On the morning of June 6, 2023, Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, causing water to flood tens of settlements with thousands of people. The occupied eastern bank of Kherson Oblast has suffered the most - but the Russian authorities refused to evacuate people and provided insufficient resources to save the civilians, as the Kyiv Independent’s Olesia Bida reveals in her new documentary, “When the Water Screams.”
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00:00:11The explosion happened at 2.50 a.m.
00:00:16He was absolutely conscious.
00:00:20When someone opened the tap, the water began to rise so fast.
00:00:27She called and said,
00:00:30the water had already entered the house,
00:00:32the water had already calmed down,
00:00:34we were already sitting on the table, on the chairs,
00:00:38the water was on the belts, we were already on our necks in the water.
00:00:44Then, when we realized that the first floor had already sunk,
00:00:49we began to hear the screams of people.
00:00:54The Russians took us to the house, where there was no help.
00:01:00The Ministry of Emergency Situations is working very actively there now,
00:01:03and the military is working actively,
00:01:05and the local authorities.
00:01:07I recently spoke with the head of the executive office of Kherson Oblast, Aldo.
00:01:13But this will not affect the rest of the life of Kherson Oblast in any way.
00:01:17That is, even evacuation will not be required,
00:01:19because the residents are in their places.
00:01:36Kherson Oblast, Kherson Oblast
00:01:47This is the village of Kochany, this is the heart, this is my house.
00:01:54You see, these dark spots are the Ozer system.
00:01:58That's why it was called the Ozerky Cooperative.
00:02:01Sergei Dudchenko and his family lived on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.
00:02:10Since February 2022, the area has been under Russian occupation.
00:02:19This house in Kochany village used to be Sergei's summer cottage.
00:02:23At some point, he decided to move and settle there permanently.
00:02:28Sergei and his family were at the cottage when the flood started.
00:02:47Victoria Khrenenkova once lived 10 kilometers from Sergei, in the occupied town of Holopristin.
00:02:57She was my mother, my children.
00:03:00I dreamed of living all my life only in Holopristin.
00:03:06After the start of the full-scale invasion,
00:03:08Victoria and her family were forced to leave Holopristin, settling in the Czech Republic.
00:03:14Remaining in occupied territories was dangerous for her son and husband.
00:03:21Victoria's parents and grandmother refused to leave.
00:03:26I was on a night shift at work.
00:03:29In the morning, my colleagues changed me,
00:03:33and they said that the occupants had set a fire,
00:03:37they had blown up the Kakhov gas pipeline,
00:03:39and the water was going in our direction, in the direction of our city.
00:03:46Yaroslav Vasiliev also previously lived on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast,
00:03:52in the town of Oleshki.
00:03:55The man learned about the explosion at the dam from Germany, where he was at the time.
00:04:26Yaroslav promised to send a car for his father,
00:04:30so he could escape the town as the water approached.
00:04:55When I went to pick him up, he said that the water had already reached Shikolotka.
00:05:03That is, it was like 7 a.m., it was 12 a.m., and it had already reached Shikolotka.
00:05:11Today, Russian terrorists have proven that they are a threat to everything alive.
00:05:18That night, they blew up the dam of the Kakhov hydroelectric power plant.
00:05:24At 2.50 a.m. this explosion took place.
00:05:29An absolutely conscious, prepared explosion.
00:05:33They knew exactly what they were doing.
00:05:36The flooding of the southern regions of our country continues at night.
00:05:41At least 100,000 people lived in these areas until Russian Tuesday.
00:05:46At least tens of thousands are still there.
00:05:52The Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant was located in southern Ukraine,
00:05:56in the occupied part of Kherson Oblast.
00:06:00It was built in the middle of the last century.
00:06:03The power plant didn't just produce electricity,
00:06:06it irrigated hundreds of thousands of hectares of arid southern territories.
00:06:11It also held back the second largest reservoir in Ukraine.
00:06:17Under international humanitarian law,
00:06:19hydroelectric power plants are subject to enhanced protection.
00:06:23Attacks on hydro power plants are justified only in exceptional circumstances.
00:06:29The Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant was captured by the Russian armed forces
00:06:33in the first days of the full-scale invasion.
00:06:37According to Ukrainian law enforcement,
00:06:39the power plant has been controlled by the Dnieper group of forces since at least January 2023.
00:06:45Specifically by the group's 205th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade.
00:06:51The Security Service of Ukraine intercepted a conversation
00:06:54between Russian military personnel after the plant's dam was blown up.
00:07:15According to research by Ukrainian analysts,
00:07:18the dam's destruction flooded several regions and more than 60,000 houses.
00:07:25The occupied eastern bank of the Dnieper River in Kherson Oblast
00:07:29is located lower than the western bank,
00:07:31causing it to suffer more damage when the dam was destroyed.
