Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ The Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine face a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, with some towns not having received any water for four months. Endemic corruption and systemic mismanagement by the Russian-installed authorities is being blamed for the situation. ⬇️

2/ As previously reported, much of Russian-occupied Ukraine is facing drastic shortages of water due to a combination of destroyed infrastructure, which is particularly affecting the south, and a lack of repairs and investment elsewhere.

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1945754167999414686

3/ A resident of Donetsk writes: "In Donetsk and Makiivka, everything with water is a complete disaster. Translating from officialese into Russian – there will be no water at all, survive as best you can. And this has been happening for the fourth year!!!!!"

4/ "The next stage is an outbreak of epidemics of intestinal infections. The leadership of the republic reports "upwards" how wonderful it is "we build Donbass together", ambitious projects of "New Vasyuki" ...

5/ ... an airport, business-class residential complexes, industry, etc. But there is no water!!!! How are they going to build housing if it cannot be supplied with water?

6/ "1.3 million people currently live in Donetsk and Makiivka and all of them will soon be left without water. By the way, there is no water today. Something unidentifiable is dripping from the tap."

7/ Another resident writes: "Since 1 July, even in the city centre, water has stopped being supplied to floors above 3-4. There was no clear information from the authorities. How to take care of the elderly, children, and just yourself is not very clear."

8/ "If there is an elevator in the building, you can carry water from the basement, but without one, this is an impossible task for the elderly.

9/ "Yesterday they announced the transition to a water supply mode of every other day, or once every three days for 4 hours, and this is in a city of a million! Hands are simply dropping.

10/ "People are extremely irritated, it turns out that the advertised Don-Donbass water pipeline does not work at all?

11/ "Why are there constant reports about the restoration of the airport, the construction of high-rise buildings and other important, but untimely at the moment, objects, if, in fact, the city is on the brink of epidemics and other cataclysms?

12/ "Many, including those who have remained in Donetsk since 2014, are starting to think about moving, as the winter promises to be simply terrible.

13/ "All this against the backdrop of the absence of any coherent information from the republic's leadership, only the ever-current repetition of the "water blockade" and the complete absence of information about any prospects for solving this problem.

14/ "If local authorities are not coping, maybe it makes sense for the federal government to take on the problem? You can't always say in reports that everything is fine. You need to voice the reality, no matter how bitter it may be."

15/ Outside Donetsk city, the problem is even worse: "Some areas of Donetsk have not seen water for 4 months, a schedule of supplying it every three days has been introduced and even that is not a fact that it will be observed."

16/ "Water delivery must be ordered several days ahead, there are not enough vehicles. Zuyevskaya Thermal Power Plant is on the brink, the water level for cooling the TPP is falling, we may be left without electricity. Agriculture is on the brink, there is not enough water.

17/ "The vaunted branch from the Don is breathing its last, if it works at all. But they are going to restore the airport, build parks, change curbs... What is the point of all this, if there is nothing to wash with or even flush the toilet!

18/ "What kind of increase in demographics is there when there is nothing to bathe one child with! And it is +37[° C] outside... And there is silence everywhere, the media are silent, people write to the president's website, these letters are sent to Donetsk. A vicious circle."

19/ The situation is equally bad in the Luhansk region, where a resident says:

"They write a lot about Donetsk and the DPR and the water situation.

There is silence about the LPR. Local channels are trying to give out something, but it doesn’t go beyond the LPR."

20/ "Alchevsk. No water for 19 days.

Perevalsk. No water for 19 days.

And no one cares about us. All appeals are returned to the local authorities, who in turn do nothing at all! We are on the verge of extinction."

21/ Yulia Skubaeva says: "There is no water in Donetsk again. People are standing with buckets, collecting rainwater, there is turbid liquid in the pipes, and the schedule says water “once every three days”.

22/ Without water, people in Donetsk are using plastic bags as toilets and throwing them out of their windows:

"In Donetsk, there is water once every three days. There is no way to flush the toilet. It is now common practice: Donetsk residents put a small bag in the toilet.

23/ "And then, if they are normal, these bags go into the trash. If they are not, they throw them under the windows. The neighbors fight against such people. I will not post videos and photos."

24/ Russian warbloggers blame the crisis on "corruption, indifference, stupidity and lack of political will" by the occupation authorities and the Russian government, which has attempted to mitigate the problem by building a pipeline from the River Don.

25/ However, as Oleg Tsarov notes, this project was beset by corruption and operational problems, and had far too little capacity to supply the region even if it was fully functional:

26/ "The initial cost of construction was estimated at 70 billion rubles but later it increased significantly - according to some sources, almost three times compared to the initially stated amount.

27/ "The construction of the water pipeline was directly supervised by Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov. Ivanov personally inspected the construction, monitored the main stages of the work, heard reports, and held meetings on the site.

28/ "Even after Ivanov's dismissal and arrest, his name repeatedly surfaced in investigations into embezzlement and corruption in the implementation of "Big Water."

29/ "At the beginning of this year, it was reported that the Ministry of Defense demanded that 4 billion rubles be collected from the Military Construction Company that built the water pipeline."

30/ According to Yulia Skubaeva, "In 2018, the DPR People’s Council made a strategically short-sighted decision: to stop draining the mines. The result is not just flooded mine workings and man-made soil degradation, but also the loss of unique sources of industrial water."

31/ "In the conditions of war, blockade and destroyed infrastructure, this is a criminal omission.

Today’s water shortage is the result not of a natural disaster, but of administrative negligence and corrupt impudence.

32/ "We are told about a catastrophic drop in the water level, but they forget to say that the main source — the sky and the Don — is only half the story. The second half — why doesn’t the constructed water pipeline provide water?

33/ "The Don-Donbass water pipeline, which first cost 70 and then almost 200 billion rubles, has not become a panacea.

34/ "Its capacity is insufficient, it does not solve the problem, and the decision to build it has become the reason for a major corruption scandal that has reached the Russian Defence Ministry itself.

35/ "The former project manager, Deputy Minister Timur Ivanov, is now a defendant in criminal cases. And the water is not flowing.

The situation today looks like this: there are new pumping stations, there are pipes, there is no money, and there is no water either.

36/ "There is no water because they kept quiet at the design stage: 288,000 cubic meters per day is half of the real need of the Donetsk agglomeration.

37/ "And then there are pipelines that have been worn out for decades, no emergency teams, holes in the housing and utilities system and a complete lack of modernisation.

What’s the bottom line? Donetsk is without water not because the clouds in the sky forgot to pour down rain.

38/ "But because the designers, officials and contractors forgot to turn on their brains. This is not a drought. This is the result of the state's systemic refusal to think strategically. This is corruption, indifference, stupidity and lack of political will.

39/ "And while we are told about "heavenly punishment" and "meteorological anomalies", no one wants to honestly say: there is no water not because there is nowhere to get it from. But because it was either drained or stolen.

40/ "And now neither prayers nor sacrifices in the form of criminal cases will help." /end

Sources:
🔹 t.me/olegtsarov/313…
🔹 t.me/olegtsarov/313…
🔹 t.me/privatmnenie/1…
🔹 t.me/SergeyKolyasni…
🔹 t.me/SergeyKolyasni…