Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, pro-Kremlin media has been fueling the belief that Ukraine’s closure of the North Crimean Canal left Crimeans without drinking water.
The canal covered 85 percent of the peninsula’s water needs, and many believe that its closure led to a water crisis in occupied Crimea. The occupants even called the water blockade an “act of genocide.”
The Kyiv Post explains the reality of Crimea’s water crisis.
What is the Crimea water crisis?
It’s the limited access to clean water that Crimea suffers now.
In 2014, when Russia invaded and then illegally began occupying the peninsula, Ukraine shut off the water supply through the North Crimean Canal. It led to water shortages, exacerbated by the driest seasons in over a century.
Crimean cities periodically have disconnections of water supply, sometimes receiving water only for two hours a day.
Why did Ukraine close the North Crimean Canal?
Shutting off the North Crimean Canal from the peninsula is an economic sanction. Part of Ukraine’s strategy in regaining control of Crimea is to make the occupation too expensive for the Russians.
“Ukraine did not block any natural watercourse or river carrying water to Crimea. It merely suspended the artificial water preference that was previously provided to accelerate the economic and agricultural development of the peninsula,” First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzheppar told the Kyiv Post.
“This is the price of the occupation, which will only rise.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry says the canal will be reopened only after Russia returns Crimea to Ukraine.
The ministry believes that Russia is demanding water for the militarization of Crimea, including military bases and the thousands of newly arriving soldiers.
There is enough water in Crimea for the needs of civilians, the ministry says.
According to the 1949 Geneva Convention, providing the population with necessities like drinking water is the responsibility of the occupying state.
Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula depends on Ukraine’s water supplies. When Russia seized Crimea by force, Ukraine cut the North Crimean Canal’s access to water from the Dnipro River until the Kremlin returns the peninsula to Ukraine’s control.
Where did Crimea get water before occupation?
With its dry, semi-desert climate and lack of large rivers, the peninsula has always struggled with a lack of clean water.
In the 1950s, only 155 out of 926 villages in Crimea had regular access to drinking water.
This changed in 1971 when the 400-kilometer-long North Crimean Canal was built. It brought 1 billion cubic meters of water from the Dnipro River every year.
Up to 85 percent of water consumed in Crimea before the occupation came from the North Crimean Canal.
Every year, the peninsula used around 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion cubic meters of water.
Crimea’s natural water resources range from 915 million cubic meters to 430 million in dry years, such as 2020, according to the “The Socio-Economic Situation in Occupied Crimea in 2014–2020” report by Crimean economists.
There are 23 large water reservoirs on the peninsula — 15 natural flow and eight off-stream reservoirs — which together contain up to 400 million cubic meters of water.
Natural flow reservoirs get water from rivers and precipitation during the autumn-winter period, spring floods, and more rarely from summer showers.
Off-stream reservoirs are filled artificially from water sources such as the North Crimean Canal.
Underground sources can provide up to 100 million cubic meters of water each year.
An empty North Crimean Canal, which supplied up to 85% of Crimea’s annual water needs before Russian annexed the Crimean peninsula. (AFP)
How do the occupants supply Crimea with water?
Russia’s occupying government relies mainly on Crimea’s reservoirs and some underground streams.
Some of the 23 water reservoirs have dried out or are approaching their minimal capacity.
Eight of them used to receive water from the North Crimean Canal. Out of these eight, four provided drinking water for households.
Read more: Crimea running out of water due to annexation, looks for water resources
The occupants are trying to solve the problem by finding more underground wells, drilling through the ground and boring underground freshwater. Ecologists warn against the widespread use of this technique because it leads to an increase in water salinity, which eventually makes the wells unusable.
The occupants have also tried fixing some of the older reservoirs to prevent big losses of water. Russia has allocated over $686 million to solve the issue of water in Crimea.
Who are the main consumers of water in Crimea?
Before 2014, the majority of water in Crimea was consumed by the agricultural sector, mainly for the production of rice, soy and grains.
Every year the peninsula used around 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion cubic meters of water, of which 950 went to agriculture.