00:07:37Using satellite images, the Kyiv Independence journalists
00:07:40confirmed the flooding of at least 20 settlements
00:07:43and 31 summer cottage settlements.
00:07:46The Russian-installed governor of the occupied part of Kherson Oblast,
00:07:49Volodymyr Saldo, refused to acknowledge the scale of the tragedy.
00:08:14Yaroslav and Victoria, who were abroad at the time,
00:08:18dropped everything to look for someone who could help rescue their relatives.
00:08:22Internet and mobile connection in the occupied territory was unstable,
00:08:26and water was flooding houses in the area.
00:08:43I called him.
00:08:44By the end of the working day, it was five o'clock.
00:08:47The water was already in the house.
00:08:49I don't remember the level of water.
00:08:51He said he was in bed, or something like that.
00:08:54He was still in the house.
00:08:56The neighbors, it turns out, they all left.
00:08:58In short, it was still acceptable on foot.
00:09:02And he stayed there alone.
00:09:04He opened the window in advance, put it on the stairs,
00:09:07so that, if anything, he could climb out to the attic.
00:09:10Well, I couldn't imagine that.
00:09:12He had two insults.
00:09:13It was not very comfortable for him to climb out the window.
00:09:18Both Yaroslav and Victoria held on to some hope
00:09:22that the occupation authorities might evacuate their family members.
00:09:26We were looking for those numbers, administration numbers.
00:09:29We thought, maybe there would be some kind of evacuation, boats, something like that.
00:09:33In general, we did not find anything, there was nothing like that.
00:09:36I, my son, my husband, all my acquaintances,
00:09:39everyone who could, we called.
00:09:42Where could we, in general, we called everywhere.
00:09:48We could, and we also called the orcs in their Ministry of Emergency Situations.
00:09:53Few people, until no one shows activity,
00:09:56and there are no requests for evacuation.
00:09:59For months, the Kiev independence journalists
00:10:02searched for witnesses who survived the flooding
00:10:04on the occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Herson Oblast.
00:10:08It was not easy.
00:10:10Some of the eyewitnesses still live in areas controlled by Russia.
00:10:14Any contact with Ukrainian journalists can be dangerous.
00:10:20Those who left are also afraid to speak,
00:10:23as they often have loved ones remaining in the occupied territories.
00:10:27In the end, over the course of more than half a year of work,
00:10:31we recorded 50 unique conversations with eyewitnesses,
00:10:35relatives of eyewitnesses, and volunteers.
00:10:39These testimonies would form the basis of our investigation.
00:11:05No, of course. And who should we go to?
00:11:07Voleshka did not have any power at all, none.
00:11:10Nothing, no evacuation took place,
00:11:14neither centralized, nor organized.
00:11:18We asked Russian soldiers to help us,
00:11:21because I thought I would not survive.
00:11:24Well, they said that you would die,
00:11:27and behind them came a car, a big Ural.
00:11:29They were threatened and called, and we stayed.
00:11:35The occupation authorities made no attempt to evacuate people by boat,
00:11:39as water flooded cities and villages in the area.
00:11:43The authorities did announce evacuations by bus
00:11:46on Telegram messenger app channels,
00:11:48but people in flooded areas could not reach them easily.
00:11:56On the evening of June 6, Yaroslav took matters into his own hands.
00:12:01He created a chat on Telegram that he named Evacuation East Bank.
00:12:06He shared it on other social networks and other local chat groups.
00:12:32People started joining the chat and posting messages
00:12:36asking to rescue those who were trapped.
00:13:02Please write us if you can pick us up by boat.
00:13:21In the absence of any official evacuation,
00:13:24people looked for ways they could help on their own.
00:13:26Local men were the first to join the rescue operations.
00:13:30They began by searching the city for boats.
00:13:33Finding boats was difficult.
00:13:35Months earlier, the occupation authorities had confiscated boats from the locals,
00:13:40allegedly for military needs.
00:14:01The day the dam was blown up,
00:14:03the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting.
00:14:07During the meeting, Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebensia
00:14:11accused Ukraine of attacking the Kochovka Dam,
00:14:14which led to its breach and flooding of territories.
00:14:31At the UN meeting, Nebensia attempted to back up his claim
00:14:35by saying that Ukraine was conducting a counter-offensive
00:14:38on the occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast during that period.
00:14:43The explosion was supposed to help Ukrainian soldiers in the area regroup,
00:14:47as they were, according to Nebensia, experiencing setbacks.
00:14:51Several human rights organizations have been investigating the cause
00:14:54of the Kochovka Dam's collapse for months.
00:14:57Lawyers from the Global Rights Compliance International Human Rights Organization
00:15:01immediately began working on an investigation.
00:15:04What we were able to conclude and what we shared with the Office of the Prosecutor
00:15:09and other international organizations,
00:15:12was that the Kochovka Dam's collapse was not an accident.
