Index Investing News
Sunday, May 25, 2025
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • Home
  • World
  • Investing
  • Financial
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Stocks
  • Crypto
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
  • Home
  • World
  • Investing
  • Financial
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Stocks
  • Crypto
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
No Result
View All Result
Index Investing News
No Result
View All Result

How water has been weaponised in Ukraine

by Index Investing News
October 22, 2022
in World
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
0
Home World
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


By Jonathan Landay

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Sveta has no doubt about why the Ukrainian-held southern city of Mykolaiv, a ship-building centre that is home to a half a million people, has gone without fresh water for the past six months.

“They (the Russians) are committing genocide against us,” she growled as she waited this week with dozens of others to fill containers with water from tanks hauled to a downtown thoroughfare aboard an electric tramway repair car.

The shutoff is bitter affirmation for Sveta, and some 220,000 other residents who remain in the oft-shelled city, that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine extends beyond the battlefield to civilian infrastructure.

The Kremlin dramatically intensified strikes on energy facilities with pre-winter missile and drone onslaughts over the past two weeks, in what Putin has called legitimate retaliation for an attack on Russia’s bridge to Crimea.

The attacks have disrupted electricity across large parts of Ukraine, killing dozens of people and leaving other places without access to clean water.

But Mykolaiv’s water problems have gone on much longer.

The Russians, Ukrainian officials say, closed the city’s freshwater intakes in the adjacent Kherson province after they overran the region as part of what Putin calls “a special military operation.”

“We don’t know whether this was an intentional explosion or an accidental ammunition strike,” municipal water chief Borys Dydenko told Reuters. He said he believed the Russians shut the intakes to avenge Ukraine’s closure of freshwater supplies to Crimea in 2014. The Kremlin and the Russian defence ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

‘THE WAY WE LIVE’

Every day, Mykolaiv’s residents lug plastic containers by hand or in carts to water distribution points across the city that sits at the sweeping confluence of the Dnipro and Southern Buh rivers.

“This is the way we live,” lamented Yaroslav, 78, a retiree who worked at the Chernomorsk Shipbuilding Yard, as he queued behind Sveta. “We live through one day and there is no joy and then there is the next day.”

Peter Gleick, a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute, a California thinktank that documents the impact of conflicts on water resources worldwide, said Russia has weaponised water since launching its full-scale invasion in February.

“Ukraine’s water infrastructure, from dams to water treatment and wastewater systems, has been extensively targeted by Russia,” Gleick wrote in an email. International law, he noted, makes striking civilian infrastructure a war crime.

In just the first three months of the war, Gleick said, he and his colleagues documented more than 60 instances in which Ukraine’s civilian water supplies were disrupted and dams for both water and hydroelectric power attacked.

Russia has acknowledged targeting power plants while also saying it makes every effort to spare the civilian population. The United Nations has confirmed more than 14,000 civilian deaths and says actual numbers are likely considerably higher.

Ukraine, according to the Pacific Institute’s database, has occasionally also used water as a weapon, cutting supplies off to Crimea after Russia seized the peninsula in 2014.

While Kyiv had no legal obligation to maintain the supply “it could be argued that it would have been a humanitarian thing to do,” Gleick said.

Ukrainian troops released water from a Dnipro River dam to slow Russia’s failed assault on Kyiv in February, according to the database. Residents in the eastern city of Donetsk, captured by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014, have also suffered water shortages. The Russian-installed government there did not immediately respond to a request for details of the situation.

Dydenko said Mykolaiv’s water crisis was the worst.

“Others have problems of a local nature and are able to solve them,” Dydenko told Reuters. “We are the only ones with such a colossal disaster.”

After nearly a month without water, city officials were forced to begin pumping yellowish, salty water from the Southern Buh River estuary to clear sewers and let residents flush toilets and wash. It emits a pungent industrial odour, foams in toilets, and makes soap hard to lather and rinse.

Worst of all, it is corroding holes in the city’s pipes.

‘IT’S A CATASTROPHE’

Eventually, Dydenko said, the whole system will have to be replaced at a huge cost that Mykolaiv cannot meet, with factories idled and revenues from a dwindling population also down.

“It’s a catastrophe,” he said, accusing the Russians of refusing requests for a ceasefire so that the freshwater intakes could be inspected and any repairs made.

Bottles of water are available in stores, but many residents, impoverished by war, depend on bottled water donations from abroad, even as pools of water snake onto streets from leaking mains.

“This is the fifth leakage in three days,” said Vitalii Tymoshchuk, 45, a repair crew foreman, standing by a hole dug for his mud-smeared men to fix the pipe in a Mykolaiv suburb.

