“People are calmly walking around the streets,” said Saldo, as the flood waters rose up the walls of the city hall behind him. “I’ve just driven around the streets, people are working, the gas stations are open, some stores are open.”
Children are laughing, birds are singing, it's a beautiful day.
Source: The Guardian
If Vladimir Saldo was trying to project a sense of calm among the deluged frontline towns and villages of Russian-occupied Kherson region, he was failing miserably.
The Kremlin-installed “governor”, dressed in camouflage and helmet and sitting in front of the flooded remains of the town centre of Nova Kakhovka, claimed that the city was “alive”.
“People are calmly walking around the streets,” said Saldo, as the flood waters rose up the walls of the city hall behind him. “I’ve just driven around the streets, people are working, the gas stations are open, some stores are open.”
The reality of the catastrophe was playing out around him: people stranded on the roofs of their houses and flats, begging for those with boats to come and save them. Dozens missing and whole towns downriver washed away. And reports that Russian troops were blocking access to the frontline towns on the left bank of the Dnipro river by installing new checkpoints even as the flood waters continued to rise.
Sure, buddy. With swans swimming in front of the administrative center.
The swans and ducks were lucky though. The rest of the 300 or so zoo animals all drowned.
