Editor’s Note: After Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, water supply to the peninsula through the Ukrainian North Crimean Canal was blocked. Ukraine’s government had been insisting that the water supply can restart only when the Russian occupation of Crimea ends and the peninsula is reintegrated in Ukraine. However, recently several Ukrainian lawmakers, including the head of the faction “Servant of the People” David Arakhamia stated that they were considering selling water to Crimea if Russia makes substantial concessions in the Donbas in return. We asked people on the streets in Kyiv what they think about restoring the water supply to Crimea.
Raisa Bozhko,
retiree
“I take it very negatively. We can’t be giving water to our enemy. Russia is an aggressor. By restoring the water supply, we would be legalizing the annexation of Crimea. We don’t see any concessions on Russia’s part. On the contrary – the pressure is growing. What else to say? We are against it, we are worried. Not a drop of water until the Crimea becomes Ukrainian.”
Sergiy Pylypchuk,
musician
“I am against it. Giving water to terrorists? Definitely not.”
Oksana Demina,
official
“I support it. There are people there, they need to live. I have always known that they are short of water, thus I am for the supply and I did not support the decision to stop it back then (in 2014). If it is a Ukrainian territory – we should supply, if it is not – we should supply anyway, but on commercial terms.”
Olga Lyubitseva,
university professor
“Sanctions are sanctions and we should stick to them – not only to demand them from our European partners. Or we should do that in exchange for territories: they give us Crimea, we give them water.”
Taras Galich,
postgraduate
“If there are some concessions on Donbas or political prisoners, then please, let them supply it. With no concessions being made…then no, I guess.”
Anastasia Krupchynska,
student
“I think we should do that. Crimeans are people too. Though they decided to leave our country themselves… On the one hand, I can understand them and feel sorry for them, but on the other, why Russia cannot supply them with water? It’s ambivalent.”