00:15:16What we were able to conclude and what we shared with the Office of the Prosecutor
00:15:19and other international accountability mechanisms,
00:15:23was a high level of confidence that this was a pre-emplaced explosive
00:15:27that was planted within the dam, which breached the dam infrastructure,
00:15:32causing the floodwaters to break through.
00:15:36This conclusion was reinforced by independent research
00:15:39conducted by Norwegian scientists from the NORSAR organization,
00:15:44which studies seismic phenomena.
00:15:46Between 2 and 3 a.m. on June 6th,
00:15:49they recorded seismic movement at their stations in Romania and Ukraine.
00:15:55Lawyers and analysts from the Ukrainian human rights organization Truth Hounds
00:16:00considered several versions that could have led to the destruction of the dam.
00:16:04It included a natural destruction and an attack on the dam from the Ukrainian side.
00:16:09They also came to the conclusion that the dam was blown up from the inside
00:16:13and that the Russian military was involved.
00:16:40Ukrainian prosecutors consider an explosion from within
00:16:44to be the leading explanation for the dam's collapse.
00:17:10At around 7 a.m. on June 7th,
00:17:13Yaroslav received a message that one of the local men had found a boat
00:17:17and rescued people from the roof.
00:17:22It was the first time the chat he created had helped to rescue someone.
00:17:40I burst into tears.
00:17:44A few hours later, they managed to get Yaroslav's father down from the attic
00:17:48and bring him to dry territory.
00:17:51But relief was nowhere in sight.
00:17:55The number of people in the newly created chat room was growing.
00:17:59Requests for evacuation were increasing every minute.
00:18:059 Kirov Street, there are people on the roofs of houses.
00:18:08Please help, you can hear them shouting.
00:18:11SOS, help needed.
00:18:13The right side of Solanski.
00:18:14The house is almost completely underwater.
00:18:16Parents are on the roof.
00:18:18A man and a woman, 60 years old.
00:18:20The woman cannot swim.
00:18:22Village of Solanski, 13 Kardashinsky Lane.
00:18:26Good morning.
00:18:27Because of the disaster, my relatives and other people are trapped in the water.
00:18:31At the moment, they are in the summer cottages outside Korsunska.
00:18:35The water has reached the second floor.
00:18:37We don't know how long they will last.
00:18:39We need help to evacuate them.
00:18:41SOS.
00:18:43Hello.
00:18:44Help, save people in Solanski Village.
00:18:46One house has already been washed away,
00:18:48and the other house isn't stable either.
00:18:5170 Zarychna Street.
00:18:52There are two people there.
00:18:55Please help, two elderly people.
00:18:57They can't swim.
00:18:58162 Olimpiska Street.
00:19:01Solanski Village.
00:19:04Overnight, the water reached more settlements.
00:19:07Serhii's house and that of his neighbor, Olha Khoratsha, began to flood.
00:19:13When someone opened the tap,
00:19:15the water began to rise so fast
00:19:19that we were already proud
00:19:23that we could take something up the mountain
00:19:26to save something.
00:19:29To survive somehow.
00:19:34Olha and her husband climbed to the second floor
00:19:36and waited for Serhii to come for them.
00:19:38Before their eyes, water rushed into the house
00:19:41and destroyed everything in its way.
00:19:43Bookshelves fell.
00:19:44Pieces of furniture floated up.
00:19:50This is probably the worst part.
00:19:55Because the chickens, pigs, and cows began to howl.
00:20:00And this...
00:20:04I will probably never forget this sound.
00:20:08I was just talking to a child,
00:20:11and I said,
00:20:12Zhanna, do you hear this cry?
00:20:16It was squeaking, growling, and meowing.
00:20:19I don't know.
00:20:20These wild howls of the chickens,
00:20:23which had already begun to drown,
00:20:25well, the water was already like this,
00:20:27when it began to flood Serhii's house.
00:20:31And then...
00:20:34Then, when we realized that the first floor had already drowned,
00:20:38we began to hear the cries of people.
00:20:45However, we have already survived the most difficult hours.
00:20:48The system of providing assistance to the population is established and works well.
00:20:52The situation in the flooded area is under control,
00:20:55and there have been no reports of civilian casualties at this time.
00:21:19Victoria never put her phone down.
00:21:22She looked for someone who could come rescue her family
00:21:26and kept in touch with her mother.
00:21:49Victoria's family could not get to the attic of the house.
00:21:53Her father had his legs amputated.
00:21:56Her grandmother was nearly blind.
00:21:59Victoria's mother could not leave them.
00:22:19That evening, Victoria received a message from a young woman she did not know.
00:22:24The woman's parents were neighbors of Victoria's family.
00:22:49He was full of people with pets.
00:22:54And there were a lot of animals there,
00:22:59and they did not take my relatives.
