More than six million people in Ukraine struggle daily to gain access to clean water, due to the destruction of water and power systems caused by the war. The situation is especially critical in the east of the country, where around 1.4 million people no longer have drinking water at their disposal, while another 4.6 million from various areas of Ukraine have limited access to this resource.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, close to two months ago, at least twenty incidents have occurred in eastern Ukraine that have caused damage to water infrastructure. The situation is particularly critical in Mariupol, where tens of thousands of people are using contaminated water sources, while in the cities of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions a further 340,000 people are at risk of losing access to safe drinking water, as a of the main reservoirs is at risk of drying up.

Poor water quality can cause illnesses including cholera, diarrhoea, skin infections and other deadly infectious diseases. Additionally, people have to live confined in cramped spaces and are unable to follow basic hygiene measures, that is, sanitation is not adequate and contributes to these diseases.

Although, about a year ago, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution stating that all parties to armed conflicts have an obligation to protect civilian infrastructure, including water, sanitation and electricity systems, they have been destroyed during the war in Ukraine, dramatically hampering people’s access to these essential services.

But the problem is deeper than that.

In the Soviet era, a canal was built to divert water from the Dnieper River to the arid areas of the Kherson region and the Crimea, which supplied 85% of the peninsula’s needs.

In 2014, with the annexation of Crimea by Russia, Ukraine cut the water supply to that region by more than 80%, building a concrete dam, affecting agricultural crops.

Now, shortly after the start of the bloody invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army destroyed that dam, freeing the flow of water to Crimea again, in a symbolic and useful action for the Russian side.

This is not the first time that water has played a role in Ukraine’s relationship with its neighbor. A few years before the current invasion, fighting in breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine frequently damaged water infrastructure. They even collaterally reached a pipeline in 2019, with more than three million people running out of water.

Thus, the role of water was not to trigger the conflict between Russia and Ukraine over its ownership and use. But water has been used as a weapon of war as a resource and, as a service, it has been one more victim due to the destruction of its infrastructures.