the waters, who knows what would have happened?” The direct route to kyiv was thus cut off, but turning away the Russians entered Boutcha.