Ukraine war: The Kakhovka reservoir was once the second biggest in Europe – now it’s nearly empty and threatening the world’s food supply
For seven decades a vast reservoir has dominated the landscape here as Europe’s second biggest.
Not anymore.
It has been robbed of most of its water, drained away after the Nova Kakhovka dam was blown up, it’s believed by the Russians.
The sight is astonishing.
Where there had been just water, vast sandbanks stretch into the distance. It looks like a desert.
We crossed the barren landscape with Andriy Starko an engineer whose job is to pump the water out of the reservoir.
We stood next to a vast intake. It should be sucking water out of the reservoir at the rate of four million litres an hour. Instead, it’s a stagnant green pool. The odd fish flops languidly in the foul-smelling waters.
How did you feel when you heard they’d blown the dam I asked him.
“I didn’t believe that that something like that could happen. I can’t believe that a human brain can even consider that kind of barbaric act. I just can’t believe that,” he said.
Andriy knows thousands of hectares of farmland depend on the water he can no longer pump. He fears for his own future too.
And there is something else worrying him and everyone here.
Empty water pumping system on the edge of the reservoir
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‘It looks like a scene from Chernobyl’
The tall chimneys of the Zaporizhia nuclear power station shimmer in the distance across the sand.
Andriy 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.
“You can expect anything from them. I don’t think they are a civilised people. They’re just unpredictable. I’m worried yes I’m really worried,” he added.
Inside the pumping station where Andriy works, or used to at least, it looks like a scene from Chernobyl before disaster struck. Big Soviet era machines sit idle. 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.
Not now. The pressure dials on the machines stand at zero. There’s just bird noise.
The water should be going into a vast network of canals in the months before harvest. More than a million acres of farmland depends on canals on both sides of the reservoir for irrigation, land that produces two million tonnes of grain a year.
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Ukraine may be famous for its rich black soil, but it’s not much use without water.
In a field of young corn, Farmer Anton Hryn says his harvest could be cut by as much as two thirds.
“If we had water, if the irrigation would work, we can have 10, 12 or even more tons of corn a hectare but without it, it will be three or four maybe five it depends on the rain,” he said.
That is ominous not just for Ukraine. It is called the breadbasket of the world. Many poorer countries depend on its grain exports already cut by difficulties shipping it out.
Villagers queue every day to collect water for their homes
It’s not just farming the empty reservoir is impacting – it’s everyday life
The drought is affecting ordinary people too. Towns dotted along the shore of the reservoir are now without water in their taps.
In the town of Marhanets, the streets are full of people carrying containers to and from impromptu water stations. Life now revolves around the need to get water which is being trucked in instead.
Anastasya has a six-month-old baby at home.
“It’s very bad, very bad,” she told us. “I have a small child and every day I need to carry at least 12 of these bottles.”
And they’re also deeply alarmed by what Vladimir Putin plans to do now.
Valentyna worries that the Russians could cross the Dnipro river now it is empty in parts
“Of course I’m worried, we are worried for the nuclear power station,” Valentyna said. “We are worried about everything. Where should we go if something happened in the nuclear power station?
“We thought they wouldn’t blow up the dam, that it’s protected, that everything would be okay and now what can we hope for.”
Liliya said: “There are a lot of rumours. The power station is mined. At any moment it could just blow and that’s it. You can see we already have no water in the Dnipro river they can just walk easily here.”
The reservoir is no natural defence now against the Russians, having evaporated down to mudflats.
Across them, the nuclear power station is a brooding presence menacing the people here.
Along with the question, if Russians were prepared to destroy a dam and drain their reservoir – what are they planning to do next?
Israel has shown little respect for international borders since becoming the unrivalled military hegemon of the Middle East. Today that meant an Israeli airstrike on a government building in Damascus.
Israel says its attack on a Syrian defence ministry facility was intended as a warning to the new government: stay out of the part of southern Syria we have occupied or else.
Israel has moved into parts of the south of the country, built military bases and declared a line of control.
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit the Syrian Defence Ministry in Damascus. Pic: AP
On Monday, Syrian tanks heading south to try and restore order following an outbreak of factional fighting were attacked by Israeli warplanes.
“The presence of such vehicles in southern Syria could pose a threat to Israel,” stated the Israel Defence Forces.
In reality, Syria’s ageing tanks pose minimal threat to Israel’s state-of-the art military.
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Syrian presenter interrupted by Israeli airstrike
The Syrian armour was attacked as it entered the area around Sweida in the Druze heartland of southern Syria following factional fighting there.
The flare-up reportedly began with clashes between Bedouin and Druze groups that ended in scores killed.
The background to the escalation is complicated.
At least three Druze militia groups are divided in their loyalties to different religious leaders and differ over how they should respond to calls to assimilate into the new post-revolutionary Syria.
