"Finally home": Ukrainian military evacuate people from temporarily occupied Oleshky. Photos and videos

The Ukrainian military managed to evacuate people from the temporarily occupied Oleshky on the left bank of the Kherson region. This town was the most flooded after the occupiers blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.

NV correspondent Serhiy Okuniev told about the evacuation in his photo and video reports (to see the photos and videos, scroll to the bottom of the page).

The people who were rescued from the water trap had not been to the territory controlled by Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. They were trapped in flooded houses and saved themselves as best they could, sitting on the roofs of their homes. The occupiers did not provide any assistance to the victims of the flooding.

Having found themselves in safety thanks to Ukrainian soldiers, the residents of Oleshky cannot hold back their emotions and tears of joy.

"Finally home," says one of the evacuees with relief.

One of the videos features a resident of Oleshky, Natalia. She and her husband, who has a disability, stayed on the roof of a house for three days. And it is unknown how it would have ended for the couple if our military had not noticed them and saved them.

"We had a very hard time. We were flooded, so we went to a neighbour's second floor, and it started to flood there. We moved to another location, and there too... No water, no gas... There was no help from the Russians," she said.

Natalia also admitted that she was very afraid of the occupiers' shelling when she and her husband were taken into the boat by Ukrainian soldiers.

"I remembered all the prayers I knew from childhood. It was very scary," Natalia says with tears in her eyes.

The woman is now safe, and her husband has been hospitalised.

In another video, a woman in Kherson ran out to meet her relatives, whom the Ukrainian military managed to take out of the occupied left bank. As you can see from the footage, she is overwhelmed with emotion from the meeting, she sincerely hugs and kisses her relatives, crying with happiness that everyone is alive.

"God, you are incredible, I thank you," the woman says in tears as she thanks the Ukrainian military for saving her relatives.

Her relative, Victoria, and her children were hiding on the roof from the water until the woman was able to inform her about the possibility of evacuation to the Ukrainian-controlled Right Bank.

Viktoriia said that many residents of Oleshky died. She saw the bodies of her neighbours floating down the flooded street.

"There was 5 metres of water, a couple of centimetres of the roof remained... A lot of people drowned, children and mothers, newborns, and a lot of grandparents... It is very difficult to talk about it... I saw the corpses, they were floating with their faces in the water... It's very hard to watch, especially when you know them," the survivor of Oleshky described the horrors.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, as of the morning of 9 June, the level of flooding in Kherson region is decreasing. Currently, the water is at 5.38 m, in the city - 5.35 m.

Only verified information is available in our Obozrevatel Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!