The Ukrainian village caught between hell and high water

Deliberate flooding near Kyiv to halt Russian tanks left residents fleeing not only bombs also rising water

When Russian forces approached Tatiana Kovalchuk’s village outside Kyiv, she and her husband Alex fled straight to their improvised bomb shelter.

But as they sat in a garden cellar normally used for storing potatoes, the bombs landing above them weren’t the only ominous sound. There was also the lapping of rising floodwaters.

Their village of Demydiv, on Kyiv’s north-west outskirts, sits near a dam serving a vast Soviet reservoir nicknamed the Kyiv Sea. And when the invasion began, Ukrainian troops let water from the dam flood the surrounding area, hoping to bog down the Russian tanks.

While it slowed their advance, the Russian tanks still penetrated through – leaving the Kovalchuks and many other villagers facing a real-life choice between hell and high water.

“As the days went by, our garden started to flood,” said Mrs Kovalchuk.

“There were Russian tanks in the village, and Russian jets having dogfights in the sky, so we didn’t want to go out, but eventually we had to leave the shelter because water was about to leak in. We went into our house instead, but even then the water carried on rising as far as our doorstep. At that point, we started to feel really trapped.”

Three weeks on, both the Russians and the floodwaters have retreated, leaving Demydiv a soggy, war-ravaged mess. The Kovalchuk’s bomb shelter remains filled to the top stair with water, while most of their back garden is still a lake. Up and down their street, residents are manning motorised water pumps to bail out waterlogged kitchens, with carpets, clothes and slippers hung out to dry in the spring sunshine. The Kovalchuks’ neighbour, Lydia Mikhailovna, 76, is still without her outdoor lavatory, which remains surrounded by three feet of water. “You can go fishing in there,” she joked.

The flooding of Demydiv was part of a calculated strategy by Ukrainian forces around Kyiv, who also dynamited bridges and bombed roads to deny the Russians access. Much of the terrain outside the capital is low-lying fields and marshes, making it easy to waterlog by diverting rivers and creeks.

Vasil Didok, Demydiv’s former mayor, said that similar soaked-earth strategies were used to defend Kyiv against the Nazis and against foreign empires in the 17th century, when Ukraine was a no man’s land of

‘There were Russian tanks outside... we did not want to go out, but eventually we had to leave the shelter because water was about to leak in’

free-spirited Cossack tribes. “We think it worked,” he said.

Despite the damage done to their properties, residents agree it was worth the sacrifice. “If this area hadn’t been flooded, the Russians might have reached Kyiv,” said Luda Vladimirova, 47, whose house off Demydiv’s main shopping street was wrecked by a bomb. “It’s not really to protect us, but to protect Kyiv itself.” In stopping the invaders from gathering in Demydiv in large numbers, the flooding may have also spared the village the brutality dished out in other Russian-occupied Kyiv suburbs, where troops have been accused of massacring civilians.

Yet at least seven residents are known to have been killed, including Vyacheslav Davidenko, 39, an exsoldier who was helping to defend the village. The last time his mother Lubou, 72, saw him was the day after war broke out, when he left the family home with a rucksack of home-made petrol bombs. Last Friday, local Red Cross officials told her they had found his body in the garden of a burnt-out house. A plastic bag was wrapped around his head, which bore a bullet wound. His fingers on both hands had been broken. A fellow soldier also found his mobile phone, the camera showing photos of Mr Davidenko during his final days.

“I had to go to the morgue, and I recognised his body straight away from the dolphin tattoo he had on his arm,” sobbed his mother, dressed in black, as she held a photo of him in her parlour. “The volunteers told me they think he was tortured before he died.”

Similar stories of Russian brutality can now be heard all over Demydiv. One man was beaten to death and dumped in a laundry room, locals say. Russian troops are also accused of looting the local shops, and of landmining the village cemetery, where Ms Davidenko’s son now lies in one of several new graves. A land mine warning sign – a red skull-andcrossbones – hangs across the cemetery’s gates.

As with other villages outside Kyiv that spent time under Russian occupation, it is often hard to separate fact from hearsay. But just as the flood waters have left their own high tide marks around Demydiv’s homes, residents still show signs of how high their stress levels rose.

While talking to The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Mikhailovna propped open the lid of a well in her garden to show how it had filled with floodwater and dead frogs. When a breath of wind blew it shut with a bang, her smiling face suddenly collapsed into sobs.

“I am sorry, that sound reminds me of the fighting,” she said, dabbing her eyes and looking at her garden, where red spring tulips are now poking out of the soil. “Like the flowers under the water, we will survive. And we will win this war.”