![]() ![]() Ukraine's top security body has decided to punish officials over the deaths Ukraine may be famous for its rich black soil but it's not much use without water. More than a million acres of farmland depends on canals on both sides of the reservoir for irrigation, land that produces two million tons of grain a year. ![]() The water should be going into a vast network of canals in the months before harvest. ![]() The pressure dials on the machines stand at zero. They should be throbbing with noise pumping water out of the reservoir and into canals, gallons of it every hour now that harvest is only a few months away. ![]() Inside the pumping station where Andriy works, or used to at least, it looks like a scene from Chernobyl before disaster struck. I'm worried yes I'm really worried," he added. I don't think they are a civilised people. Shimmering in the distance across the sand the tall chimneys of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.Īndriy voiced a concern you hear more and more here, and now the Ukrainian government has warned the Russians have mined part of the power plant and could blow it up next. He fears for his own future too.Īnd there is something else worrying him and everyone here. I just can't believe that," he said.Īndriy knows thousands of hectares of farmland depend on the water he can no longer pump. I can’t believe that a human brain can even consider that kind of barbaric act. "I didn't believe that that something like that could happen. How did you feel when you heard they’d blown the dam I asked him. Instead, it's a stagnant green pool. The odd fish flops languidly in the foul-smelling waters. It should be sucking water out of the reservoir at the rate of four million litres an hour. We crossed the barren landscape with Andriy Starko an engineer whose job is to pump the water out of the reservoir. Where there had just been water, vast sandbanks stretch into the distance. It has been robbed of most of its water, drained away after the Kakhovka dam was blown up, it’s believed by the Russians. Sky News's Dominic Waghorn has visited the Kherson region to report on the devastation wrought by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.īy Dominic Waghorn, International Affairs editor, in Ukraineįor seven decades a vast reservoir has dominated the landscape here, Europe's second biggest. Everything is still ahead," the Guardian quoted Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, as saying in an interview. "I want to say that our main force has not been engaged in fighting yet, and we are now searching, probing for weak places in the enemy defences. Formation operations are underway to set up the battlefield," presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.Īlthough the advances Ukraine has reported this month are its first substantial gains on the battlefield for seven months, Ukrainian forces have yet to push to the main defensive lines that Russia has had months to prepare. "Offensive operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue in a number of areas. Kyiv claims it has retaken eight villages in the early stages of its most ambitious assault since Russia's invasion 16 months ago, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that gains had been "slower than desired".Īddressing the pace of the Ukrainian advances, three senior officials sent the clearest signal so far that the main part of the counteroffensive had not yet begun. Ukraine has signalled the main push in its counteroffensive against Russia was still to come, with some troops not yet deployed and the operation so far intended to "set up the battlefield". ![]()
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