The pungent smell of fish fills the air as we approach the banks of the waterway that is on every Ukrainian’s mind this week.
Serhii Sheptyuk has, like many residents along the Dnipro River, put a bucket on the shoreline to track how fast the waterline is receding.
“This is the first time in my life I’ve seen something like this,” the 69 year old said, as he wades through the water, observing what many experts are calling the worst ecological crisis in Ukraine since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
Sheptyuk alternates between sadness and anger – the latter directed at the Russian military.
"If a monkey sits on a tree branch and you see him cutting his own tree branch off by himself, what else can you say about it? These are the consequences," he said, adding a few choice unprintable terms to bring the point home. “It’s a cursed nation. [Russia] should have been strangled the moment it was born.”
150 tonnes of industrial chemicals – specifically lubricants – have been washed away due to the dam collapse, President Zelenskyy said. Flood waters will engulf towns, gas stations, and farms -- and those waters will "become contaminated by agrochemicals and oil products and then flow into the Black Sea,” The Guardian reported.
Here in Zaporizhzhia, we are standing upstream of Kakhovka Dam, which all available evidence indicates the Russians breached earlier this week – to disastrous results. Engineering and munitions experts told the New York Times that a deliberate explosion inside the Russia-controlled Kakhovka dam was the most likely culprit for the breach.
Downstream of the dam, there has been catastrophic flooding in areas like Kherson. Upstream of the dam, where we are, locals watch the river helplessly as the waterline backs off more and more.
The Dnipro River, after all, is no ordinary waterway. It’s a critical source of fresh drinking water for the residents of the country. Farmers depend on it to water a large portion of the country’s crops."Pretty much everyone here was engaged with the river in one way or another," Sheptyuk said.
Historically, most of the shipping in the country flowed up and down the river, stopping at the ports of Kyiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. And the river has marked the boundary between western Ukraine and eastern Ukraine; the line between predominantly Ukrainian-speaking territory and predominantly-Russian territory.
As the waterline continues to fall back, Sheptyuk sees trash in the mud -- and he just won't have it. He wades out into the water barefoot, to pick up glass and discarded fishing equipment.
He has been fishing his entire life along the Dnipro, but mourns the changes due to the war. The ferry that operated along the river is closed down. Now many locals who were fishing no longer do so, due to missile attacks, restrictions and pollution.
Along this stretch of the river, fishermen are reporting little to no luck in the days after the dam breach – an unusually long spell of not being able to find a catch. In one recent survey, nineteen species of fish were found in the Dnipro River, with a plurality of the fish being bream. Traditionally, the Dnipro has been the site for the vast majority of the country's freshwater catch.
Denys Loyko, a man from the now-Russian-occupied town of Enerhodar, is at another point on the river. In English, he tells, us, “fucking Russians!” With nothing nibbling, he’s left just to stare at the visible brown lines along the river that just days ago marked where the water level stood. In just a day the water has fallen about three feet.
“They are fucking animals for doing this,” he grimaces, referring to the Russians who blew the dam.
There ARE places along the Dnipro where the fish are biting, but because an ecological disaster was looming, and the fish have less places to hide. As the water in the Dnipro flows out and causes a humanitarian crisis due to flooding downstream, slow-flowing tributaries are quickly running dry.
In one of those streams near Zaporizhzhia, we ran into a group of men who were drinking beers in the afternoon sun and having a ton of luck catching fish. In about five days, one of the fishermen said, this waterway was likely to be completely dry. Any fish which had not already escaped by that time would be dead.
Oleksii, who declined to give his last name – noting only that he was “the well-known Oleksii” – was not optimistic about the future: “It will affect everything. Because soon there will be no water at all,” he said.
Good morning to readers. Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands, but downstream the worst ecological disaster in a generation is brewing.
And the humanitarian crisis sparked by the dam collapse continues. President Zelenskyy announced that some 3,000 residents in the flood zone have been evacuated out of danger.
Even as rescue workers work to save animals and humans in the flood zone, many report continued shelling in the area. Deutsche Welle reports that a school near the Dnipro River shore was bombarded, and another projectile hit the roof of a nine-story building in the city.
Another big risk for humanitarian workers in the area is that rising floodwaters will dislodge mines and unexploded ordnance, notes the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC is in Kherson now with a focus on providing clean drinking water -- shipping equipment into the disaster area – things like pipes, water tanks, pumps and repair kits.
Meanwhile as the war drags on Russia is getting better at evading the western sanctions regime. A key U.S. State Department sanctions official estimated that Western exports of microchips and electronics are back to February 2022 levels, according to Politico EU. European companies are selling to other countries, which then turn around and sell the items to Russia, the official said. Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia, the UAE and Armenia are among those who present the biggest problem for circumvention.
The counteroffensive continues – and Zelenskyy acknowledged for the first time that it had started, in remarks alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who made a surprise visit to Kyiv.
The Institute for the Study of War identified four areas on the front where Ukrainians are pressing. Gains of 1,400m have been made in the Bakhmut region, and Russian bloggers are reporting Ukrainians advancing around the city.
Meanwhile, "Russian forces in Zaporizhzhia Oblast are continuing to defend against Ukrainian attacks in accord with sound tactical defensive doctrine," the ISW reported. But Russian sources are pointing out that Ukraine has a tactical advantage at night, and can conduct more effective assaults due to Western-provided night optics systems that are superior to their own.
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With a small team and no safety equipment for flooded environments, The Counteroffensive decided not to head to Kherson, where much of the flooding was happening.
Instead we went towards Zaporizhzhia, where the local ecosystem is being devastated by the dam breach, but where it is relatively safer for us to report because it is upstream of the flooding.
My idea was to head to a local fishing supply store, and ask the owner where we could find people who knew how the river was faring.
“It’s going to be really, really terrible,” the owner said. Usually, his shop would be so busy he wouldn’t have a moment to spare to talk to us. And now, absent one person looking at his wares, no one is around.
He pointed out a few places on the map that were traditional fishing places and sent us on our way to report.
“Well-known Oleksii” and a bunch of his bros were having a good time fishing along the banks of the Dnipro. But there was a sour note playing above it all – as he told us, within five days all the fish would be dead. So it was a funeral wake of sorts for their pastime.
Oleksii insisted I take a photo with him, and that I try fishing – and within seconds I had caught my first ever fish (and a bit of a low-hanging tree).
Everyone laughed and tried to make the best of a bad situation.
They invited us to their next barbeque. I said we’d try our best to make it.
Today’s dog of war is this apparent street-pup:
Bonus cat of war is this cat being rescued from flooded home in Kherson, via Tiktok:
Stay safe out there.
Best,
Tim