PICTURES: A Year After Russia Blew Up the Dam

Sergii Kostezh | June 6, 2024, 12:44 pm

Exactly one year ago, on June 6, Russian occupation forces carried out a controlled explosion of the Kakhovka Reservoir Dam in southern Ukraine. As a result, dozens of people were killed, tens of thousands more were left homeless, and one of the largest reservoirs in Europe drained out.

Now, a year later, life is returning to the banks of the Kakhovka Reservoir, which used to be one of the largest in Europe. Its bottom is overgrown with dense grasses and young trees – willows and poplars. The Dnipro riverbed has stabilized along the deepest part of the reservoir.

Environmentalists and activists call it the “return of the Great Meadow,” referring to area’s natural state as it existed until the 1950s, when the man-made lake was created.

Unfortunately, the negative consequences of this disaster have not disappeared. On both banks of the former reservoir, hundreds of settlements were left without a source of water for irrigation, leading to land degradation and the decline of agriculture.

Those who once actively grew the best varieties of strawberries, cherries, and vegetables are now trying to replace their drying crops with simpler ones or raise animals.

Accounts of how people are surviving on the banks of the Dnipro after the Russian terrorist attack will be coming in a broader Kyiv Post report.