Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv — in each of these cities residents already know what weeks without a stable water supply are like. But what has happened so far may prove to be only a rehearsal. According to Viktoriya Yakovlieva, director of information policy at the Ukrvodokanalekologiya association, a single targeted strike on a nodal facility is capable of completely depriving a metropolis of water.
A water utility is an underground network of thousands of kilometers of pipes. Destroying it with a single strike is technically difficult. But there is a deceptive confidence in this dispersion: the system rests on nodal points — major transmission mains and pumping stations. The destruction of one such point breaks the entire chain.
The key vulnerability is dependence on electricity. Pumps don't work without power. Therefore every strike on a substation or transformer automatically becomes a strike on water supply as well. This is not a side effect — this is the predictable logic of attacks on critical infrastructure.
If pumping stations stop, the consequences go beyond ordinary inconvenience. Without pressure in the pipes, the sewer system ceases to function. Wastewater begins to accumulate. Within a few days this turns into a sanitary crisis: the risk of outbreaks of intestinal infections, contamination of groundwater, collapse of hospitals that cannot operate without water.
Restoration after multiple damages is a separate problem. It's not only a matter of pipes and pumps: materials, equipment, qualified crews are needed and, most importantly, safe access to the site of the accident. In conditions of active shelling, repair crews work under the threat of repeated strikes — Russia has repeatedly attacked emergency teams during restoration work.
Cities that have already endured prolonged dewatering have developed partial adaptations: backup generators, mobile water distribution points, reserves in tanks. But none of these solutions is designed for a prolonged crisis in a city of a million. Reservoirs are exhausted in days, generators require fuel, and queues at water trucks are no longer a buffer but a sign that the system is failing.
The question is not whether water utilities are protected in theory — but how many nodal facilities currently have physical protection and backup power sufficient to operate in the event of a prolonged blackout. If the answer to this remains classified information — is that really protection of infrastructure, or simply a lack of public oversight of its condition?