Druze from Syria and Israel protest on the Israeli-Syrian border.
Pic: AP
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Israel is becoming more and more involved in Syria’s internecine war and says it will remain there indefinitely “to protect our communities and thwart any threat”.
Its critics say Israel is operating a policy of divide and rule in Syria, weakening the fledgling government and creating a buffer zone to protect the border with the Golan Heights – originally Syrian territory that it has occupied and annexed for almost half a century.
Since the fall of the Assad regime, Israel has used airstrikes to destroy of much of Syria’s military capability weakening its ability to impose control on outlying regions. This makes it more not less likely Israel will have a volatile unstable state on its northern border.
Syrian security forces walk along a street in the southern Druze city of Sweida. Pic: Reuters
America and European powers have chosen to normalise relations with the new government in Damascus and lift sanctions.
In contrast Israel has occupied its territory, bombed its military and today hit one of its government buildings in the capital with an airstrike.
Since its crushing military campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, Israel has emerged as the unchallenged military power of the region.
There is however a limit to what blunt force can achieve alone. It requires diplomacy to achieve lasting gains and Israel’s repeated assaults on multiple neighbours combined with its relentless campaign in Gaza are winning it few friends in the region.
Israeli airstrikes have targeted the Syrian military headquarters in Damascus amid renewed clashes in the country.
The gate of the Ministry of Defence in the Syrian capital was targeted by two warning missiles from an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft.
State-owned Elekhbariya TV said the Israeli strike had wounded two civilians, the Reuters news agency reported.
Smoke rises from Syria’s defence ministry building in Damascus. Pic: Reuters
It came as Israeli airstrikes targeted security and army vehicles in the southern city of Sweida, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups – marking the third consecutive day Israel has struck Syrian forces.
The Israeli military confirmed it had “struck the entrance gate” in Damascus – and that it would be monitoring “actions being taken against Druze civilians in southern Syria”.
The Israeli airstrike targeted Syria’s military headquarters. Pic: AP
Why Israel is getting involved in Syria’s internal fighting
Israel has shown little respect for international borders since becoming the unrivalled military hegemon of the Middle East. Today that meant an Israeli airstrike on a government building in Damascus.
Israel says its attack on a Syrian defence ministry facility was intended as a warning to the new government: stay out of the part of southern Syria we have occupied or else.
Israel has moved into parts of the south of the country, built military bases and declared a line of control.
On Monday, Syrian tanks heading south to try and restore order following an outbreak of factional fighting were attacked by Israeli warplanes.
“The presence of such vehicles in southern Syria could pose a threat to Israel,” stated the Israel Defence Forces.
In reality, Syria’s ageing tanks pose minimal threat to Israel’s state-of-the art military.
Local media said Sweida and nearby villages were coming under heavy artillery and mortar fire on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
The clashes marked the collapse of a ceasefire between Syrian government forces and Druze armed groups, with Israel also warning it would increase its involvement.
Syria said its forces had responded to being fired upon. Pic: Reuters
Israel said it was acting to protect the Druze groups through its attacks on convoys of Syrian forces.
Syria blamed militias in Sweida for violating a ceasefire agreement which had only been reached on Tuesday.
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A statement from its defence ministry said: “Military forces continue to respond to the source of fire inside the city of Sweida, while adhering to rules of engagement to protect residents, prevent harm, and ensure the safe return of those who left the city back to their homes.”
Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said the military will continue to strike Syrian forces until they withdraw and should “leave Druze alone”, according to local reports.
At least 20 people have been killed in an incident in Khan Younis, according to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel and US-backed organisation.
In a statement, it said 19 people were trampled and one was stabbed in a surge “driven by agitators in the crowd”.
“We have credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd – armed and affiliated with Hamas – deliberately fomented the unrest,” it said.
“For the first time since operations began, GHF personnel identified multiple firearms in the crowd, one of which was confiscated. An American worker was also threatened with a firearm by a member of the crowd during the incident.”
It provided no evidence to support the claim.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed 21 Palestinians were killed, “including 15 who died of suffocation as a result of tear gas fired at the starving people and the subsequent stampede” at the GHF site.
Read analysis: Deaths go up when aid sites open
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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
The statement is unusual for the GHF, as the controversial group, which has been rejected by the United Nations and other aid groups, rarely acknowledges trouble at its distribution sites.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the territory.
It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.
The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner. It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the UN has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”
People carry distributed aid supplies in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza. File pic: AP
The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups – which refuse to work with the GHF – had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.
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Since the GHF sites began operating, more than 875 people have been killed while receiving aid, both at GHF distribution points or elsewhere, according to the UN human rights office and the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
At least 674 of those have been killed in the vicinity of aid distribution sites run by the GHF.
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