Sunset along the Kakhovka Reservoir in central Ukraine, especially in summer, used to be gorgeous: kids played in the shallow water near the shore, men fished and young couples walked under the pine trees as the last traces of sunlight reflected off the water.
But after the destruction of a major dam just downriver, that shimmering lake, one of Europe’s biggest, simply disappeared. Now all that remains is a 150-mile-long meadow.
For 60-plus years, the Bezhan family ran a fishing business on these shores. They bought boats, nets, freezers and enormous rumbling ice-making machines, and generation after generation made a living off the fish. But now there are no fish.
“If the war ended tomorrow, and I don’t think it will,” said Serhii Bezhan, the family’s broad-chested patriarch, “it would take five years to rebuild that dam and then at least two more for the reservoir to fill up. Then it would take another 10 years for the fish to grow — for some species, 20.”
He looked away as his eyes misted up.
“I’m 50,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I’ll even be around that long.”
On June 6, seismic meters hundreds of miles away detected an enormous explosion at the Kakhovka dam along the Dnipro River. The reinforced concrete walls, more than 60 feet high and as much as 100 feet thick, crumbled, and 4.8 trillion gallons of water gushed out.
Scientific evidence indicates that the dam was blown up from the inside, almost certainly by the Russian forces occupying it. In one stroke, they unleashed epic floods on Ukraine and an ensuing drought that, taken together, brought a stunning level of destruction to the environment, the economy and the lives of civilians already enduring the hardships of war.
This summer, a team of New York Times journalists traveled hundreds of miles from Zaporizhzhia in central Ukraine to Odesa on the Black Sea to assess the full impact. What we found were homes still soggy and smeared with mud; dead fish lying in droves; underwater mollusk colonies destroyed; a drinking-water crisis; an irrigation crisis for farmers; entire communities without work; and a yawning sense of loss whose dimensions have not yet been established.
During this war, the Russians have deliberately bombed power plants and grain silos, leaving no shortage of scorched-earth brutality. But the destruction of the Kakhovka dam stands out as perhaps the single most devastating and punitive blow even if the military intent was to flood the area and slow down Ukrainian troops. The way Ukrainians see it, the invading Russians are simply expressing a hatred of the land — and the people — that they are claiming as theirs.
This was a “katastrofa,” Mr. Bezhan said.
With no fish to catch, his family has been relegated to picking fruit from their orchard and selling it alongside the road.
At this point victory for Russia is going to be far more costly than simply giving up and going home.
Very difficult to read. We outsiders do not know the hell these people go through daily.
Thank you Lobin.
It’s despicable that disabled people were left to drown on the Orc side of the river.
And which there hasn’t been a remote international stance beyond greta freaking thunberg or whatever her last name is. Not an uptick in weapons or anything.
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Sunset along the Kakhovka Reservoir in central Ukraine, especially in summer, used to be gorgeous: kids played in the shallow water near the shore, men fished and young couples walked under the pine trees as the last traces of sunlight reflected off the water.
But after the destruction of a major dam just downriver, that shimmering lake, one of Europe’s biggest, simply disappeared. Now all that remains is a 150-mile-long meadow.
For 60-plus years, the Bezhan family ran a fishing business on these shores. They bought boats, nets, freezers and enormous rumbling ice-making machines, and generation after generation made a living off the fish. But now there are no fish.
“If the war ended tomorrow, and I don’t think it will,” said Serhii Bezhan, the family’s broad-chested patriarch, “it would take five years to rebuild that dam and then at least two more for the reservoir to fill up. Then it would take another 10 years for the fish to grow — for some species, 20.”
He looked away as his eyes misted up.
“I’m 50,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I’ll even be around that long.”
On June 6, seismic meters hundreds of miles away detected an enormous explosion at the Kakhovka dam along the Dnipro River. The reinforced concrete walls, more than 60 feet high and as much as 100 feet thick, crumbled, and 4.8 trillion gallons of water gushed out.
Scientific evidence indicates that the dam was blown up from the inside, almost certainly by the Russian forces occupying it. In one stroke, they unleashed epic floods on Ukraine and an ensuing drought that, taken together, brought a stunning level of destruction to the environment, the economy and the lives of civilians already enduring the hardships of war.
This summer, a team of New York Times journalists traveled hundreds of miles from Zaporizhzhia in central Ukraine to Odesa on the Black Sea to assess the full impact. What we found were homes still soggy and smeared with mud; dead fish lying in droves; underwater mollusk colonies destroyed; a drinking-water crisis; an irrigation crisis for farmers; entire communities without work; and a yawning sense of loss whose dimensions have not yet been established.
During this war, the Russians have deliberately bombed power plants and grain silos, leaving no shortage of scorched-earth brutality. But the destruction of the Kakhovka dam stands out as perhaps the single most devastating and punitive blow even if the military intent was to flood the area and slow down Ukrainian troops. The way Ukrainians see it, the invading Russians are simply expressing a hatred of the land — and the people — that they are claiming as theirs.
This was a “katastrofa,” Mr. Bezhan said.
With no fish to catch, his family has been relegated to picking fruit from their orchard and selling it alongside the road.
At this point victory for Russia is going to be far more costly than simply giving up and going home.
Very difficult to read. We outsiders do not know the hell these people go through daily.
Thank you Lobin.
It’s despicable that disabled people were left to drown on the Orc side of the river.
And which there hasn’t been a remote international stance beyond greta freaking thunberg or whatever her last name is. Not an uptick in weapons or anything.