– Just flush the water! Flooding fatigue in the village that stopped Russia



More than a year after Ukrainian the military flooded his village to stop Russia’s lightning march on Kyiv, Ivan Kukuruza’s basement is still under water, and his patience is running out.

Last February, authorities sacrificed his Demidov farm, 35km north of Kyiv, by blowing up a nearby dam to slow down an invading Russian army.

And while a last-ditch effort helped rid the capital of a Russian takeover, the authorities’ cleansing efforts proved much less ingenious and far less swift.

“Just reduce the water level by half. Even then, not a single tank would be able to pass here,” the 69-year-old Kukuruz told AFP.

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Ukrainian officials are reluctant to intervene, fearing another Russian attack from the Kremlin’s ally Belarus, further north.

This left the locals to their own devices, but there is little to show for their efforts. For example, the pumps that Kukuruza bought to divert water broke down due to cold winter weather.

And the 20,000 hryvnia ($540) he received in compensation didn’t ultimately change the fact that his basement, whose shelves are lined with canned pickles, is still filled with half-frozen stagnant water.

Despite the hardships of living in the wetlands, Kukuruza, like many older residents of Ukraine’s regions hit by the Russian invasion, says he’s not going anywhere.

Russian attack: “People suffered”

In fact, according to Vladimir Podkurganny, mayor of Demidov, not one of the dozens of residents of Demidov and its environs whose houses were damaged accepted the government’s offer of resettlement.

And he sees both sides of the story.

“The original goal was to keep Kyiv, to protect Kyiv,” he told AFP during a recent interview.

This is exactly what the Ukrainian military did by detonating explosives planted on the barrier of a huge reservoir near Kiev, releasing millions of liters of water into the nearby Irpin River, which overflowed its banks.

It took two attempts – one on the second day of the invasion, February 25, and a second attempt two days later – to destroy the dam and make crossing the river almost impossible for the Russian troops rushing to Kiev.

The move gave Ukrainian forces enough time to regroup and fight back against Moscow forces stuck in the seething swamp around the river.

Authorities in Kyiv are lobbying for the waterway to be recognized as a “hero river,” a reference to Soviet-era “hero cities” that held out against Nazi Germany’s invasion.

While the strategy worked, Podkurganny acknowledges that there is another side to the story, one in which victory came at a price.

“There were consequences for the population. Two hundred yards flooded. It is clear that people suffered from this,” he said.

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And it is clear to him that this suffering continues as the locals implore Podkurganny to act.

“I could show you the stacks of letters I received asking you to do something about it,” he added.

However, not everyone wants action.

Environmental activists say leaving things as they are could be of enormous benefit to the region, which was originally a vast wetland drained during the Soviet era.

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The Irpin River, they say, is only now coming to life.

“Vegetation and real wildlife have returned over the past year,” says Oleksiy Vasilyuk, biologist and founder of the Ukrainian Conservation Group (UNCG).

“The best thing would be to leave the valley as flooded as possible and let nature recover,” he said.

– “Paradise again” –

It was painfully clear to Valentina Osipova that the flora and fauna of her home had changed dramatically.

Standing in her now deserted garden, which used to grow berries and cauliflower, the 77-year-old woman described how beavers took up residence there last summer.

“Beavers! They were on fire! Eventually we really became friends,” said the retired foreign language professor.

The quiet idyll of her modest home, connected to the outside world by a dirt road, gave way to the hum of motorized pumps trying to drain her corner of the world.

But she still has hope for the future.

“When all the water is pumped out and our land is returned to its previous state, it will be paradise again,” Osipova said.

Corn agrees.

And he believes that while rising water levels have played a role in holding back Russian troops, they cannot ultimately take responsibility.

“The Ukrainian people rose up and stopped them,” he said. “It wasn’t the water that did it.”