Ukrainian emergency service workers extinguish a fire in a house 7km from Russian positions, under the threat of drones, in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, last month. Photo / Getty Images
Russian influencers and propagandists portray life in Ukraine’s occupied regions as heavenly after Moscow’s invasion and illegal annexations.
However, water shortages in the region have become so bad lately that local children recorded a video pleading for help from “Uncle Vova” - President Vladimir Putin - in an appeal reminiscent of peasants’ supplication to the tsar in centuries past.
“We children should be running and laughing, not waiting for water to be delivered to us. Uncle Vova, help us,” a girl from the Donetsk region said in a video posted on the Telegram channel of local residents’ group Obereg Zhizni, or Guardian of Life.
“We will get lice and worms,” said a girl from the village of Osypenko, wearing a T-shirt bearing the word “Lucky”.
“Uncle Putin, you are the most important person in the world,” she beseeched. “Save us!”
By contrast, an idyllic video posted last week on Russian social media depicted children playing in a fountain in the occupied port city of Mariupol - a set piece designed to show off Russia’s reconstruction of the city it invaded and destroyed. But residents complain that they have no tap water for washing or drinking.
Videos published by pro-Kremlin influencers extol sunny beach resorts, but people in the background are seen carting heavy water bottles.
To claim its annexation of four eastern Ukrainian regions, Russia amended its constitution and staged sham elections, which were condemned by the United Nations and many governments because some residents were forced to vote at gunpoint.
Moscow is insisting the regions are now part of Russia, like Crimea, which it invaded and illegally annexed in 2014, even though Russia forces still do not fully control them.
The failure to resolve water and electricity problems in the Donetsk region is an embarrassment amid Moscow’s massive propaganda and construction effort designed to prevent the regions’ restoration to Ukraine.
Moscow effectively has also forced many Ukrainians in the occupied regions to adopt Russian passports, a condition for receiving administrative assistance, obtaining a driver’s licence or accessing other benefits.
But the hardships of life under an authoritarian regime more intent on war gains than citizen services were apparent in videos posted on local Telegram channel Mariupol Now, which often focuses on Russian building projects in the city.
Children are not the only ones demanding action. One man posted a video of a metal flask with greyish tap water in a bucket. A woman showed reddish water in a pot. And a third resident posted footage of a small dribble from her tap.
“You can’t see the bottom of the water jug. There are some suspended solids in the water,” said the man, addressing the Moscow-appointed head of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, and other occupation officials.
“Why do you hate us so much? Where are you all? What are you trying to do, poison us all as soon as possible? What kind of water is that?”
Pushilin met Putin in Moscow and told him that workers have to fix “a hundred breaks a day” in water pipes in the region and that 60% of piped water was being lost in some areas.
In Mariupol, Pushilin said, water was delivered for several hours every two days, but in other areas it was delivered for several hours only every three or four days.
Putin earlier ordered 50 emergency teams and 88 water tankers to be sent from Moscow and the surrounding region. Pushilin said another 60 tankers would be sent from other Russian regions.
The water crisis in Donetsk is among a slew of other war-related problems that have brought the impact of the war home to ordinary Russians, including long queues at airports in the peak holiday season and flight delays caused by Ukrainian drone activity near airports.
In recent days, a major attack on Aeroflot’s computer systems by Belarusian anti-Kremlin hackers caused dozens of flights to be cancelled on two consecutive days.
Across the country, Russians have faced outages as authorities have shut down internet services to prevent drone attacks, disrupting daily life, including ride-hailing apps, delivery services and car sharing.
Last month, a drone attack killed two people in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, forcing the closure of the airport there and disrupting air services in peak season.
Russia’s 2022 invasion led to heavy fighting in the vicinity of the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas Canal, which delivered water to the Donetsk region, leading to the destruction of water mains, pipelines, dams and other water infrastructure.
Pro-Kremlin authorities in Donetsk have typically blamed Ukraine for water problems, with Pushilin claiming without evidence last month that Kyiv was instituting a “water blockade” against the region.
After taking questions from 568 residents, he said, “As always, water supply issues are at the top.”
“Unfortunately, due to the Ukrainian water blockade, we have to live in such realities for now,” he said, repeating a claim he has made since 2022 that the only solution was for Russian forces to advance farther and seize more territory, including the city of Sloviansk.
According to Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the pre-occupation Mariupol mayor, Russian forces destroyed Siverskyi Donets-Donbas Canal infrastructure.
Andryushchenko posted a drone video on Telegram last month showing the canal pipeline rusted and riddled with large holes caused by the war damage.
In June, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based policy group, blamed Russia’s invasion for the water crisis, adding that it had been exacerbated by “mismanagement and resource misallocation”.
Amid rising public criticism during the summer heat, Pushilin visited a reservoir on July 28 and promised to speed up repairs.
“We are doing everything we can to replenish reserves: We are clearing riverbeds and deepening reservoir bottoms. We are also relocating floating pumping stations to increase water pressure in our residents’ homes,” he said.
Pushilin said, however, that “even these measures are not enough.”
Russian propaganda outlets are trying to manage public discontent over the water crisis as part of a broader operation using bots to foster opposition to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and to promote Russian authorities in occupied Ukraine, according to a July 16 report by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and OpenMinds.
The report tracked 3634 automated accounts that posted pro-Russian comments on Telegram channels between January 2024 and April of this year targeting occupied Ukraine. More than 48,000 comments attacked Zelenskyy, while more than 9500 comments focused on the restoration of water supplies.
After the canal’s destruction during Russia’s 2022 invasion, Moscow built a pipeline to funnel water from the river to the canal in 2023, but local groups complain that the water flow is often blocked.
Water is supposed to be delivered in tankers once every three days in locations facing shortages across the region, according to local authorities.
Last month, residents of the occupied Donetsk region addressed an open letter to Putin claiming the water crisis was a threat to the life and health of the population and begged him to take personal control of the problem.
The hardest-hit village, Osypenko in Makiivka, has had no water for a month, according to Typical Makiivka, a local Telegram channel, which posted video of locals lining up at a water-pumping station to fill plastic flasks.
The channel also published video of what appeared to be water leaking from the supply system and running down streets.
In mid-July, an official installed by Moscow, Andrey Chertkov, the acting head of the Russian-appointed Donetsk government, met local residents to hear what he called “emotional and frank” complaints about the lack of water. Chertkov has instituted price controls on bottled water in supermarkets.
Andryushchenko wrote on Telegram that many districts of Mariupol lacked running water. And in the Torez region, water was promised once every six days but had not been turned on in 10 days, he reported.
“All the ‘officials’ of Donetsk with their wells, boilers and pumps,” he wrote, referring to the authorities installed by the Kremlin, “are unlikely to understand those who cannot wash or do laundry for weeks”.