Ukrainian troops deliberately flooded the village of Demydiv to stop a Russian attack on Kyiv. The floods, which erupted in late February, prevented Russian tanks from advancing on the capital. The villagers told the New York Times that they were happy to make the sacrifice to “save” Kyiv from Putin’s troops.

Ukrainians say they have no regrets about deliberately flooding the village of Demydiv to stop Russian tanks from reaching Kyiv, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Just one day after the start of the war, Ukrainian troops opened a nearby dam on February 25 to flood Demydiv, north of Kiev, and the surrounding countryside, the Times reported. Satellite images from March showed flooding in the Irpin River basin, northwest of Kiev. But it was not immediately clear who or what caused the flood so far, as Ukrainians claimed credit for the sacrificial defensive move.

The idea was to prevent a tank attack in Kyiv and to give more time to the Ukrainian troops there to prepare their defense for the city. The floods created a lake in front of the approaching Russian convoys and reportedly prevented the troops from advancing. The floods also prevented Demydiv from becoming a front line in the war, the report said, as the village managed to avoid horrific scenes of mass killings such as those in the Kiev suburb of Bucha. “Everyone understands and no one regrets it for a moment,” Antonina Kostushenko, a resident of the area, told the Times. “We saved Kyiv!” More than two months later, water and flooding remain in Demydiv – but Kyiv is still in Ukrainian hands. Russian forces failed to occupy the capital and withdrew from the area in late March to focus on a new offensive in the eastern Donbass region of the country. Read the original article in Business Insider