If someone consults the map of Ukraine on Google Maps today and zooms in on the final stretch of the Dnieper River, they will see that this internet application displays an unusual warning and in red letters: "Floods in Kherson province". The focus of world attention has been on this part of Ukraine since last Tuesday, when the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed, presumably by Russian troops. Eighty villages along the Dnieper River have been flooded, without basic services and at great risk of spreading disease and pollution. But there is another river that is not highlighted by Google Maps, nor in the alarms of the media, although the problems are the same. It is the Ingulets, a tributary of the Dnieper and through which the catastrophe has reached 50 kilometers further north.
02:20
The testimonies of those affected by the floods in Ukraine
The amount of water that has run away with the destruction of the dam has been so great that it has multiplied by several kilometers the width of the Dnieper to its mouth. The losses have been more material than in lives, thanks to the fact that the municipalities along the river have been emptying of population since 2022 because the river marks the war front here: on the eastern bank, the Russian army; and in the West, Ukrainian. But the force of the water has been such that it has even devastated communities and thousands of hectares up to 50 kilometers further north, through the flow of the Ingulets.
Brothers Serhii and Oleksandr Nomirovski record videos of their sunflower fields three times a day, as if they do not believe what has happened and need to make sure that fate strikes them again. They have been doing so since Wednesday, when the water began to rise in Snigurivka, their municipality, 40 kilometers as the crow flies from the Dnieper. By Thursday morning, his 160 hectares of crops had been under water. They are not the only ones; like them, there are thousands of small and large farmers who will be ruined by what happened at the Nova Kakhovka dam.
Farmers in three villages in the area confirmed that their fields have been left without irrigation because the Ingulets pumping stations, which supply water to the main agricultural canal in Mikolaiv province, have become unusable. In the village of Romanovo-Bulhakove they say they have no water to feed cereal crops, even though they are 100 meters from the river. The three peasants who attended this newspaper did not show much concern: in 2022 the war did not allow them to work either, the area was occupied by the Russians.
Pictured above, the Nova Kakhovka dam on June 5. Below, the same area after the dam break, this Wednesday. AP
In the photo above, houses in the Ukrainian town of Oleshki, on May 15. Below, the same area flooded on Wednesday. AP
In the photo above, image of the Ukrainian city of Krinki, photographed on May 15. Below, the same area flooded on Wednesday. AP
In the photo above, image of a barn in the village of Nova Kakhovka, on June 5. Below, the same area flooded on Wednesday. AP
Pictured above, the Ukrainian town of Oleshki, on May 15. Below, the same area flooded on Wednesday. AP
Pictured above, satellite image of the city of Korsunka, on May 15. Below, the same area flooded on Wednesday. AP
"For those who depend on the Kakhovka water channel, the situation is surely darker, for them it may be the end," says Serhii. It is expected that after the rupture of the dam the water resources of the reservoir will disappear in the next two weeks, as explained on Wednesday to this newspaper Svetlana Denisuk, owner of two hectares of strawberries north of Nova Kakhovka. The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine points out that 94% of the irrigation network of Kherson province, 74% of Zaporizhia and 30% of Dnipropetrovsk province depend on the disappearing reservoir.
The land of the Nomirovsky brothers is in the Mikolaiv province, they depend on the water of the Ingulets, but their situation is no better. His example is paradigmatic of the perpetual crisis in which farmers in Ukraine live since the beginning of the Russian invasion, in February 2022. Snigurivka was occupied by the Russians and the Nomirovskis left the region. When the municipality was liberated in November, they returned to find that their fields had been burned, machinery destroyed and tractors stolen by invading troops. Their fields were mined. The priority for the Government is to demine urban areas and strategic infrastructure, not agricultural fields. To speed up the resumption of crops, they bribed a military brigade that agreed to clear their acres of mines.
The Nomirovskis left their savings to restart the business, but water, now a weapon of war, has shattered any dream of returning to normal. Experts from the Ministry of Agriculture have informed them that they expect their fields to be ready for tillage again in August. In the meantime, they must find funding, but they did not apply at the time for state aid, dependent on European funds. The reason for this, they say, is distrust of the subsidy sharing system. "We understand that aid is allocated according to whether you bribe to whom it is due, and we are not for this," admits Serhii.
Will the Nomirovskis' sunflowers be able to be grown in the immediate future? The Ukrainian Government stresses that a major problem is the pollution that will be caused by the rising water in the Dnieper. Serhii and Olesksandr admit they don't know.
But on the Ingulets, according to Lieutenant Stepanov, the effects will be the same. "The water that has arrived is toxic, due to chemical materials from industrial areas, from faecal waste from Kherson and also from the cemeteries that the water has washed away," says this officer in command of the evacuation of Afanasiivka. This village was isolated by the rising water and two days later they continue to evacuate its inhabitants. The water, according to Stepanov's measurements, rose 10 centimeters per hour on Thursday and was expected to begin to fall from Sunday. Around the evacuation point accumulate dead fish and boxes of Russian ammunition, which the current has dragged from Nova Kakhovka.
Tatiana Kisminko cries in Snigurivka because the flood has washed away her hives and the monument to a local partisan who was shot by the Nazis in World War II. Kisminko marks on the asphalt of her street the advance of the water: according to her, the Ingulets eats 20 centimeters of her village every 10 minutes. All bridges across the river have disappeared, separating the provinces of Mikolaiv and Kherson. It is for this reason that Kisminko cannot come to help friends who live in Novovasilivka, a neighboring village. There they continue, isolated and taking care of their livestock: the cows have been locked in the football stadium and the pigs in the schoolyard, according to Kisminko's account.
The bridge connecting Barativka with Yelizavetivka has also been left under water. Some neighbors indicate that the Ingulets, at that point, has gone from being 50 meters wide to one kilometer. The army was preparing on Thursday to raise a chain of boats to rescue the besieged neighbors. At the same time, Oleg, a resident of Kherson, was getting into a small plastic boat to inspect his grandmother's house, since Wednesday under water. On the way he rescued two abandoned dogs that did not dare to swim to shore. "This house is my childhood, where I spent so many summers, and now it's gone," Oleg muttered, holding back the excitement, as he rowed back to dry land.
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