00:23:02I read this night,
00:23:06she wrote that when my parents were swimming in the boat,
00:23:12not my parents, but that girl,
00:23:14your parents were screaming.
00:23:20We saw them screaming.
00:23:27After that, Victoria lost contact with her parents.
00:23:31Calls to her mom were no longer going through.
00:23:34Under international humanitarian law,
00:23:37when planning an operation such as the explosion of a hydroelectric dam,
00:23:41a party to an armed conflict has to calculate the damage
00:23:44the explosion would cause to civilians and the environment,
00:23:48and whether it is commensurate with the military gains.
00:24:05The military advantage achieved by the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the islands
00:24:10was very short-term,
00:24:13because in some time Ukrainian soldiers returned to these islands.
00:24:17This means that even if something was achieved,
00:24:20it was not permanent, and this could be calculated, it seems to us.
00:24:35And what we were able to find,
00:24:38as has been consistent with the last nearly three years
00:24:41of this unlawful invasion,
00:24:45has been an entire and wholesale disregard
00:24:49for the obligations that was placed upon Russia
00:24:52in terms of evacuation of civilians,
00:24:55in terms of the basic protections of civilians in conflict,
00:25:00and also around the environmental impacts as well.
00:25:10Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of the occupied part of Kherson Oblast,
00:25:14put Andrey Aleksanko in charge of the emergency response.
00:25:18Aleksanko was the so-called chairman of the government of the occupied Eastern Bank.
00:25:22He oversaw the services and administrative bodies in the area.
00:25:26Aleksanko is the former mayor of the Russian city of Krasnodar.
00:25:30In 2022, when Russian troops occupied part of Kharkiv Oblast,
00:25:35Aleksanko headed the Russian-installed Council of Ministers there.
00:25:40After Ukraine liberated these territories,
00:25:43he received a position in occupied Kherson Oblast.
00:25:49From the first day after the dam was blown up,
00:25:52Aleksanko traveled to flooded towns and villages.
00:25:55He talked with locals and accompanied Russian officials there.
00:26:22According to an investigation by Truthhounds,
00:26:25representatives of the Russian political and military leadership
00:26:29publicly stated that Ukraine was allegedly preparing to blow up the dam since 2022.
00:26:35Since then, the government of the occupied part of Kherson Oblast
00:26:39has not been able to do anything about it.
00:26:43According to an investigation by Truthhounds,
00:26:46representatives of the Russian political and military leadership
00:26:51They also discussed the consequences of destroying the dam.
00:26:55In other words, they were likely aware of the harm
00:26:58this crime would cause to civilians.
00:27:06To prevent and respond to emergencies like flooding,
00:27:09Russia has a specialized network of state bodies.
00:27:13In addition to the Emergency Situations Ministry,
00:27:17it includes the Russian Guard,
00:27:19the Interior Ministry,
00:27:21and the Health Ministry.
00:27:24The same network operated in the occupied part of Kherson Oblast.
00:27:32At the time of the explosion,
00:27:34it was led by Ivan Pavlyenko,
00:27:36who headed the local rescue service.
00:27:38He was a Russian Major General of the Internal Service
00:27:41with experience in emergency response.
00:27:47We analyzed reports on how Russians handled emergency situations
00:27:51on their territory in 2023.
00:27:53We found that Russia's resources
00:27:55on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast
00:27:58were disproportionately smaller compared to Russian regions.
00:28:04There were 8 times more personnel
00:28:06and 18 times more special equipment
00:28:09in Ivanovo Oblast in Russia,
00:28:11which is almost the same size
00:28:13as the occupied part of Kherson Oblast.
00:28:17After the dam was blown up,
00:28:20Russian officials claimed that first responders
00:28:22from occupied Crimea,
00:28:24at least three Russian regions,
00:28:26and Moscow had been sent to help.
00:28:28According to information from open sources
00:28:31and eyewitness accounts,
00:28:33some Russian first responders appeared in the area
00:28:36after the flooding had stopped or had begun to recede.
00:28:40Russian emergency service workers
00:28:42took people to recreation centers in towns and villages
00:28:45that had not flooded.
00:28:47Volunteers say they know of cases
00:28:49when people were denied evacuation
00:28:51if they did not have a Russian passport.
00:29:15They were waiting for the water to stop.
00:29:17Because when the water was flowing,
00:29:19no one was going out to the shacks.
00:29:21It was impossible to go out.
00:29:23They were waiting for the water to stop.
00:29:25The water stopped somewhere…
00:29:27It must have been quiet for the third day.
00:29:39Ukraine officially evacuated
00:29:41only the towns and villages under its control.
00:29:45Due to the peculiarities of the landscape,
00:29:48this part of Kherson Oblast suffered less.
00:29:52The UN Humanitarian Mission
00:29:54and the International Committee of the Red Cross
00:29:56submitted requests for access to the occupied flooded zone.
