Ukrainian grandmother Lyubov Adamenko’s basement is covered in mud and mud from the flood that hit her home after Russians blew up a nearby dam.
But the babushka (grandma) from Kryvyi Rih, southern Ukraine, is not defeated, quite the opposite.
“I found all my jams,” she says, almost smiling.
Some jars are still floating upside down, others are missing, but that’s still a win for the sturdy babushka with the thin red-painted lips.
She tells AFP how every summer she preserves fruit and vegetables for the winter.
Her grandparents, who built her house with a vegetable garden, used to do the same.
Canned and pickled foods are a staple in post-Soviet countries, where people have maintained a tradition of preserving foods to ward off potential winter hardships.
Lyubov was born in the times of the USSR and will celebrate her 70th birthday next week.
But Russian soldiers who behaved “worse than pigs” have already ruined their birthday party, says Lyubov.
On Wednesday, they blew up the Karachun Dam about 10 kilometers from her family’s home.
The dam was built under Stalin in the 1930s when Ukraine and Russia were part of the same federation.
“I used to play nearby when I was a kid,” says Lyubov.
– ‘A war against civilians’ –
After the dam was blown, the Inhulets River rose and burst its banks.
The water spilled downstream, inundating more than a hundred homes, according to local authorities.
On Friday, some streets of Kryvyi Rih – the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – were still covered in mud.
Russia’s “terrorist state continues to wage war against civilians,” Zelensky said, “all the occupiers can do is sow panic, create an emergency situation and try to leave the people without light, heat, water and food. “
A few days earlier, Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of attacking strategic infrastructure, leading to massive power outages in several regions.
Standing in the street in rubber boots, 42-year-old worker Svytlana Shpuk says her home was damaged by the floods.
She says the Russians “have become furious because our army is pushing them back with their counteroffensive,” which has claimed huge gains in the northeast and more moderate advances in the south.
This flood “is not a natural disaster, it’s their war. They just decided to flood us, the people,” Swytlana sighs.
Kyiv-based analyst Sergiy Zgurets told AFP that the demolition of the dam was “an attempt to raise the water level in the Inhulets River in order to damage the pontoon bridges built by the Ukrainian military to the south”.
– Aiming at morale –
The Institute for the Study of War also considered the river an “important geographic feature for the ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive” as Ukrainian troops attempt to advance along the river.
Water has been a “key tool” in the Ukraine-Russia conflict for some time, says an analyst at Britain’s Janes Research Centre.
After annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Kyiv built a dam to cut off water from Russian-held territory.
According to the analyst, the dam was destroyed in the first days of the invasion of Russia.
Ukrainian sources also opened a dam near Irpin in late February that flooded the town of Demydyv to slow down Russian troops.
Russia hopes to “quell resistance from the Ukrainian population,” “damage morale and potentially foment unrest” by cutting off access to water or electricity, says the Janes analyst.
But in Kryvyi Rih this plan does not seem to be very successful.
Babushka Lyubov Adamenko, a howling kitten slung over his shoulder, wishes the Russian army “the same fate as the admiral ship,” the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, which was sunk in mid-April.
