The emptying of the vast reservoir along the Dnipro River in Ukraine as a result of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam last week has left mudflats littered with skeletons, according to footage posted online, in a reminder of the region’s violent past.

In late 1943, the focus was on Nikopol, on the right bank of the river, the site of metal ore mines that Hitler was determined to hold on to. Today, Nikopol is a frontline town held by Ukrainians, looking across the mudflats where the reservoir was and the Dnipro, at the occupied town of Kamianka-Dniprovska and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Many of the German bodies were left lying in marshes, which were then submerged with the building of the Nova Kakhovka dam in 1956.

Recovering the Wehrmacht remains would involve the German War Graves Commission, but that may have to wait until the current war on the Dnipro has ended.