00:30:00Russia did not grant them access.
00:30:15I asked my grandmother,
00:30:17how long is it going to take?
00:30:19We are tired of everything.
00:30:21They must have been rescued a long time ago.
00:30:24I asked her, why didn't they call me?
00:30:27Why didn't they contact me?
00:30:29Where are they?
00:30:31She shouted,
00:30:33is it a war? Is it a flood?
00:30:35I said, of course,
00:30:37no one will save them,
00:30:39except the volunteers.
00:30:42Representatives of the occupation authorities
00:30:44admitted that there were not even boats
00:30:46in the rescue unit of Holopristan,
00:30:48where victorious relatives lived
00:30:50when the dam was blown up.
00:30:54At the time, Yaroslav's Telegram channel kept growing.
00:30:57Among the people in the group
00:30:59were those who processed hundreds of requests for help,
00:31:02those who transferred coordinates of addresses onto the map,
00:31:05those who purchased boats,
00:31:07but most importantly, those who got into boats,
00:31:10rescuing people off their roofs
00:31:12and taking them to dry areas.
00:31:38On one of those days,
00:31:40Yaroslav received a call from a woman.
00:31:42She was supposedly a Russian volunteer.
00:31:45She was calling on behalf of the occupation administration
00:31:48and offered to join forces.
00:31:50Yaroslav's team should hand over their boats
00:31:52to the rescue services
00:31:54and share with them the addresses of people
00:31:56who asked for help.
00:31:58Yaroslav refused to give up the boats,
00:32:00but he did share the people's coordinates.
00:32:11When the water began to quickly flood the village of Kohani,
00:32:15Serhi moved Olha and her husband into his house.
00:32:19The water stopped a few centimeters short of the second floor.
00:32:24Later, Serhi and his friend went through the village on their boat.
00:32:28The men collected drinking water
00:32:30from a well on the hill that had stayed dry.
00:32:32They first got water for their loved ones
00:32:35and then delivered water to locals
00:32:37sitting on the roofs of houses.
00:32:40People were shouting at us.
00:32:42People, people, people.
00:32:44We looked around.
00:32:46We arrived.
00:32:48A family was sitting on the roof,
00:32:50a man and a woman.
00:32:52The roof was quite sloping,
00:32:54so it was hard to sit on it.
00:32:56And next to the wooden doors,
00:32:58on top of the wooden doors,
00:33:00there was a thick foam,
00:33:02a sheet of foam.
00:33:04Doors were laid on it.
00:33:06Some rags were laid on the door.
00:33:08And an elderly woman was tied to these doors,
00:33:11paralyzed and motionless.
00:33:13So we swam up to them,
00:33:15and they said,
00:33:17take us or your grandmother.
00:33:22Serhi's boat was too small to put the woman there.
00:33:25More men with boats were called to help.
00:33:28Together, they took the woman and her family
00:33:31to a dry hill in the village.
00:33:34On the second or third day,
00:33:36we had already found a lot of boats in the city,
00:33:39and these boats were taken away by the military.
00:33:42Without any explanation,
00:33:44they just took them away.
00:33:46The guys wrote,
00:33:48these boats took us away.
00:33:50That's it, we're done for today.
00:33:52One time, we came for water.
00:33:54I stayed by the boats,
00:33:56and Valera went to get water.
00:33:59A Russian military came up.
00:34:03He came up.
00:34:05I was sitting 10 meters away from the road.
00:34:09He came up and said,
00:34:11I need this boat.
00:34:14Give it to me.
00:34:16I said,
00:34:18man, we have nine souls.
00:34:21We can't do anything with one boat.
00:34:24I don't know anything.
00:34:26Give me the boat.
00:34:28Only when Serhi said that locals
00:34:30had left behind some boats on a nearby hill
00:34:33did the soldier leave him alone.
00:34:37He told us about his cowardice.
00:34:40He said, I was scared.
00:34:42How could they take it?
00:34:44There's none.
00:34:46We have these boats.
00:34:48That's it.
00:34:50You won't be able to swim.
00:34:52It's dirty.
00:34:54You can't see what's dirty.
00:34:56I don't know anything.
00:35:06Volunteers began to help their own fellow soldiers
00:35:09and also to prevent Ukrainian troops from passing through.
00:35:13They probably believed that Ukrainian soldiers
00:35:16could get into the flooded towns disguised as locals.
00:35:24It quickly became more difficult for volunteers to rescue people.
00:35:28Volunteers began to be harassed and taken away for interrogation.
00:35:32They were forced to stop trying to help locals.
00:35:36They were taken away, brought to a table
00:35:39and interrogated.
00:35:42Who are you? Where did you get the money?
00:35:47The Kyiv Independence journalist recorded two more cases
00:35:50where local men were threatened and their boats were taken away.
00:35:54In one of the flooded towns,
00:35:56a man who participated in the evacuation of people went missing.
