Crimean Tears. Peninsula on the Brink of Water Supply Disaster

The problem is not new, it was felt back in 2014, when the water supply from the Dnieper through the North Crimean Canal stopped. And in 2023, after the Russians blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, the situation became even worse - the canal finally stopped supplying water completely.

The administration in the occupied Crimea recognizes the problem, but despite loud promises, there is no real action plan: underground springs are being depleted, rivers are drying up, and new water supply systems are only partially saving the situation.

"Glavkom" investigated how long Crimea will have sufficient water reserves.

The lack of fresh water in Crimea is a systemic problem that is only getting worse every year, the dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, an expert at the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, Professor Yevgen Khlobistov, told "Glavkom". According to him, there are currently 22 artificial reservoirs in Crimea. The fullest of them is the Alminskoye reservoir (filling about 72 percent). At the same time, the Chornorichny reservoir, which supplies Sevastopol, currently has a critical water level of 24 percent of its capacity. However, despite the water shortage, Sevastopol, like Big Yalta, according to environmentalists, "never had problems with water supply for political reasons - the elite of the occupation authorities live there".

At the same time, in many other settlements, water supply has been introduced on a schedule. This is due to a decrease in the total water level in all reservoirs. The Mezhvodnenskoye reservoir, for example, is only 12 percent full. The occupation authorities are trying to redistribute resources, building additional water pipelines, but the total amount of water on the peninsula is not increasing.

The restoration of the North Crimean Canal after the Russians captured the Kakhovka reservoir did not solve the problem.

"After 10 years of downtime, the bottom of the North Crimean Canal lost its suitability, so the water that was supplied after the occupation of the Kherson region simply did not reach consumers - a significant part was lost due to silt and impurities. In the Dzhankoy area, such water became unsuitable for domestic needs," Khlobistov noted.

And after the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, Crimea finally lost access to water from the canal, the expert added. According to experts, the reason for the water shortage is not only climate change, but also the human factor.

“The water shortage is caused by a decrease in natural runoff and an increase in water consumption. The population of Crimea has increased from two to three million after the annexation, and military structures are consuming water uncontrollably,” the ecologist explains.

Due to excessive drilling of wells, groundwater is becoming saline and losing its quality. By 2022, there were officially more than 150 such wells in Crimea, but after the start of the large-scale invasion, monitoring stopped.

“We do not know how many wells are actually operating now and what is the quality of the water from them. It can be predicted that in many wells the water can no longer be considered drinkable,” says Hlobistov.

According to satellite images, the average level of Crimean reservoirs currently does not exceed 50 percent (and in reservoirs such as Frunzenskoye, Pivnicho-Krimskoye, Ishunskoye, Starokrimskoye - below 45 percent).

“If there is no rain and natural runoff in the spring, Crimea could face a real collapse of its water supply in the summer,” the ecologist warns.

Currently, most residents of urban areas of Crimea receive water on time, while rural communities are forced to use groundwater, which is often salty and unsuitable for consumption. “Over the past three years, the salinity of groundwater extracted from existing wells on the peninsula has only increased,” Khlobystov concluded.

 

Scarce water reserves

As of October 2025, as noted by Anatoly Kopachevskiy, director of the Crimean scientific and production company “Water Technologies”, the Simferopol, Aiyanskoye and Parizanskoye reservoirs have historically low water levels. According to him, there are still water reserves, but the situation may deteriorate sharply in the near future.

According to Ilya Nikolenko, head of the Department of Chemical Technologies of Water Use at the Vernadsky Crimean Federal University, in September the Crimean reservoirs accumulated 75 million cubic meters of water. For comparison: in 2024, this figure was 125 million cubic meters, in 2023 - 160 million cubic meters, and in the high-water year 2022 - 184 million cubic meters.

The Izobilnenskoye reservoir near Alushta, which supplies the city and the southern coast with drinking water, is only 25 percent full. The situation is even more difficult at the Parizanskoye reservoir, where no water inflow has been recorded for several months. In September alone, its reserves were reduced by 1.2 million cubic meters.

The situation in Sevastopol is no better. The Chornorichenskoye reservoir, the main source of water supply for the city, has become significantly shallower over the summer. According to local residents, the wells in the Baydar Valley, which supply the city, have almost completely dried up.

Even z-bloggers admit: there are almost no water reserves in the reservoirs for Sevastopol. The summer turned out to be extremely dry - there was practically no precipitation. It is impossible to transport water from other areas due to the lack of water supply.

Despite this, according to local observers, the occupation administration, instead of dealing with pressing issues, is focused on preparations for the "governor elections".

Crimean public forums showed what Lake Bakhchisaray looks like. The photo shows that the lake has turned into a puddle.

The network writes that Lake Taigan has been almost empty for a long time. There is practically no water in the Bilogirsky reservoir, and the channel connecting it with the Taigansky has dried up.

