On banks of environmental disaster, Ukrainians try to stand strong

From Nataliia Shatilova’s perspective, Russia’s eight-month occupation of her city of Kherson in southeastern Ukraine last year had the unintended effect of steeling residents to face the challenge of floodwaters that have inundated riverfront neighborhoods over the last week.

“We went through the occupation, and during the occupation people very quickly built a strong level of independence and resistance to the occupying forces, and that built a strong sense of determination and self-reliance among our communities,” says Ms. Shatilova, deputy director of the Kherson regional operations of the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Add to that the past six months of almost daily shelling from Russian forces just across the Dnipro River, she says, and people have been prepared to confront what she calls the “third difficult