Moscow's Scorched-Earth Agenda in Ukraine

Kherson in June, New York Times

"If the war ended tomorrow, and I don't think it will, 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 ten years for the fish to grow -- for some species, 20 [years]."

"I'm 50. I don't know if I'll even be around that long."

"[This was a] katastrofa."

Serhii Bezhan, patriarch, Fishing business

 

"If we irrigate with only what nature gives us, it will not grow. Because now there's cool weather and rain here, but in the summer the climate is very dry, it's very hot, and so [the harvest] won't even be here at all."

"[The word in the local business community was that] once the Russians were kicked out [there was a plan to at least temporarily block the river and restore the reservoir]."

"For now, while they [the Russians] are here — 20 kilometres away from us — the government doesn't want to do this because obviously they might be shelling and there will be casualties." 

"We really love this water reservoir. It gives life. We all depend on this water."

Denys Myronenko, strawberry and grape farmer

 

"There's now a whole downstream catchment of the river that is not controlled. In the wetter periods flood waves will just come through."

"I expect those tens of thousands of people who were evacuated will have to stay away for a while as long as those solutions are not in place. It is difficult to see people coming back to those communities in this situation."

Jaap Flikweert, flood and coastal management advisor, engineering consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV

The dried-up Kakhovka reservoir in Ukraine is shown after the dam was destroyed on June 6, causing massive flooding along the lower Dnipro River. The receding water has revealed the remains of an ancient settlement known as the 'Cossack Meadow.' (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

When the Kakhovka Reservoir in central Ukraine was still intact, kids would play in the shallow water close to shore. Young couples would stroll beneath the pine trees, and men would go there to fish. This idyll was destroyed months ago when a major downriver dam was destroyed and the lake that shimmered in the sun and was a favourite recreational area for residents, was drained. It had once reined as one of Europe's largest lakes. In its place now, is a 150-mile-long meadow.

Serhii Bezhan's family business was established sixty years ago as a fishing enterprise on the shores of the lake. Generation after generation of the family made an enterprising living off fish. There are now no longer any fish to be caught. The family business of buying boats, nets, freezers and huge ice-making machinery is also now no more.

The seismic meters hundreds of miles distant from the reservoir and the dam on June 6 detected an explosion of enormous force taking place at the Kakhovka dam along the Dnieper River. The dam's reinforced concrete walls, over 60 feet in height and up to 100 feet thick, had crumbled, resulting in a massive 4.8 trillion gallons of water escaping in huge gushes flooding downstream communities.

The evidence indicating scientifically that the dam was blown up from inside has been attributed to Russia, a deliberate act of civilian sabotage, a war crime. A war crime among many other war crimes targeting civilian infrastructure; markets and schools and hospitals. The rehearsal of all these war crimes that took place in Syria is continuing to play out in Ukraine. Epic floods were created inflicting more misery on the Ukrainian population.

First the flood, then an ensuing drought, and wholesale environmental destruction, to the Ukrainian economy, to the lives of people never imagining their vast country would ever be under invasion and occupation again by a rapacious and cruel neighbour. To the present day, homes remain water-logged and mud-smeared. Everywhere lie the stinking skeletons of dead fish. There is a drinking-water crisis, a crisis of lack of irrigation for farmers. Communities bereft of work. Losses whose depths are not yet fully understood.

It seems there is no level of destruction and malevolent misery to be inflicted on the invaded country that is too extreme to be contemplated by a civilized world view. Power plants have been bombed with great deliberation, as have grain silos, with massive food losses. At one and the same time, Russia claims Ukrainian geography is really Russia's, while inflicting grave wounds on the land, destroying towns and cities, turning infrastructure into rubble, depriving people of their homes and their livelihoods and their lives.

 

Local residents take boats along a flooded street in Kherson, Ukraine, on June 8 as they evacuate from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed two days earlier. (Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters)

"At 2:35 a.m and 2:54 a.m. on June 6, seismic sensors in Ukraine and Romania detected the telltale signs of large explosions. Witnesses in the area heard large blasts between roughly 2:15 a.m. and 3 a.m. And just before the dam gave way, American intelligence satellites captured infrared heat signals that also indicated an explosion."

"The dam was designed to withstand any kind of attack from without."

"Evidence suggests Russia blew it up from within."

New York Times