Households consumed 103 million cubic meters of water per year. The number goes up fourfold during dry seasons, resulting in drinking water consumption of up to 450 cubic meters.
Crimeans collect reserved drinking water from a truck following Ukraine’s closure of the North Crimean Canal on May 13, 2014. (AFP)
Did people start consuming more water?
Yes, but not enough to cause the crisis.
Since the annexation, the de facto population of Crimea increased by up to 1 million people, from 2.3 million to over 3 million. While some Crimeans fled after occupation, Russian migrants flocked to the peninsula.
One person in Crimea consumes an estimated 53 cubic meters per year, meaning that the migration flow might have increased water consumption by up to 53 million cubic meters. That’s 5% of Crimea’s pre-occupation water consumption, which can still be covered by Crimea’s own water resources.
Does Crimea need more water because Russia militarized the peninsula?
It’s possible but there isn’t enough evidence of that.
Russian troops have been located in Crimea before the occupation, under the treaty that divided the Soviet Black Sea Fleet between Ukraine and Russia. Since the occupation in 2014, their numbers increased — but no one knows exactly by how many.
Right before the occupation, there were 12,500 Russian troops on the peninsula.
Three years later, there were 60,000 Russian troops on the ground, with enough infrastructure to potentially accommodate 100,000, according to local analysts. However, Dzheppar told the Kyiv Post there are 32,500 Russian soldiers in Crimea at the moment.
More military equipment also requires more water.
“Under the pretext of ‘humanitarian need,’ the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea demand water for the accelerated development of military facilities and enterprises,” one statement by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.
Some experts believe the amount of water needed to sustain the military can’t be large enough to cause problems.
“Military structures get around 2% of annual water consumption,” Alexander Liiev, who headed the Committee for Water Management and Irrigated Agriculture in Crimea’s parliament from 2010 to 2014, told the Kyiv Post.
“It is (Ukraine’s) political slogan, but the issue is not the military.”
Is the climate in Crimea that’s getting drier?
Last year saw the driest seasons in Crimea in 150 years.
An extremely dry winter left almost no snow to melt and fill the water reservoirs.
In the past, dry seasons destroyed harvests and caused water shortages in Crimea once a decade.
A man pumps water from the nearly empty North Crimean Canal in Crimea’s Kirovsky region on April 27, 2014. (AFP)
Who lacks water now?
Agriculturalists, especially in Northern Crimea, have suffered the most from Ukraine’s water blockade.
Crimean rice, which amounted to 80% of Ukraine’s total rice production, hasn’t grown on the peninsula in five years.
“But of course no one in the Kremlin is bothered by this. Crimea was not seized for the rice,” Liev said.
In 2013, the area of irrigated land on the peninsula was approximately 140,000 hectares. By 2015, it decreased to 11,000 hectares because of water shortages.
While Crimean agriculture was virtually destroyed when the canal was closed, there has always been enough water for the civilians. Crimea’s own reserves contain up to 450 million cubic meters of water during dry years, which is enough to sustain all households even considering the migration flows.
“No one is going to die from thirst, that’s a myth,” Liiev told the Kyiv Post.
Is Russia trying to force Ukraine to supply water to Crimea?
Russia continues to push an aggressive propagandist narrative calling the water blockade “attempted genocide.”
But military experts worry that Russia may use its military to access the water from the Dnipro River.
“Crimea is the key platform for the Kremlin to dominate the Black Sea, to export its influence into Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean, and onto Africa,” Ben Hodges, a retired commanding general of the United States Army Europe, told the Kyiv Post.
“The water crisis is a potential pretext for the Russian Federation to send troops to do something in Northern Crimea, in the Kherson region.”
Read more: Russian nukes in Crimea? Experts worry they may already be there
The general also thinks Russia’s potential long-term goal is to cut Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea entirely, occupying the coastal regions of Odesa, Mariupol, and Berdiansk.
“During the last seven years the occupying power has continued depleting Crimea’s water resources and bringing closer the looming humanitarian and environmental disaster,” Dzheppar told the Kyiv Post.
“The key to solving the problem lies in reversing Russian policies. Crimea is Ukraine and the Kremlin only has to acknowledge it. The sooner, the better”.
