Residents of Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine braved the pouring rain to head to the banks of the Dnieper, not as in the past to relax in bars and resorts but to gaze at a sea of ??mud.
The destruction last week of the Kakhovka dam, for which Moscow and Kyiv blame each other, caused floods downstream of the river, which killed more than a dozen people and forced thousands of inhabitants to leave their homes .
Upstream of the Dnieper, the level has, conversely, dropped. In the regional capital of Zaporizhia, a sandy beach has given way to a foul-smelling mudflat.
Despite the devastation, the riverside remains a place of peaceful contemplation for some. Andriï Vlassenko, 32, walks alone sweeping the mud with his metal detector.
A year ago, Andriï, his wife and child fled the Russian-occupied territories further south and he has not yet been able to find a job.
Five months ago, his 63-year-old father was killed by shellfire in his home village.
For him, the newly exposed river bed is an opportunity to forget his pain and indulge in his peaceful pastime.
“I may have come to find something. In any case, by searching, my soul rests,” he explains.
His booty for the morning remains meager: no gold or silver, but a Ukrainian coin and a Soviet-era kopek.
Before the war, the inhabitants of Zaporizhia had access to seaside resorts on the coast of the Sea of ??Azov, now occupied by Russian forces and therefore completely inaccessible.
Today, with the retreat of the Dnieper, even the small family resorts located in the forests south of the city no longer overlook sandy banks but viscous mud.
Yuriï Kara, a 39-year-old computer scientist, shelters from the rain under the tailgate of his car, sipping a coffee and contemplating the scene.
“I was there the first day, when the water started to go down. On June 9, the water was closer. It goes down every day,” he says, as a seabird comes to hunt in the lowlands.
“I was discussing it with my friend: soon there will be no Dnieper River for us,” he said bitterly.
Opinions differ as to the extent of the disappearance of the river. But Gennady, a retired steelworker in his underpants and knee-deep in water under a large jetty, has the answer.
Pointing to the tide marks on the pile of rocks above it, he makes his estimate.
“So the water level was… How can I show you? It was up there, look, you see that brick? It was up to the highest, three meters,” explains- he told AFP.
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam reminded the inhabitants of Zaporizhia that even if Russian troops did not reach the city the war can still reach them. It is near elsewhere that the Ukrainian forces are on the offensive.
Anna La?houna, 28, a mobile phone company employee, and her sisters fled the occupied territories in June in fear for their elderly grandmother, whom they left behind.
“Nobody thought they could do something like that,” she says, blaming the Russians for the disaster with the destruction of the dam.
“We don’t know what to expect from them. The situation could get worse,” she adds. “I hope this ends as soon as possible.”
12/06/2023 10:46:42 – Zaporizhia (Ukraine) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