00:36:01Similar cases were also recorded by Ukrainian prosecutors.
00:36:06They took people away for evacuation.
00:36:08And those who evacuated,
00:36:10they are persecuted and punished for it.
00:36:13You know, for me,
00:36:15in such situations,
00:36:17we analyze the potential possibility of genocide.
00:36:20Yes, when this is a conscious destruction of the civilian population.
00:36:24Consciously.
00:36:25Well, it can't be analyzed otherwise.
00:36:27People were afraid.
00:36:29Someone whom I begged, called, wrote,
00:36:33they told me,
00:36:35I'm afraid.
00:36:36The water is fast.
00:36:38I'm afraid to die.
00:36:41I can't.
00:36:45Local men really couldn't get everywhere by boat.
00:36:50One such place was the village of Kartashinka,
00:36:53located between Oleshki and Holopristin.
00:36:59To escape the water,
00:37:00the locals there moved from their homes to higher ground.
00:37:20Kartashinka resident Irina Slinkova
00:37:22went up to the hill as soon as the water started to enter the village streets.
00:37:26She and her husband Vasil took their cows and left their home.
00:37:57With time, there were more people on the hill.
00:38:02Irina and Vasil helped everyone as much as they could.
00:38:06The man collected locals on his boat and took them to the hill.
00:38:11Irina milked the cows and distributed the milk among people.
00:38:16One day, they themselves needed help.
00:38:20Ukrainian military personnel were perhaps the only ones
00:38:22who managed to get into the village and rescue people.
00:38:26They came on boats to the occupied territory at their own risk,
00:38:30and there were no supplies.
00:38:35The village was in the hands of the Ukrainian army,
00:38:39and the Ukrainian army was also on their side.
00:38:43It was a risky situation.
00:38:45They came on boats to the occupied territory at their own risk,
00:38:49bringing them back to the Ukrainian-controlled West Bank of Kherson Oblast.
00:38:54On the sixth day of flooding, Ukrainian soldiers came to Kardashinka
00:38:58to pick up more people, including Irina and Vasyl.
00:39:03They came down from the hill on two inflatable boats
00:39:06and were later transferred to another, larger boat.
00:39:10I waved goodbye to the rescuers and told them that we were leaving.
00:39:22I didn't see any of the rescuers, so I thought it was strange.
00:39:27I saw that there was a three-story dacha, two floors, and a third attic.
00:39:33There was a logi, a column, and a machine gunner next to the column.
00:39:39He was aiming at us, at our boat.
00:39:43Two more people jumped out of the attic.
00:39:48I shouted, «Rashists on the roof!»
00:39:53And only when I turned around and shouted, «Rashists on the roof!»
00:39:57I heard it myself.
00:39:59It hit me in the face, in the head.
00:40:03I threw my head away and got a bullet in my face.
00:40:08When I realized that I was wounded and my head was badly injured,
00:40:18I thought, «This is it. We're done. This is the end».
00:40:29Irina was taken to a hospital in Kherson.
00:40:32When she regained consciousness, she was told by doctors
00:40:35that her eye that was injured by the bullet could not be saved.
00:40:42Today, the terrorists opened fire on three boats
00:40:45that rescued 21 people from the flooded left bank.
00:40:50Almost all of them were old and frail.
00:40:54The Russian military shot them in the back.
00:40:57Three people died, and ten were injured.
00:41:01We watched a video that Ukrainian soldiers recorded
00:41:04on the day they evacuated civilians from Kartashynka.
00:41:08Most of the people on the boat were elderly people
00:41:11dressed in civilian clothes.
00:41:14According to one of the soldiers,
00:41:16the boat was fired on from 20 to 30 meters away.
00:41:21We can assume that the Russian soldiers
00:41:24could see exactly who was on the boat.
00:41:28Despite the fact that there were armed Ukrainian soldiers on the boat,
00:41:31this does not justify the shooting of civilians,
00:41:34says Dmytro Koval.
00:41:57The general understanding of humanity,
00:42:00as well as the military superiority,
00:42:02leads to the conclusion that if it is not a high-ranking general
00:42:06who can really compensate for some damage to the civilian population,
00:42:11then in this case we cannot say
00:42:14that shooting at one soldier
00:42:17who accompanies a large group or some group of civilians will be half-hearted.
00:42:24For Victoria, the search for her family had blurred into a single day.
00:42:29She kept her phone in her hands at all times
00:42:32and clung to any hope that her family was alive.
00:42:54And then I began to understand that I could...
00:43:01I did not believe that they were saved.
00:43:04And I began to feel that they were not there.
00:43:07I really felt that they were not there.
00:43:09I went out, and it was as if people were next to me,
00:43:12and as if birds were singing.
00:43:14But it was not like that, it was not like that.
00:43:17I felt that my mother was no longer there.