Most of the rivers on the peninsula have also practically or completely dried up. According to the deputy head of the occupation "State Committee for Water Management" Roman Zakharov, water is now used only from underground springs and reservoirs, the reserves of which are critically low.

The most full-flowing river of the occupied Crimea, Belbek, has stopped flowing for the first time in 50 years. According to the Russian Hydrometeorological Center, the current situation has not been recorded since 1971.

The Alma (above the dam of the Partizansky reservoir) and Chorna (above the Chornorichensky reservoir) rivers have also dried up. In addition, most of the small rivers with muddy currents near Alushta, Sudak and Feodosia have not had any flow at all since the end of April, that is, for the past six months. For example, the Biyuk-Karasu, Tanasu and Sarisu rivers have almost or completely dried up.

Environmentalists also warn that the recent rains have not saved the situation: the water has only moistened the upper layers of the soil, and underground sources are being depleted. Even according to the occupation authorities, the number of settlements supplied with water has increased from 32 to 77 in the past few months.

 

According to the Russian "State Committee for Water Management and Reclamation of Crimea", the total water reserves in the peninsula's reservoirs provide water supply for 110-120 days (approximately four months) with an average daily consumption of 380,000 cubic meters, excluding future inflows. In other words, Crimea is living on the edge, and every day without precipitation makes the situation more critical.

 

Schedules introduced in Alushta. Occupiers seek culprits

After several weeks of uncertain statements about the "stability" of the situation, the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea were forced to admit that the problem with water supply is reaching critical proportions. The most difficult situation is in the eastern part of the peninsula, primarily in Alushta. According to the so-called "State Committee for Water Management and Reclamation of Crimea", water supplies in local reservoirs will last for 85 to 90 days.

Since October 1, hourly water supply schedules have been officially introduced in Alushta. In most areas, water appears only in the morning and evening, and the pressure in the networks has been reduced to a minimum. Utility workers are already transporting technical water in tankers. People are forced to use it for domestic needs.

According to the Center of National Resistance, the water shortage has already caused panic among occupation officials. In Simferopol, they are actively looking for "culprits" for the probable future collapse. The "State Commission for Water and Sanitation" and the "government" of occupied Crimea shift responsibility to each other, and Sergei Aksyogonov himself, as noted in the Central Committee, blames everything on the Russian Ministry of Defense, which allegedly "takes away" a significant part of the water for military units and training grounds.

The occupation administration is already considering a possible "staff rotation" if the situation does not stabilize by the end of the year. According to the Center for National Resistance, even the Alushta administration itself admits that there is no real plan of action. In fact, only precipitation can save the water supply.

Meanwhile, the local population is preparing for an emergency: they are pumping water from cisterns, reservoirs and wells, where the pressure in the network still remains.

A special problem is the state of the water supply infrastructure. Due to worn-out pipes and networks, a significant part of the water simply does not reach consumers. According to Artem Zilbervarg, a deputy of the "Crimean parliament", water losses in the pipes reach 70 percent. That is, even insignificant reserves that still manage to be supplied are literally pouring into the ground.

 

How the occupation authorities of Crimea are solving the water problem

The shortage of fresh water is partially compensated by underground water intakes drilled in recent years. Thanks to them, Simferopol, Feodosia, Sudak and Koktebel have a stable water supply. At the same time, the situation in the Bakhchisaray region remains critical.

According to representatives of the occupation State Committee for Water Resources, the water supply problem in the Bakhchisaray region is planned to be solved within three years - residents will be transferred to the "Partizan" reservoir, after the construction of new pumping stations and communications. However, this reservoir currently has almost no water supply.

The situation is similar in the Simferopol region. There, due to shallow wells, people use water from cisterns. The project to expand the Simferopol reservoir has not yet been implemented.

In the east of the peninsula, where there are no mountain rivers and springs, the occupation authorities have laid a new underground water supply system, which partially repeats the route of the North Crimean Canal. It has already been tested in the summer - then fresh water from the north was delivered to Feodosia, Koktebel and Sudak. The occupation administration promises that in the future it is planned to expand the system to Kerch. Thanks to the closed pipeline, water losses due to evaporation and filtration, as in an open canal, are allegedly minimized. Occupation officials also do not give up hope of restoring the supply of Crimea with water from the Dnieper via the North Crimean Canal, stating that it is enough to "restore" the Kakhovka reservoir after the construction of the dam. In the meantime, they are considering the idea of creating several new reservoirs in the steppe part of the peninsula to collect flood waters: by 2030, the occupation authorities promise to build two new reservoirs - Sonjachnohirskoye near the village of

Generalskoye to provide water for the Alushta coast, and Martivskoye, which should additionally supply the Yalta region with up to 6.5 million cubic meters of water. More than 22 billion rubles are planned to be spent on these projects.