Water Crisis in Ukraine: Let's Talk About It
My Start
I have been in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, arriving in March 2022.
In June 2022, I visited Mykolaiv for the first time. Before my team arrived, our local contact from the hospital we were bringing medicine to warned us -
âJust know, we have only technical water hereâ âTechnical water? What does that mean?â
âWell, itâs technically water. It does come out of the tap⌠but you canât drink it.. also its not advisable to brush your teeth, shower in it, or wash your dishesâŚâ
âSo.. basically⌠youâre saying that you donât have waterâŚâ
"No we do! It IS water⌠its just⌠toxicâ
Upon arriving, we witnessed queues that stretched around blocks. People standing in +30âŻÂ°C heat, holding water jugs and bottles, eagerly waiting for their turn at the water truck.
âHow often do you get these deliveries?â I asked
"We donât know⌠we just run outside as soon as we see it. There is no schedule,â replied a local senior.
That night, after a day of heavy deliveries, we got to our housing and turned on the tap. It ran redish/brown and smelled horrible. I ran my leg under the stream, and the scratches on my leg burned.
Richard (von Groeling), co-founder of my NGO Alex21 for Ukraine, made a simple statement - we need to find a way to help.
I thought he was absolutely insane.
Help? Fix the water?? âŚ. How?
That was the start of our story.
Footage from Mykolaiv â June 2022
Captured during one of the earliest visits to Mykolaiv after the invasion, this clip shows the reality on the ground when even water access was a luxury.
July 2022, Mykolaiv (filmed by me)
The Background
Mykolaivâs main water line, coming from Kherson, was cut off when Kherson fell fully under Russian occupation. The pipes were bombed, and the entire city lost its connection to water. As it turns out, that was only the tip of the iceberg.
We started to research and came across the concept of reverse osmosis filtration systems. It was a great fit, but the machines were expensive, required complicated importing, and theyâd still need installation and servicing/maintenance, which in a warzone is complicated. Thatâs when the firefighters introduced us to WiseWater, and our partnership with the Kyiv-based company began.
As of today, Alex21 has placed over 20 of these systems across various frontline regions. They filter 1000/L of water per hour, turning the so-called âtechnical waterâ into potable (drinking) water. Itâs a great start, but its not nearly enough.
My goal and dream is to place 1300 of these systems minimum across the frontline. As I pursue this goal via various private donors and grants, I started to ask more questions⌠and the answers that I am getting are baffling.
June, 2024 Lyman Gromada, Donetsk Oblast (pictured, me: Liz Olegov
The Bigger Probelm
This is my introductory post, so I will keep it brief.
I may have been introduced to this problem in Mykolaiv, but hereâs what I foundâŚ
Every single village I visited from the North, to East to South front - including everything in the middle - had the same story âWE HAVE NO DRINKING WATER. IT IS ALL POISON.â How can this be? In Mykolaiv, the explanation seemed to be clear and obvious, and although it echoed in a few other regions across the frontline, something else echoed too.
âThe war may have made the problem worse, but we NEVER had drinking water.â
Never? How is that possible? Ukraine is a developed country, with talks of it even joining the European Union.
Surely there must be drinking water in SOME places right? Kyiv? Lviv? Kharkiv?
Nope.
The entire country of Ukraine does not have a single city, village, or even household (unless manually installed) that has potable water coming from the tap. Even in the cities that report having it, the pipes are so old and corroded that what comes out of the actual faucet is not drinkable.
And the wells?
They are toxic. Poisoned over years of industrialization and agricultural expansion.
That doesnât stop people from drinking it though because⌠in their own words
âWe drink it becauseâŚWhat other choice do we have?â This is exactly where and how the war has made the problem worse. Logistics has been completely disrupted, leaving many isolated and almost impossible to reach. Roads are bombed, fields are mined, and stores are closed. The villages closer to larger cities still have some hope with semi-regular deliveries, but those who find themselves close to line zero and active military combat⌠they are pretty much entirely helpless.
How did this happen?
Well, in brief, Ukraine has a completely decentralized water infrastructure. Although there is a so-called âWater Codexâ composed in 2002, each region (known as Oblast) in Ukraine has its own water and waste disposal structure called the Vodokanal.
Hereâs where it gets particularly interesting.
The Vodokanal DIFFERS in each of the 24 Oblasts of Ukraine. Although some operate in a similar manner, there is no general rule or guideline for how the Vodokanal is supposed to run or be set up.
Officially, each Vodokanal is supposed to report to national bodies like the Ministry of Infrastructure and NEURC, and follow state regulations for water safety, but in reality, thereâs almost no meaningful oversight. There are no routine inspections, no transparent public reports, and no real-time monitoring of what these utilities are actually doing.
Especially in smaller or frontline towns, Vodokanals essentially operate unchecked; local authorities are either overwhelmed, underfunded, or simply absent, and while environmental and audit agencies technically exist, theyâre not enforcing anything on the ground. Every time I ask about accountability, the answer is vague at best or a shrug at worst. The structure may look functional on paper, but in practice, these enterprises are left to govern themselvesâŚresulting in decades of neglect, mismanagement, and water that no one can trust.
What about the wells?
In theory, wells should be the safer alternative - deep, natural, and independent of corrupt infrastructure.
But in reality, most wells in Ukraine are heavily contaminated. Decades of unregulated industrial dumping, agricultural runoff, and lack of proper environmental protections have left groundwater poisoned with everything from nitrates and heavy metals to bacteria and pesticides. There is no centralized database tracking which wells are safe and which arenât, and very few people test their water regularly - either because they canât afford to, or because theyâve been drinking it their whole lives and donât see the point.
In rural areas, especially near old industrial zones or farmland, wells are often the only option, even if the water smells strange, tastes off, or causes stomach problems. People drink it anyway - not because they trust it, but because they have no other choice.
In fact, whenever I tell anybody that I am working on this question and try to dig in, I always get the same reply
âThere is a war going on, nobody has time to deal with this ! And before that, our country was run by corruption. We have just learned to accept it. Why bother, nothing will changeâ
Thatâs where I think they are wrong.
It can change.
It will change.