Zelensky warned back in March 2026: Russia is deliberately preparing strikes on water supply. Not on energy — on water. The government responded with a specific figure: 26 special projects in 10 communities.
What exactly is planned
On April 7, at a meeting of the Coordination Center chaired by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, the parameters of the water block of resilience plans were announced. According to Svyrydenko, the total cost of measures is 12.7 billion hryvnias. Among the technical solutions are network looping, critical node backup, and installation of reserve equipment.
As Vice Prime Minister Alexei Kuleba explained, the logic is simple: a city should not depend on a single source or a single system operation scenario. A separate direction is a network of mobile water intake complexes for rapid response, which can be deployed at any point if needed. Essentially — a national emergency water supply reserve.
Financing and pace
The Cabinet has already allocated 22.1 billion hryvnias to protect 576 priority critical facilities — the water block is part of this package. According to Svyrydenko, the working principle now is one:
«Everything that can be done now — we do now».
Yulia Svyrydenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine
Most regions have already completed about half of the preparatory work on engineering and technical protection of critical infrastructure, Kuleba reported on April 7. The deadline for all major decisions is the beginning of the heating season 2026–2027.
Context of the threat
Over the past heating season, Russia delivered over 6,000 strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, destroying over 9 GW of generation capacity. Water supply remained relatively protected at that time — but this, according to analysts, makes it an obvious next target. Sergiy Nagornyak, a People's Deputy and member of the energy committee, directly named Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and Kharkiv as cities with the highest risk in March 2026 — due to centralized systems and worn infrastructure.
- Engineering and technical protection of water supply facilities — physical strengthening against strikes
- Backup water intake sources — alternative supply in case the main one is destroyed
- Backup power supply for water utilities — pumping stations will not stop during blackouts
- Mobile water intake complexes — emergency deployment where the system no longer works
If most regions completed half of the protective work by April, the question is whether the pace will be sufficient by October — and whether the 10 covered communities correspond to the actual geography of strikes already marked by the enemy.
