Today is the anniversary of Kakhovka tragedy. Last year, on the 6 th June the Russian troops
carried out another terrorist attack blowing up the dam of the Kakhovka HPS. The war crime
of the invaders led to catastrophic consequences for people and nature.
However, there is a flip side of this disaster. The Velykyi Luh (great meadow) began to
recover on the former site of the reservoir. And we are convinced that the reconstruction of
the HPS will be a mistake that we will regret.
What will we lose if we rebuild the Kakhovka HPS?
1.We will lose the rebirth of the largest climate-resilient forest in the arid Steppe zone. There has
never been a larger natural forest than the Velykyi Luh in the Steppe zone of Ukraine. After its
flooding the Soviet Union planted artificial forests in the neighboring areas but a large part of them
burned or dried up. The rest of them burned or died because of the war and flooding caused by the
terrorist attack.
2.We will lose a unique chance to create a sustainable economy in the south of Ukraine. If the
reservoir is rebuilt and old irrigation system continues to work, we will have at most 15-20 years of
such an irrigation. The soils and old croplands will then become so salinized that it will be impossible
to use them. If we start to revive a new economy without hydroelectric power station now, we will be
able to use the land in the south of Ukraine many times longer.
3. If we wait for the opportunity to restore hydropower, we will lose a chance to develop modern
green energy. Now it is possible to build a much more powerful and efficient decentralized green
energy in the south of Ukraine without waiting for the end of the war and fear that the Russians will
damage it.
4. We will lose a unique chance to become one of the leaders in Europe in the restoration of nature.
The countries of Western and Northern Europe dismantled 6,900 dams over the past 10 years but
none of them was as huge as the dam of the Kakhovka HPS. No country has even a total area of
reservoirs which can be freed from water as the former Kakhovka Reservoir had.
5.If we start to restore the Kakhovka Reservoir, we will have a chance to get short-term funding for
this work. However, if we restore the Velykyi Luh we can get the support of the European Union for
many decades because it will be the biggest project of river ecosystem restoration in European
history.
6.The reconstruction of the reservoir will forever deprive us the opportunity to study our real history.
Cossacks lived on the territory of the Velykyi Luh, and the Zaporizhzhya Sich was their fortress
there. Before the construction of the Kakhovka HPS, Soviet dictator J.Stalin didn’t give
archaeologists any time to study the Ukrainian archaeological heritage which could tell about the
history of our statehood. Restoring the HPS we can forever lose the knowledge of the struggle for
our statehood, which, perhaps, Ukraine will finally be able to complete and forever get rid of the
enemy i.e. the neighbor to the east.
