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On a scorching summer day in Ukraine, two young boys named Timur and Slavik were enjoying their time on the former banks of the Kakhovka Reservoir, a part of the Dnieper River. During my visit to the area in July, I had the opportunity to meet them. The peaceful atmosphere was occasionally disrupted by the sounds of fighting in a nearby frontline town. This region serves as a crucial point for the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and in June, there was evidence that Russians, in an attempt to hinder their opponent’s progress, destroyed the Kakhovka Dam.
I was determined to witness the devastation firsthand. It quickly became evident that the collapse would significantly alter the landscape for many years to come. Everything south of the dam was submerged in the murky waters of the river. Downstream, in the city of Kherson, thousands of people and animals were forced to evacuate due to the flooding, often under attack from the Russians. Northeast of the dam, the reservoir has transformed into a desolate, muddy plain that stretches as far as the eye can see. Rebuilding from this environmental catastrophe is now an additional challenge that Ukraine must face once hostilities with Russia cease.
The Kakhovka Reservoir, built in the 1950s, was nearly the size of Utah’s Great Salt Lake and provided water to southern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula. The dam’s water irrigated farmland and orchards, while the hydropower plant produced electricity for villages in the region. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant also relied on the reservoir for cooling its reactors. All of this is now lost. Instead, an uncertain future awaits the farming and fishing industries.
One day, I struck up a conversation with an elderly man who was washing his car behind a fence. His home was not far from where the reservoir’s shoreline used to be. Bob Dylan’s music played faintly from a small speaker. The man, who introduced himself as Ihor, invited me up onto his roof to survey the surroundings. “Nowhere else will you find a view of our new desert like this,” he said. We sat together atop his dacha as the sun began to set over what had become a surreal lunar landscape.
The receding water of the Dnieper River revealed a dock and fishing harbor in the village of Bilenke. Anti-tank barriers lined the road between Nikopol and Kherson, running parallel to the Kakhovka Reservoir. A couple found solace at the spot where the water once flowed on the Dnieper River in Zaporizhzhia. In the village of Marianske, a blown-up bridge stands at the edge of the reservoir. Throughout Ukraine, the destruction of bridges has been a strategic tactic employed since the onset of the war. Residents of the village of Oleksiivka navigate their lives in the aftermath of the Kakhovka Dam’s destruction. A woman fetches water from the drying river in Oleksiivka. A monument dedicated to watermelon, a symbol of the Kherson region, stands as the irrigation canals that once nourished the area have now dried up. Fish at the bottom of the Sukhyi Chortomlyk River wither under the scorching summer sun. The dried-up basin of the Kakhovka Reservoir lays bare. People residing along the Sukhyi Chortomlyk River struggle to access the diminishing water supply. Residents of Nikopol rely on humanitarian aid points to secure drinking water as the city faces a shortage. Against the backdrop of the parched Kakhovka Reservoir, a cow grazes on one of the farms in the village of Malokaterynivka. Boys in the village of Kushum swim in the dwindling Dnieper River, which has experienced a more than five-meter decrease in certain areas. The Sukhyi Chortomlyk River in the village of Oleksiivka has almost entirely dried up following the destruction of the dam. A man pumps what little water remains in the Sukhyi Chortomlyk River to irrigate apple orchards in the area. The receding water of the Kakhovka Reservoir has brought about dire consequences for the region.
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