Ukraine Dam Destruction: Villagers Face Water Crisis, See ‘Only Tears’

A waste from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached is seen, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, on a beach in Odesa, Ukraine June 13, 2023. (Reuters)
A waste from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached is seen, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, on a beach in Odesa, Ukraine June 13, 2023. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Dam Destruction: Villagers Face Water Crisis, See ‘Only Tears’

A waste from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached is seen, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, on a beach in Odesa, Ukraine June 13, 2023. (Reuters)
A waste from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached is seen, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, on a beach in Odesa, Ukraine June 13, 2023. (Reuters)

Tetyana Tarasevych remembers how life got better in Ukraine's southeast nearly 70 years ago after the vast Kakhovka water reservoir was built near her home in the village of Hrushivka.

As the vast reservoir has lost around three-quarters of its volume since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam last week, she is now using glass jars to catch rainwater.

Her village in the Dnipropetrovsk region faces an acute water crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without normal access to drinking water across a swathe of the south, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

"When the reservoir appeared, we started to live it up. We piped drinking water to the main streets... and now look. Only tears," the 80-year-old Tarasevych told Reuters.

Water taps were turned off for many of the village's residents last week. Those who had water storage pools rushed to fill them up.

"(I have) four cubic meters. It's enough for a month, but not to wash or anything like that," said 70-year-old Oleksandr.

Only 15% of residents still have water running from their taps: others have to rely on water brought in by the authorities. The local administration delivered 2,160 bottles of drinking water for residents on Wednesday, municipal head Serhiy Marenenko said. But more than 7,500 people live there.

Before the dam was built in 1956, Tarasevych was resettled from a nearby village that was fully submerged by the reservoir. After being under water for decades, the land where the village stood has now just resurfaced due to the receding water.

The water level has fallen five to six meters after the dam's destruction and nearly 30,000 people have lost access to centralized water supply, according to Yevhen Sytnychenko, head of the wider Kryvyi Rih district which comprises three towns and over 16 villages.

Across the country the problem is much bigger.

'It will not return'

The Kakhovka reservoir provided water to the wider population, farmers and industrial enterprises as well as to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. It also supplied a vital water canal to occupied Crimea which was seized by Russia in 2014.

Ukraine's military intelligence agency has accused Russia of deliberately blowing up the Kakhovka dam to halt Kyiv's long-expected counter-offensive. Russia has said Ukraine carried out the attack on the dam.

Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets said Ukraine had already lost about 18 cubic kilometers of the water since the dam's destruction unleashed catastrophic flooding in the southwest.

"This is about a third of all the water of the Dnipro cascade. There is no water in the reservoir, and it will not return there for a very long time," he said in a statement.

The Ukrainian government rushed to set up alternative water supplies and limit potential health hazards from contaminated water. The government has channeled 2.5 billion hryvnias ($68.36 million) to ensure water supply to the south.

The measures included sending water purifiers, water carrying vehicles, setting up specialized centers to distribute bottled water and also to construct a new pipeline that can pump 300,000 cubic meters of water per day.

However, the construction of the 87-km water pipeline would be a complex project and could take months to complete, analysts said.

In the meantime, mayors in affected towns have urged residents, who have already survived months of missile attacks and electricity blackouts during the cold winter months, to go one extra mile and save water.

Oleksandr Vilkul, mayor of Kriviy Rih, Zelenskiy's hometown, said the city was relying for now on water reserves that had been built up, but that they could run out quickly.

"The first option is that we do not save and after a month 70% of the city remains without water," Vilkul said. "The second option is to save and gain time to carry out the necessary work. There are no other options. It is very important for everyone to reduce water consumption by 40%."



Kurdish-Turkish Settlement: Shaping a New Middle East

Tulay Hatimogulları speaks at a press conference. Asharq Al-Awsat file photo
Tulay Hatimogulları speaks at a press conference. Asharq Al-Awsat file photo
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Kurdish-Turkish Settlement: Shaping a New Middle East

Tulay Hatimogulları speaks at a press conference. Asharq Al-Awsat file photo
Tulay Hatimogulları speaks at a press conference. Asharq Al-Awsat file photo

A string of pivotal developments in recent months has forged new and unprecedented dynamics - mainly related to the Kurdish cause - across the region.

The collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8 shifted the calculations of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), pushing them to break their isolation from Iraqi Kurdish factions.

Simultaneously, an overture by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, who called for the disarmament of his group, opened communication channels between Türkiye’s Kurds and their counterparts in Iraq and Syria.

At the heart of this political transformation is Tulay Hatimogulları, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM). A leftist Turkish politician of Arab Alawite origin, she embodies the complex identities of the Levant and its interconnected communities.

With her modest charisma and approachable style, Hatimogulları rarely turns down a request for a photo or a chat from her Kurdish supporters. An Asharq Al-Awsat correspondent met her in Diyarbakir—known to Kurds as Amed—shortly after her arrival from Ankara.

She was quick to tell them, in fluent Arabic, that she hails from Iskenderun, a region that was part of the autonomous Syrian district of Alexandretta under French control from 1921 until its controversial annexation by Türkiye in 1939, following a disputed referendum and the displacement of many of its original inhabitants.

Hatimogulları comes from a family of Arab Alawites who remained in the area. Today, she stands out as one of the few Turkish politicians capable of mediating between Ankara and the PKK at what many view as a potentially historic moment.

On February 27, Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in the island prison of İmralı in the Sea of Marmara, issued a call for the PKK to lay down its arms and disband. His message was relayed by DEM party representatives who met him in prison. Ocalan was captured by Turkish special forces in Kenya in February 1999, and since then, most PKK fighters have been based in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq.

Ocalan’s call came after a statement last October by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a key ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Türkiye’s parliament. Bahçeli proposed a deal to free Ocalan in exchange for the PKK’s cessation of its insurgency.

Hatimogulları, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, explained that “with the PKK’s announcement of plans to hold a disarmament conference, it is essential that military operations and airstrikes cease. Additionally, the necessary technical and logistical infrastructure must be established to enable direct communication between Ocalan and the PKK.”

The potential developments between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ocalan could have significant repercussions across the Middle East, with signs of these effects already beginning to emerge.

Both Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and Nechirvan Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, sent representatives to attend Nowruz celebrations in Amed (Diyarbakir).

During their visit, they met with officials from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (HDP). In turn, the HDP sent representatives to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in February to discuss the peace initiative. There, they held talks with officials from the Barzani-led KDP and the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), BafelTalabani.