Ukraine floods: ‘I don’t know what the Russians are thinking, just destroying everything. It’s madness. Look at the size of the river now’
The flood is feared to have killed dozens of people and has displaced thousands in areas liberated by Ukraine last November and in territory on the eastern bank of the Dnipro that is still held by Russia, which denies responsibility for the disaster despite very strong indications that its troops blew up the dam or caused its collapse through incompetence.
Kuzminskaya now has no gas or electricity in the house she rents with her husband and two children and says she still feels unsafe in Snihurivka, which is now about 50km from the front line as Ukraine’s forces mount their counteroffensive to retake more territory. ] A major Soviet-era dam in the Russian-controlled part of Kherson was breached, unleashing floodwaters across the war zone. Video: Reuters
Iryna Kravets and her daughter Eva in Snihurivka, southeastern Ukraine. Her home was destroyed when Russia occupied the area last year and she returned after it was liberated last November. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin Inside, sporting a bright yellow T-shirt and leopard-print headscarf, village head Vita Bardizh takes a stream of calls from residents and officials in neighbouring communities, while organising volunteers as they arrange piles of clothes, hygiene products, food and other supplies donated by Ukrainians and aid organisations.
“People’s kitchen gardens have been flooded and a lot of pasture for animal grazing, too. It will make life hard here if that land is ruined,” says Bardizh, who was born in Novovasylivka and stayed during the occupation. “The Russians tried to take my car but I told them there was no way I would let them, because I have two children and elderly parents to look after. And they left me alone. But they stole lots of people’s cars and drove away in them when they retreated from here.”
“Some people here seemed to get on fine with the Russians. And some local people stole things from the houses of those who had left the village,” Mironenko recalls.“I never took food packages or anything else from the Russians, but some did. And some of them are here now, taking help from people who are helping Ukraine,” she says, as workers from Odesa-based charity New Dawn hand out food parcels to dozens of villagers.
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