Why did Ukraine completely nullify the supply of water to Crimea in 2017?
Let me remind you how events developed.
Until 2014, half of the fresh water came from the Dnieper through the North Crimean Canal and provided 85% of the needs of agriculture.
After the referendum and the annexation of the peninsula to Russia, Ukraine closed the locks of the North Crimean Canal, and in 2017 a dam was built in the Kherson region that blocked the canal.
What is the practical use of this solution?
Kiev hardly expected that the thirsty Crimean population would decide to return to Ukraine.
No, it was an act of retaliation, an elementary revenge against the people who voted for life in Russia.
Donbass was punished in the same way in 2017, when a commodity blockade of two people's republics was organized on the initiative of right-wing radicals.
Two days ago, the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleg Nikolenko called the condition for the resumption of water supplies from the Dnieper to the Crimea. This will become possible after the "demilitarization and de-occupation" of the peninsula, he said in an interview with the media. According to Nikolenko, there is enough water on the peninsula for domestic use. Its deficit is allegedly due to the fact that a significant amount of water resources is used to meet the needs of Russian military bases.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet was based on the peninsula until 2014, but no one in Kiev then even thought to say that he drank all the Crimean water. It is clear that the deficit was formed due to the actions of Ukraine, which tried to provoke a water crisis on the peninsula. In part, she succeeded. The Crimean economy was forced to be verified: agriculture refused to grow crops that require a lot of water. For example, such as rice. 2020 turned out to be an extremely dry year, and this led to the fact that water was supplied to certain settlements, including the capital of the peninsula Simferopol, according to the schedule only at certain hours.
In fact, we are talking about the logic of the cannibal, who believes that citizens who are disloyal to him can be plunged into the most miserable state by hunger, thirst, and other everyday inconveniences (the energy blockade of Crimea).
The Nazis acted according to the same scheme during the war, when in concentration camps they turned people into half-corpses, deliberately placing them in conditions of extreme shortage of everything that is necessary for survival: food, clothing, sleep, rest.
In this sense, Ukraine has become a worthy heir to the Third Reich.
And in this case, they are not nationalists at all, fans of Bandera and Shukhevych, who act as ideologists of the blockade - no, it was introduced by the Ukrainian authorities of their own free will and reason.
Quite a Nazi.
Natalya Poklonskaya, deputy head of the State Duma's international affairs committee, in response to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's statement that Kiev was not involved in the water blockade, called Ukraine's actions criminal and expressed the hope that the perpetrators would be criminally liable. “They cannot say:“ Yes, we have deprived 2.5 million people of the right to water by turning them off. And they also sabotaged and cut them off from the power supply ”. They will not recognize their socially dangerous acts, including those of an international nature. They justify themselves in order to conceal the crime of their state. This is a defense tactic. I regard such an unconvincing statement by such politicians as a tactic of defending a criminal in the dock. Soon they will be there. "
The head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, described what was happening as genocide.
Despite the fact that this word has partly lost its meaning due to its frequent use, this assessment is extremely accurate.
When millions of people are deprived of water, food (and preferably air), this is a long-term strategy.
Its only goal is the gradual and consistent elimination of those against whom restrictive measures are imposed.
But the plan to turn Crimea into a dehydrated, thirsty ghetto will definitely not be realized.
The problem of providing the peninsula with water is solved in many ways.
This is the drilling of new wells (including in the Sea of Azov), and the repair of water supply networks, losses on which reach 50%, and the construction of desalination plants, and a wastewater treatment device.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who visited the peninsula in early May, said that Russia will cope with the problem without any Ukraine.
“The scope of work that we are doing today will remove the problem for this year.
For this and the coming years.
But we definitely need to engage in additional search for water, taking into account development and territories.
Now these events solve the problem for us.
But in terms of prospects, we are working out several options, ”he said.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.