The economy today

The water war rages in Ukraine

Audio 03:54

Residents of Mariupol organize themselves to collect water where they can face thirst, April 7, 2022. © Anissa El Jabri/RFI

By: Dominique Baillard Follow

3 mins

Access to water has become a luxury in Ukrainian cities where distribution systems have been destroyed by fighting.

Has the Russian army transformed this vital resource into a weapon of war?

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This is the hypothesis shared by military experts and researchers specializing in the study of water.

Since the beginning of the offensive, control of this vital resource has been a constant priority for the Kremlin.

First to restore its distribution in Crimea.

In 2014, after the annexation of the peninsula by the Russian army, the Ukrainians diverted the 400 km canal which fed it by building a dam, thus depriving this arid region of the essential ingredient for its agriculture.

85% of its fresh water supply depended on the canal.

In February, two days into their offensive, the Russians regained control of the dam and reopened the floodgates.

The water is circulating again as evidenced by the inhabitants of Crimea for a few weeks.

In eastern Ukraine, water cuts have mainly served to demoralize the population

We all have in mind the images or the testimonies of these Ukrainians forced to queue to obtain a few cans of drinking water.

The village of Mykolaiv was deprived of water for a month and in Mariupol the last inhabitants also suffered these deprivations because of the brutal and deliberate destruction of the installations.

Pipes, water treatment plants, pumping stations are systematically the target of Russian airstrikes.

In violation of international conventions.

Russia has made water a weapon of war.

A strategy she has already experienced on other battlefields.

In Syria, for example, where its air force bombed pumping stations.

In Ukraine, the United Nations estimates that one million 400,000 inhabitants are today deprived of water,

►

: in Ukraine, in Mykolaiv, running water is a precious good

Ukrainians also suffer from the pollution of springs

In industrial regions where the soil is already soiled by chemical waste, water contamination is collateral damage from the fighting.

In eastern Ukraine, residents of the city of

boil the water they collect from a source away from homes.

A source that the inhabitants rediscover each time the country is at war.

She was providential in 2014, and during the Second World War remember the oldest.

Those who maintain access to water protect it as much as possible.

In the Donbass region, the canal built in the 1950s by the Soviets descends from the North towards Mariupol.

It is the only resource for six million inhabitants of the region.

In 2014 the system was shaken by the war and fragmented between various Ukrainian administrations or attached to the separatists.

But since it proved impossible to split it in half,

the separatists and the Ukrainians are cooperating to manage it and indiscriminately serve the populations and industries that depend on it.

A fragile exception that could at any time be compromised by new fighting.

►In short

In China, Shanghai residents finally returned to work on Tuesday

It is a

for the business city and its 25 million inhabitants confined for two months.

People can work but a good part of the activities remain closed.

Cinemas or sports halls for example and shops reopen with limited capacities and hours.

This return to life is welcomed by the Japanese stock market, on the other hand the Chinese markets are at half mast this morning, still worried about the fallout from the Covid at home and inflation in the world, which could limit the recovery of exports.

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• Water