Dydenko said he has no choice but to keep his crews patching leaks as long as possible because the salt water is untreatable.

“Our task today is to preserve all of this and last through the winter,” he said. “It will not be easy and there will be more problems.” (Reporting by Jonathan Landay; additional reporting by Kevin Liffey and Tom Balmforth; editing by Philippa Fletcher)



Source link

Tags: UkraineWaterweaponised
ShareTweetShareShare
Previous Post

‘House of the Dragon’ finale leaks online, HBO says it’s ‘aggressively monitoring and pulling copies’

Next Post

Kevin de León’s defenders emerge; they’re still a minority

Related Posts

Cannes Movie Competition: Palme d’Or awarded to Iranian filmmaker

Cannes Movie Competition: Palme d’Or awarded to Iranian filmmaker

by Index Investing News
May 25, 2025
0

he closing ceremony acquired underway Saturday after a serious energy outage struck southeastern France as a consequence of what police...

9 kids of a health care provider amongst 79 individuals killed in Israeli air strike in Gaza

9 kids of a health care provider amongst 79 individuals killed in Israeli air strike in Gaza

by Index Investing News
May 25, 2025
0

NINE kids of a health care provider have been amongst 79 individuals to die in an Israeli air strike.Dr Alaa...

Arson suspected as energy outage in France disrupts last day of Cannes Movie Competition

Arson suspected as energy outage in France disrupts last day of Cannes Movie Competition

by Index Investing News
May 24, 2025
0

CANNES, France -- French authorities consider arson could have performed a task in an influence outage Saturday in southeast France...

Paris arrested Telegram founder to meddle in Romanian election — Moscow — RT World Information

Paris arrested Telegram founder to meddle in Romanian election — Moscow — RT World Information

by Index Investing News
May 24, 2025
0

Pavel Durov has stated that French intelligence tried to censor conservatives on the platform throughout election marketing campaign season Russian...

How Canada’s relationship with Israel went from ‘greatest buddy’ to breakdown

How Canada’s relationship with Israel went from ‘greatest buddy’ to breakdown

by Index Investing News
May 24, 2025
0

Warning: This story contains an archival picture of lifeless our bodies.Canada's relationship with Israel has travelled a good distance since...

Next Post
Kevin de León’s defenders emerge; they’re still a minority

Kevin de León's defenders emerge; they're still a minority

Companies offer perks to offset cost of living crisis

Companies offer perks to offset cost of living crisis

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECOMMENDED

COVID and Tradeoffs – Econlib

COVID and Tradeoffs – Econlib

April 10, 2023
2022 Dividend Aristocrats Record | Up to date Each day

2022 Dividend Aristocrats Record | Up to date Each day

July 2, 2022
Billionaire female financier on why your daughters should play poker

Billionaire female financier on why your daughters should play poker

November 6, 2022
The inventory market hasn’t priced in a recession simply but… the S&P 500 might fall one other 23% : shares

The inventory market hasn’t priced in a recession simply but… the S&P 500 might fall one other 23% : shares

June 21, 2022
Some Major Companies Will Skirt New US 15% Minimum Corporate Tax

Some Major Companies Will Skirt New US 15% Minimum Corporate Tax

March 9, 2023
Arne Slot: Man Metropolis’s plight reveals it is too early for Liverpool Premier League title discuss | Soccer Information

Arne Slot: Man Metropolis’s plight reveals it is too early for Liverpool Premier League title discuss | Soccer Information

December 27, 2024
With So Much Uncertainty in the Markets, Here’s How Smart Investors Protect Their Investments

With So Much Uncertainty in the Markets, Here’s How Smart Investors Protect Their Investments

January 16, 2024
The .5 Billion Crypto Heist: Extra ‘Inside Job’ Than Hack? | by Chip Mahoney | The Capital | Feb, 2025

The $1.5 Billion Crypto Heist: Extra ‘Inside Job’ Than Hack? | by Chip Mahoney | The Capital | Feb, 2025

February 27, 2025
Index Investing News

Get the latest news and follow the coverage of Investing, World News, Stocks, Market Analysis, Business & Financial News, and more from the top trusted sources.

  • 1717575246.7
  • Browse the latest news about investing and more
  • Contact us
  • Cookie Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • DMCA
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • xtw18387b488

Copyright © 2022 - Index Investing News.
Index Investing News is not responsible for the content of external sites.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • World
  • Investing
  • Financial
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Stocks
  • Crypto
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion

Copyright © 2022 - Index Investing News.
Index Investing News is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In