No Water: Ukrainians Try to Survive on Banks of Former Kakhovka Reservoir

On June 6, 2023, Russian forces blew up the dam that created the Kakhovka Reservoir, one of the largest in Europe. Built back in the 1950s, the huge reservoir had a volume of 18 cubic kilometers of water – almost the entire drainage of the Dnipro –which created this artificial lake. It not only provided electricity at the nearby Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, but also supplied water to several large channels that irrigated agriculture in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, as well as in Crimea.

The destruction of the Kakhovka dam resulted not only in floods that killed dozens of people and left tens of thousands homeless, but also dried up the once prosperous settlements on the banks.

Most of the affected villages and towns are located in the occupied territory, but there are also hundreds of settlements left without water in the territories controlled by Ukraine.

Now, a year later, Kyiv Post visits settlements that used to be on the shores of a man-made lake.

The villages of Hrushivka and Marianske, near the city of Nikopol, were located on the shore of the reservoir. They were popular with fishermen. Petro Nyrka, a resident of Marianske, worked for a fishing company before Russia’s full-scale invasion. He says that he could catch almost everything here. Now his boat is lying sadly in his yard.

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“Every breed of fish. From ruffe and goby to catfish and silver carp. We’d catch belugas up to 320 kilos, and even sturgeon. Every village – Zolota Balka, Mykhaylivka, Dudchany – had a fish farm. These farms were big, 12 boats each. This boat is only for carp – for the leisure weekend,” Nyrka says.

Everything changed a year ago. After the dam at the Kakhovka Reservoir was blown up by Russian troops, the water disappeared in a few days.

“They are not human, they are not a nation, not even the Germans during the Second World War did such things as the Russians do,” Nyrka tells Kyiv Post.

The reservoir now looks like this – bare steppe overgrown with grass and plants. The Dnipro riverbed has narrowed to its natural width and runs a few kilometers from the village. The Russians are just on the opposite side.

“The river passed by here and flowed out there,” Nyrka pointed.

He stands on a bridge under which water used to flow – it also dried up due to a drop in the water level.

Now Petro collects rainwater. It’s enough for drinking, but there is nothing to water the garden with. So it dries up. Other farmers in the villages are facing the same problem.

Since the Russian terrorist attack, Volodymyr Iholnykov has been left without water, his farm is simply dying. He grew vegetables and berries here, which are very much appreciated in the city’s supermarkets.

“Tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, beets, all kinds of vegetables,” the farmer says.

This is what strawberries look like. They’re “burned,” as farmers say, from lack of moisture. The farmer tried to get out of a difficult situation – he drilled two wells to get water for irrigation, but it couldn’t replace the water from the reservoir. And unlike water from the Dnipro, the ground water is salty. Many crops simply can’t handle it.

“Strawberries – no, cucumbers – no, zucchini – no, carrots – beets, we’ll see,– cabbage, we’ll see – tomatoes so-so – more or less normal. When I worked, I took water from the Kakhovka Reservoir, our consumption reached 40-45 thousand cubic meters! To water the entire farm!” he says.

Corn looks the worst. Because of the lack of water, and the salt, it simply won’t grow. And Volodymyr’s farm is on the verge of bankruptcy.

“The corn will have to be abandoned next year because nothing will grow. It should be this high and showing the ear. Corn can’t grow with this water, we can already see that. We are reducing the size of the fields, trying to plant crops that consume less water. Maybe we’ll switch to wheat altogether,” Iholnykov says.

His employees are sad because of the bleak prospects. They see the degradation of the economy with their own eyes.

Engineer and local official Hennady Denysenko says that now there is a struggle for survival in all settlements in the coastal zone – as nearly every inhabitant here earned money by growing berries and vegetables using supplies of cheap water from the reservoir for irrigation.

“They were brought here by water tanks, brought to the station, unloaded, delivered by cars, people were not left without drinking water. But Hrushivka and neighboring villages live by growing vegetables and berries. But this place uses hundreds of cubic meters of water, and not for a day, but for an hour,” Denysenko says.

What the Russian military caused, he calls a crime. Because it killed not only the ecology of the region but also the ability of people to live and earn money.

“This is the end. They destroyed our lives. Twenty years ago I moved here, such a pastoral city, literally built a house on the shore, and a cemetery is not far away. Well, just like in Shevchenko’s poems – ‘high cliffs over the Dnipro.’ I was waiting for my golden years. And now there’s no water, no happiness,” Denysenko said.

As if this were not enough, the Russian military continues to shell the coastal strip. It scares away the few farmers and their families who still stay here.

“It’s really scary, people start hiding in the forest nearby... In the neighboring village of Marianske, explosives were dropped from a drone, a gas station was hit, and there’s constant shelling in Novorontsovka. Right there, not so far. We actually live on the front line,” Iholnykov said.

Yet this does not mean that everything is hopeless. The Ukrainian military reliably holds the coastline, and a large number of people adapt – they grow crops that don’t require so much water, says local council deputy Svitlana Pavlenko, who grows her own flowers.

“Our farmers survive any conditions, such people that I was taught to grow everything. They find a way out. If there were no war and there were access to the Kakhovka Reservoir, then something would be grown there, where it’s already overgrown,” Pavlenko said.

Now Ukrainian officials are looking for an opportunity to start supplying water for irrigation from tributaries. But our heroes won’t lose their optimism. Volodymyr Iholnykov shows us healthy tomatoes growing tall – they can survive without water from the Kakhovka Reservoir, and Petro Nyrka grows a garden that doesn’t consume much water. He shows us newly grafted apple trees and calls himself a “boundless optimist.”

“I was born an optimist, and so I’ll die! How can you drop everything and go somewhere? I just don’t get it!” Nyrka said.