00:43:21The first cases of deaths from flooding
00:43:23began to be recorded almost immediately after the water rose.
00:43:29The director of the Oleszki Polyclinic, Svetlana Srdjukova,
00:43:33fled occupation in August 2022.
00:43:36She had access to information as, legally,
00:43:39she still remained the head of the medical institution,
00:43:42even though the hospital was run by a Russian-installed authority.
00:43:46When Oleszki was flooded,
00:43:48the hospital became one of the only places
00:43:50where the water did not reach
00:43:52and where the rescued and dead were taken.
00:44:18Svetlana Srdjukova, Oleszki Polyclinic
00:44:44Svetlana's subordinates managed to issue
00:44:46six certificates of death due to the flooding.
00:44:49After that, the occupation authorities forbade them
00:44:52from issuing any more certificates.
00:45:12From open sources and communication with eyewitnesses,
00:45:15the Kyiv Independence journalists found that
00:45:17the bodies of the dead were buried
00:45:19and could have been taken to at least five settlements
00:45:22in the occupied part of Yersonoblist.
00:45:36Bishop Nikodim of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
00:45:39remained in Oleszki at the time of the flood.
00:45:43After the water receded from the local cemetery,
00:45:46people turned to him and asked him to hold the funerals for the dead.
00:46:12Oleszki, Oleszki Polyclinic
00:46:43In June 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine
00:46:46announced that it had served a notice of suspicion
00:46:49in absentia to the commander of the Dnipro Group of Forces,
00:46:52Colonel-General Oleg Mekharevich,
00:46:55for ordering the Khokhovka Dam explosion.
00:47:01Mekharevich did not respond to the request,
00:47:04but said that he did not know the details.
00:47:12Mekharevich participated in military operations in Syria
00:47:15and the Chechen Republic.
00:47:17He was appointed to command troops in the Yersono direction
00:47:20shortly before the dam's destruction.
00:47:42Russian President Vladimir Putin and his entourage
00:47:45likely knew about the consequences of the Khokhovka Dam's destruction.
00:47:49Russia's Deputy Prime Minister traveled to the flooded areas
00:47:52on the President's instructions.
00:47:55Putin also kept in touch with the so-called governor
00:47:58of the occupied part of Yersonoblist, Volodymyr Saldo.
00:48:13A few months before the Khokhovka Dam was blown up,
00:48:16Putin personally visited Yersonoblist
00:48:19and met with fighters from the Dnipro Group of Forces,
00:48:22the military personnel who controlled the Khokhovka power plant,
00:48:25and who, according to Ukrainian law enforcement,
00:48:28were involved in the dam's destruction.
00:48:31Oleg Mekharevich, the head of the Khokhovka Group of Forces,
00:48:34said that he did not know the details
00:48:37of the Khokhovka Dam's destruction.
00:48:40A week before the explosion, Russia passed a resolution
00:48:43stating that accidents at hazardous facilities
00:48:46caused by military operations and terrorist attacks
00:48:49may remain uninvestigated until 2028.
00:49:10In the case of the Khokhovka Dam,
00:49:13Putin received information from the leaders
00:49:16of this direction of military operations.
00:49:19That is, he had closer communication
00:49:22than the Minister of Defense or the head of the General Staff.
00:49:25That is, it is quite possible that even he had some influence
00:49:28or at least understood what was happening with the Khokhovka Dam.
00:49:40I remember the exact day she found out her family was gone.
00:49:44It was probably the fifth day after the flood,
00:49:47when the water had already started to recede from the house.
00:50:10I realized that I needed to look at other lists.
00:50:13At first, there were lists of missing persons,
00:50:16and then one girl sent me lists,
00:50:19and there were my surnames.
00:50:22Emergency service representatives,
00:50:25whom Victoria had been calling
00:50:28since the first day of the flooding,
00:50:31finally reached her family's house
00:50:34and found their bodies.
00:50:38Victoria calls everything that happened next
00:50:41another one of her struggles.
00:50:44She was unable to locate her parents' bodies
00:50:47after they were taken from their house.
00:51:07Victoria asked her relative for help,
00:51:10a defector who remained in the occupied Kherson Oblast.
00:51:13He found the bodies of her relatives
00:51:16in the town of Kalanchak,
00:51:1990 kilometers from the place of their death.
00:51:22The man identified and buried the relatives
00:51:25at a cemetery there.
00:51:38These are horrible photos for me.
00:51:41I look through them.
00:51:44Three graves, one photo,
00:51:47the second photo, three graves,
00:51:50the third photo, three graves near me.
00:51:53He said that I was trying to forget
00:51:56what I saw.
00:51:59I saw a lot of dead bodies.
00:52:02They were in such a state
00:52:06that I was happy to see them.
00:52:13Over the course of their investigation,
00:52:16the Kyiv Independence journalist recorded
00:52:19five more cases of people unable to determine
00:52:22the fate of their family members killed in the floods.
