Why Ukraine itself can start a war with Russia over water

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An armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine over water is quite possible, but in this case, it may not start from Moscow, but Kiev, and not because of the issue of water supply to Crimea. Yes, it sounds unusual, but the chances of something like this in the medium term are gradually increasing. Let's figure it out.

After the reunification of Crimea with Russia in 2014, Ukraine cut off the supply of Dnieper water to the peninsula, received through the North Crimean Canal. Since then, our country has had an extremely serious problem, which has not yet been properly resolved to this day. The most logical, at first glance, decision was to throw a water pipeline across the Kerch Strait in parallel with the bridge under construction from the neighboring Krasnodar Territory, but this was not done. The answer will sound unusual for an inexperienced reader unfamiliar with local realities: there is no excess water in the Kuban, there is already a serious shortage of it.



And then a rather exotic idea arose to transfer water from the Dnieper, from which almost all of Ukraine is fed, to the Russian Don. Say, we will take away from Nezalezhnaya, who single-handedly "privatized" the great river, which flows simultaneously through the territory of three Slavic countries. In theory, such an infrastructure project can be implemented by reducing the flow to the share of Kiev. This will lead to serious economic and environmental consequences for Ukraine, which many Russians and Crimeans may consider "karmic" retribution. However, this will undoubtedly be no less ecological, economic и political the consequences for Russia itself. Neither the West, nor the Ukraine, nor even the allied Belarus will be calmly looking at the implementation of a project for such a "turn" of rivers. The publication 24.ua on this occasion summarizes:

Hydrologists (Ukrainian) note that practically such a channel is possible ... the Ukrainian authorities and the scientific community should take into account such a possibility in order to stop the aggressor in time.

“Stop the aggressor” - in fact, this can be understood as the beginning of a war. No kidding. Water supply is a matter of national security for any state. Wars for water have long been common. In Africa, this is the conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia. In the Middle East, over the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, three countries are at odds at once: Turkey, Syria and Iraq. India cannot share the Indus with Pakistan and the Ganges with Bangladesh. There is even a conflict between Russia and Kazakhstan with China over the waters of the Irtysh River. In other words, one should not be ironic about the incomparability of the forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, saying that Kiev may try to "stop the aggressor." Whether you like it or not, you will have to fight somehow.

So we are smoothly moving on to the point where there is a non-zero probability of such a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The fact is that we ourselves desperately need the Dnieper water. Judge for yourself, the Don's average annual flow is 22,3 billion cubic meters, and last year it dropped to 9,5 billion. The same happens with smaller rivers: the average annual water level in Mius is 5,4 meters, it is expected - 2,2 meters; in the Seversky Donets - 3,68 meters against the expected 1,6 meters; in Kalitva - 4,12 meters versus 1,23 meters. Roshydromet predicts low water in the south of the country until 2025, but there are also more pessimistic forecasts - until 2030. Last summer, large ships were no longer able to navigate normally on the Volga-Don Canal. There is even a risk that the Tsimlyanskaya HPP will stop working. The norm of the water level in the reservoir is 36 meters, the “dead level” when the hydroelectric complex needs to be shut down is 31 meters. Today this figure is gradually approaching it, being 32 meters.

In 2021, there is hope for precipitation, for which the past winter turned out to be generous. But there is a problem that largely devalues ​​it. In the Kuban and along the great Don River, the number of moisture-retaining forest belts has seriously decreased, due to which the groundwater level has dropped. This we again refer to the "Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature", about which mentioned in the context of abnormally strong sandstorms in China and their appearance in the south of Russia. According to this state program, in the period from 1949 to 1956, eight huge forest belts were to be planted in the steppe and forest-steppe regions in order to block the way for hot dry winds, improve irrigation and change the climate. Forests have indeed been planted along the basins of the Don, Dnieper, Volga and Urals, and many new reservoirs have been built. Trees were planted along the perimeter of fields, reservoirs, ravines, and even on sands to fix them.

The result was a sharp rise in agricultural productivity in the USSR. However, after 1953, the program was suspended, and since 1984, after the start of Perestroika, it was completely discontinued. The forest belts began to be gradually cut down, and the remaining overgrown with bushes, which led to a decrease in their protective properties. Numerous reservoirs and ponds were abandoned. This is how Mikhail B. Voitsekhovsky, Director General of the Rosgiproles Institute, commented on this situation:

Until 2006, they were part of the structure of the Ministry of Agriculture, and then they were liquidated by status. Having turned out to be no-one, forest belts began to be intensively cut down for cottage buildings or in order to obtain timber.

