Olga Shestenko and her father Vladimir at home in Kherson
“I just finished doing this and now this,” she said . 41-year-old Shestenko, along with her father Vladimir, washed her recently wet floors.
The gnome lay on its side among broken flower pots. «I don't wish death on anyone, but I would like Russians to feel some of the pain they inflict on their own skin,» she said.
Ms Shestenko's home was one of about 4,000 homes in Kherson that went underwater when the Kakhovka Dam, 150 miles up the Dnieper River, was blown up in suspected Russian sabotage.
Enough water poured into the Dnieper twice to fill Loch Ness, killing about 60 people and flooding 200 square miles of land, including many villages and farms along the river's banks. Kherson, located on the right bank of the Dnieper, which flows into the Black Sea, overnight became Atlantis.
At the time, residents largely took it in stride, seeing it as yet another blow in a war that had already dealt them more than their fair share. They endured nine months of brutal Russian occupation last year and have been under near-constant shelling since Kremlin forces withdrew to the left bank of the Dnieper in November.
However, now, with winter approaching, staying here seems unbearable. more of a Sisyphean task than ever. “Things are not very good, the effects of the flood will be felt for many years,” said Oksana Pokhomiy, a city council member.
“Some residents have put their houses in order again, but others have not returned and their houses are still full of dirt and filth, with flies and worms growing in them.”
Pilaheya Mityuk, goat herder from the village of Zimivnik
Part of the problem is Russian shelling, which has intensified recently. Last week alone, five local residents were killed, with the bombings being particularly brutal in the city center where the flooding was worst. The dampness in many homes is likely to get worse if left untreated in winter, when average temperatures drop to minus 5°C.
Even without shelling, the task of restoring a completely flooded home is challenging. Further down the road from Ms. Shestenko's house, Grigory Bilienko opened the shrapnel-pierced front gate and gave Telegraph a tour of the family home he spent 30 years building.
The stench of mold
The flood tore off part of its roof. left, so he hasn't even had time yet to clean out the spoiled contents of his house, which stinks of mold. In his former bedroom, a painting of Venice hangs crookedly above the bed.
“How might you feel after 30 years of building your own home?” — he said as an explosion sounded in the distance. “Of course I'm worried about shelling, but I need to finish repairing the roof before the autumn rains come. Then you need to do the walls, ceilings and all the electrics.”
If Mr. Bilienko is ready to risk artillery, then local officials are not. The commission created to pay compensation for damaged houses stopped its assessment visits due to the shelling.
As a result, Mr Bilienko fears he could lose the 1.2 million hryvnia (£260,000) payout he had hoped for. “I want to get the house in order,” he said. “But if I fix everything before they come to assess it, I won’t have evidence for them of what the damage was before.”
Grigory Bilienko standing in his flood-damaged house
While local residents are primarily concerned about their estates, the whole world is concerned about the environmental consequences of the Kakhovka dam failure.
Built during Soviet times, it transformed the entire southeast of Ukraine from semi-arid steppe into fertile, irrigated farmland. But now the dam's vast reservoir, so large it has been nicknamed the Kakhova Sea, has almost completely dried up.
Officials estimate it will take five years to replenish it, which could leave more than two million acres of farmland. unsuitable Habitat destruction has also threatened rare native species of steppe rodents and marsh insects.
Among the few who have seen any benefit is Pilahea Mityuk, a goat herder from the village of Zimivnik, which is far from Kherson. by a meadow a mile wide. During the flood, the meadow briefly turned into a lake, and Zimivnik can only be reached by an improvised ferry service created by volunteers rowing boats.
“Now that the meadow has returned to normal, I noticed my goats they’re eating new types of grass that have never grown here before,” she said. “But the flooding was terrible, my husband is disabled, and I thought we might be trapped.”
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