00:52:25They only know the approximate location
00:52:28where their family members are likely to have been buried.
00:52:35We contacted people on our street.
00:52:38They live there, higher from the lake.
00:52:41A woman came there by chance.
00:52:44She told us that my mother had drowned.
00:52:47We have no documents.
00:52:50We don't know where her body is.
00:52:53We don't know where she is buried.
00:52:58I found out on the 8th that my father was not there.
00:53:01Friends went there.
00:53:04There was even a roof in the water.
00:53:07We came and shouted.
00:53:10There was still hope.
00:53:13I was still looking for him.
00:53:16At the moment, I don't know.
00:53:19I hope that he was cremated in Palanchuk.
00:53:22I don't know who he was buried with.
00:53:25I don't know.
00:53:28A year after the flood,
00:53:31more than 60 deaths from flooding
00:53:34on the east bank of Kherson Oblast.
00:53:37Ukraine has information about 38 confirmed deaths.
00:53:4329 of them occurred in the occupied territory.
00:54:02These estimates were confirmed
00:54:05by an investigation by Associated Press journalists.
00:54:08According to their information,
00:54:11up to 300 people could have died in the town of Oleshki.
00:54:14Our conversations with eyewitnesses
00:54:17also point to similar figures.
00:54:31The bodies were floating.
00:54:34The Russians didn't let them pull people out.
00:54:37They didn't let them go there.
00:54:40We knew that there were a couple of houses
00:54:43where there was a man in one house
00:54:46and a woman with a man in the other.
00:54:49We knew that there was a couple of houses
00:54:52where there was a man in one house
00:54:55and a woman with a man in the other.
00:54:58We knew that there was a couple of houses
00:55:01where there was a man in one house
00:55:04and a woman with a man in the other.
00:55:07We knew that there was a couple of houses
00:55:10where there was a man in one house
00:55:13and a woman with a man in the other.
00:55:16We knew that there was a couple of houses
00:55:19where there was a man in one house
00:55:22and a woman with a man in the other.
00:55:25He also knew that there was a woman
00:55:28in a village who was dead and swam near the water.
00:55:31We also found a man in the village
00:55:34who was dead and swam near the water.
00:55:37We also found a man in the village
00:55:40who was dead and swam near the water.
00:55:43People were swimming in Oleshki,
00:55:46Pesky, and in the villages.
00:55:49When I spoke to the people,
00:55:52I talked to the guys, and there were a lot of words spoken by the guys.
00:56:03They were just floating in the streets, and you had to go around in circles.
00:56:12Hundreds, for sure. Hundreds.
00:56:16But I would like to believe that it was hundreds, not thousands.
00:56:42The only thing I see and read in the news is that Petrivko-Kokhovsky Geyser caused an ecological disaster.
00:57:08He ruined our lives.
00:57:11I teach myself to continue sewing.
00:57:15With my own pain.
00:57:18Because it will never pass.
00:57:38Now everyone who I talk to, and everyone who remembers Kordashynka, wants to go home.
00:58:08A month after the explosion, Russian Major General Ivan Pavlyenko resigned as head of the local rescue service.
00:58:25His biography on official websites does not mention that he ever worked in Kherson Oblast,
00:58:31nor that he coordinated the rescue operation after the explosion of the Khovka Dam.
00:58:38In August 2023, almost three months after the explosion,
00:58:42soldiers of Russia's Dnieper Group of Forces received state awards for the defense of the Khovka Dam.
00:58:51With the help of volunteers, Serhii, Olga and their family managed to leave Kokhani ten days after the flooding.
00:59:01They reached Ukrainian-controlled territory through Russian-occupied areas and Russia, after which they settled in Kiev.
00:59:09When I was brought here last year,
00:59:14about a month or a little more, I began to understand that something was wrong with my brain.
00:59:21I talked to my girlfriend, who is a good psychologist.
00:59:26I said, Galya, what's wrong with me?
00:59:31My brains are painting a picture that I did not survive this, that I saw it in some movie.
00:59:38And she tells me, Seryozha, well, in Russian, don't resist, let it be so.
00:59:48So that's it. I saw it in some movie. It's easier that way.
01:00:01Thousands of people remain living in the Russian-occupied parts of Kherson Oblast.
01:00:06In some places, in the same houses that were once completely underwater.
01:00:12For those who decided to blow it up, the dam was a strategic site on the map of military operations.
01:00:19Civilians were nowhere on this map.
01:00:22Russia could have protected them from being drowned in their own homes.
01:00:26But that would have required Russia to care about people in the occupied territories.
01:00:57Hello. Thank you for watching my film.
01:00:59Our team wants to say thank you to everyone who made this film possible.
01:01:04To the survivors, relatives of the survivors who found bravery to share their stories.
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