Special Envoy to Mykolaiv
On the platform of Mykolaiv railway station, the Soviet-era coal train, painted blue and yellow since independence, slows down. The windows of the station remain covered with panels that recall the months during which this city in southern Ukraine was bombed, until the liberation of Kherson in mid-November 2022. A crowd of journalists, NGOs and residents welcomed about fifty people from Kherson.
This time, the Ukrainians are not fleeing bombs, but water. On Tuesday, at around 2:50 a.m., an explosion destroyed the Nova Kakhovka dam. Ukrainians and Russians blame each other for the disaster. The ecological, human and economic consequences of the destruction of this dam built by the Soviets in 1956 are not yet clear.
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But for Lyudmila, whose hands keep shaking, one thing is certain. "Now we are refugees, we have nothing," she says.
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