Life for the citizens of war-battered Kherson was never easy. But this week it got a whole lot worse. For the second day, emergency workers and volunteers battled to contain the damage from an unfolding ecological disaster. The partial destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam early on June 6th has already led to dozens of settlements in the region being submerged. Rescuers work in dinghies and rafts, under mortar and artillery fire, evacuating the mostly elderly and bewhiskered. Not everyone at risk is willing to leave, thanks to the stubborn pride that has made the Russians’ nine-month occupation of this southern region so calamitous.

It is too early to assess the full damage of the dam’s collapse. Yury Vaskov, Ukraine’s deputy minister for infrastructure, suggested on June 7th to The Economist that more of the dam may be intact than previously thought. Assessing how much is left will be clear only once the water level falls. But already more than 150 tonnes of oil have leaked into the Dnieper. Infectious diseases are a less visible pollutant. The river’s fierce currents mean that it has the potential to do yet more damage. “We already know it is the most terrible catastrophe Ukraine has experienced in decades,” said the deputy minister.

The sequence of events on June 6th is also still being stitched together. Some, though not all, locals report hearing an explosion in the morning. Ukraine had by that point begun major offensive operations in other sections of the frontline farther east. But it is understood that at least some Ukrainian units had moved out from Kherson city in the days leading up to the blast. They may have been attempting a risky cross-river operation over or near the Kakhovka dam and bridge. Perhaps Russia acted to make that impossible. Western military sources at any rate believe that Russia was responsible. In October Volodymyr Zelensky had warned against the very scenario that Russia would attempt to blow the dam up to stop a crossing. Ukraine has already referred the matter to the International Criminal Court, describing it as a Russian war crime.

The worst-hit areas are those immediately downstream of the dam. Many of them are Russian-controlled, on the eastern shores. In Hola Prystan, locals have reported the wailing of livestock as the water levels rose and they were drowned. There and elsewhere, those on higher floors shared their homes with their less fortunate neighbours. A resident of Oleshky said Russian forces were not assisting evacuations, and many were “waiting on roofs”. In Ukrainian-controlled Kherson city, the worst-hit was the Ostriv (island) that lies between the left and right banks of the Dnieper. The island was always low ground. One of its upmarket local streets was even nicknamed “Venice”, in reference to the water that came up to its front porches. Now the whole city is Venice, joked one volunteer, Serhiy Rybalchenko. He had brought a boat out of storage to help deliver nappies, water and other essentials to his stranded neighbours. “Sometimes, it’s more like the Atlantic.”

A new language is emerging locally. “Sail to me across the road,” shouted Artyom to his neighbour in the Kuibyshev neighbourhood. Artyom’s two-storey home was once firmly on the mainland. Since the afternoon of June 6th, it has been accessible only by the boat shuttles that have already started up. Artyom, who withheld his surname because of security concerns, said he had resolved to stay in his part-submerged home with his mother and two dozen chickens. There was enough room. He was keeping the chickens in one of the three upstairs rooms; his salvaged belongings in a second. He said he had prepared for the dam being destroyed since the first rumours, and had even bought a dinghy. “I never thought [the Russians] would be so stupid to do it.”

Volunteers manning the boat shuttles say that another 250 families remain in now-stranded Kuibyshev. They will create problems for volunteers in the days and weeks to come, said Nikolai Rybalsky. But the same determination that has seen locals through a difficult year is keeping them in their homes. “They say they survived invasion and nine months of occupation, so why should they leave now?” Sergei, the owner of a coffee shop at the Shuminsky market down the road, said nothing would ruffle Kherson’s hardened populace. “The scariest thing is not the water, but standing in a bread queue behind a military guy in fatigues and a Z symbol on his back. Whatever happens here, we know we are better off now we are back in Ukraine.” ■