"Last summer, the beaches that ring the port city of Odesa in southern Ukraine were crowded with volunteers packing sandbags under bluffs where troops were positioned in machine gun nests as the threat of a Russian amphibious assault still loomed. This summer was supposed to be different. In the first days of June, the sun was warm, the Black Sea was a shimmering blue, and many Ukrainians were already packing the beaches despite an official ban on swimming. Then the Kakhovka dam was destroyed. It released a torrent of water rushing down the Dnipro River, washing over towns and villages across southern Ukraine. Thousands of houses and businesses were flooded, vast stretches of rich farmland were ravaged, and the full environmental and economic cost is likely to take years to measure. ...”
At a beach in Odesa, Ukraine, this month.
