By AFP | 2024-06-07

KHERSON, Ukraine -- Standing in a park that had been submerged in water last June after Ukraine's Kakhovka dam was blown up, scientist Oleksandr Khodosovtsev was dwarfed by resurgent plant life.

"All this vegetation was absent before the dam exploded," Khodosovtsev said of the remarkable recovery in greenery now surrounding him in Kherson, the southern Ukrainian city under daily Russian shelling.

On June 6, 2023, explosions destroyed the Kakhovka dam, about 50km upstream.

It was controlled by the Russian army at the time, and Ukraine accused Moscow of blowing up the dam in a bid to hobble a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Moscow in turn has blamed Ukraine.

The blast led to massive flooding downstream that killed dozens.

The environmental damage was also severe.

Floodwaters killed animals, swept away plants and spread toxic chemicals.

Many scientists predicted horrific consequences for nature across southern Ukraine.

The flooding was "a huge catastrophe" in the short term, Khodosovtsev, a professor of botany at Kherson State University, said.

Plant life "began to recover" after six months, he told AFP, even calling the disaster a "good thing for nature" in the long term.

Lush vegetation

As part of a team of Ukrainian scientists, Khodosovtsev has made several visits to the area, situated at the heart of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Despite the danger of shelling, he said the trips were worth it.

"No one in the world has ever studied the restoration of vegetation on such a huge area," he said.

Downstream from the destroyed dam, plant life is now "lush," he said -- thanks to the influx of water and organic matter.

Scientists had been more worried about areas upstream, where waters had gushed out of the huge Kakhovka reservoir, situated behind the dam since its construction in 1956.

Only a couple of weeks after the dam explosion, scientists had found something akin to a "Martian landscape," with the bed of the once vast reservoir littered with dead shellfish, Khodosovtsev said.

"We probably just stood there and took pictures for about five minutes," he said.

The dried up earth led to fears of potential dust storms, something researchers have since been able to rule out.

They have been surprised to notice the rapid growth of weeping willows.

"Today the Kakhovka reservoir represents 150,000 hectares of green fields," or five times the area of Malta, Ukrainian Environmental Protection Minister Ruslan Strilets told AFP.

Bombs and mines

Seen from a neighboring hill, the former reservoir is now a patchwork of green and blue, with large areas of water peppered with pockets of vegetation.

Conducting research so close to the front lines was "not easy," Anna Kuzemko, another member of the expert team.

The eastern bank, controlled by Russian forces, is inaccessible to Ukrainian scientists, much to their frustration. The western shores, well within firing range of Russian troops on the other side, are also unsafe.

"Last autumn we were shelled so badly that we had to escape very quickly," said Kuzemko, a scientist at the M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany.

They also discovered a land mine near their car.

But they are not deterred, Khodosovtsev said.

"When any scientist is working, they are passionate about their work... and even forgets a little bit about the danger that may occur."

No consensus

Ukraine's Environmental Protection Ministry has estimated that the dam's destruction caused $3.8 billion in environmental damage.

But it remains "very difficult to talk about the long-term consequences," said Strilets the minister, pointing to a lack of consensus in the scientific community.

"What is happening now at the place of the former Kakhovka reservoir is really a unique phenomenon for the whole world," he told AFP.

"The fact is that nature is changing there," he said.

Ukraine wants Russia to be held accountable for "ecocide." Dozens of animal and plant species, some of them native, are now endangered, according to Kyiv.

Kyiv plans to rebuild the Kakhovka dam, an idea that has aroused opposition from environmental activists.

Khodosovtsev hopes that his research will help inform the debate.

"The whole world and Ukraine are still looking at what is happening to the land," he said.