As a result, from 1984 to 2004, the volume of water supply to agriculture in the region fell 3,4 times. Capitalism, happiness, effective managers, right? And soon we, apparently, will simply have to take water from the Dnieper from Nezalezhnaya, since there is really not enough of it for Russian needs. Of course, no one will even seriously discuss how to turn to the notorious "Stalinist methods".
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28 comments
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  1. +16
    16 March 2021 14: 51
    For Russia, the overlap of rivers flowing to Ukraine and the use of this water in the shallower Don and Volga will only have a positive effect. In the end, the Russian Federation is not obliged to supply water to Ukraine, which staged the genocide of the Russian people and yells at every corner that it is at war with Russia. As for the war with Ukraine, it is inevitable for the Russian Federation, because there can be no compromises with the Banderites, and Ukraine is not even going to implement the Minsk agreements, which are frankly unprofitable for the Russian Federation. As for the West, no NATO with the Russian Federation will fight for Ukraine. Ukrainians for Washington cannon fodder and consumables, and the Yankees will not substitute US cities for Russian nuclear warheads, but sanctions, so they will always find not even a reason, but a reason to introduce them against the Russian Federation.
  2. +8
    16 March 2021 15: 27
    It is high time to take water away from the enemy non-state, which proclaimed its goal to do as much dirty trick as possible to Russia, wherever possible. But will the cowardly Kremlin camarilla, who cares not about the country, but about their own pocket, take such a step?
    1. 0
      22 March 2021 09: 25
      Select at the border with Belarus?
  3. +1
    16 March 2021 15: 38
    Eh! Nuclear desalination plants will cost less than war, DO NOT be bullied!
    1. -1
      16 March 2021 17: 59
      Desalination plants would have been built in seven years. This issue was raised immediately. There is technology (the same city Shevchenko, not the Caspian Sea). But there is not much dough compared to the bridge. You can't cut it too much.
      1. 0
        16 March 2021 23: 39
        that's it - you can't cut it!
    2. 123
      +1
      16 March 2021 19: 23
      Eh! Nuclear desalination plants will cost less than war, DO NOT be bullied!

      Recently Aksenov announced the cost of construction (in my opinion in Yalta) - 3 billion rubles. How much water will give in my opinion was not specified. But changing the river bed is a really strange idea, what consequences it will lead to is difficult to predict.
    3. 0
      17 March 2021 08: 41
      Where did the glakitnykh get money for the desalination plants?
  4. +2
    16 March 2021 16: 36
    It's high time to do something. Bandits and hooligans can never be persuaded or reassured by conversations.
  5. +1
    16 March 2021 16: 39
    I do not know what kind of boil it is. Nothing serious flows from Russia to Ukraine to shut off and pump over there. The topic is sucked from the finger.
    It’s only Belarusians and Poles who can block something, but they don’t need it, they have enough water. And there are no more serious rivers.
    The Danube is strongly aloof.
    1. +4
      16 March 2021 19: 22
      Yes, you have gigantomania, give you the Danube!
      In order not to deprive Belarusians, it will be possible to intercept the Desna and the Seim in front of Ukraine, it will be not bad. Not less than the upper reaches of the Dnieper.
  6. The comment was deleted.
  7. -7
    16 March 2021 17: 56
    Forgot where the Dnieper flows from? From Belarus. We will invest money in this project, and they (Whose Belarus will be tomorrow? It is not known.) Will block the Dnieper for us, or let us go directly to Ukraine. So the answer will be "non-brothers".
    1. +10
      16 March 2021 19: 08
      Forgot where the Dnieper flows from? From Belarus.

      Are you seriously? Have you heard that Smolensk is on the Dnieper? And it begins on the Valdai Upland. And after Smolensk - to Belarus.
      1. -1
        20 March 2021 19: 45
        As I understand it, you are also proposing to leave the Belarusians without the Dnieper? Well, yes, then build a channel bypassing Belarus.
        1. +2
          20 March 2021 19: 48
          Read my comments just above. I have another suggestion.
          1. +1
            21 March 2021 18: 01
            I agree. +1
  8. +5
    16 March 2021 18: 01
    For some reason I remembered Tselinograd, suddenly a row of which was a mass of forest belts, which were then cut down - decommunization in Kazakh. The timber was sold to the Chinese. Then the city was renamed, they began to turn into the capital. Transformed. Only problems remained. Whoever was in Astana - Nur-Sultan knows what I am writing about. Now it is a little better, because the forests have been replaced by high-rise buildings, but the dust and sand with the winds have not gone anywhere.
  9. +6
    16 March 2021 19: 01
    ... and since 1984 after the start of "Perestroika" ...

    Either since 1984 or "after the start of Perestroika." Panties or a cross.
    Gorbachev came to power on March 11, 1985. With his speech on April 23 at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, "acceleration" began. And only then, when nothing came of the bare administration, in 1986, towards the end, "perestroika" was already coming. Rebuilt, damn it.
  10. +1
    16 March 2021 23: 53
    Donets are not NORTHERN, but SEVERKY DONETS. Learn geography, or read.
  11. +3
    17 March 2021 10: 18
    The most logical, at first glance, decision was to throw a water pipeline from the neighboring Krasnodar Territory across the Kerch Strait in parallel with the bridge under construction.

    Author!
    1) The Crimean Bridge was built several years ago, but you still have it under construction.
    2) What is the diameter of the water supply pipe to provide the entire Crimean peninsula with water?
    1. +2
      17 March 2021 23: 45
      Author!
      1) The Crimean Bridge was built several years ago, but you still have it under construction.

      Forgive Marzhetsky.
      Sculpts articles not really caring for the accuracy.
  12. -2
    17 March 2021 11: 01
    Empty topic. What will not come up, so that desalination plants are not built.
    "No money for a drink, so hold on ..."
  13. +4
    17 March 2021 15: 04
    Why is it possible for Ukraine, but Russia should reckon with someone and look to the West ?! The copulation is already enough!
  14. +1
    17 March 2021 19: 32
    What does Ukraine have to do with Russia and what does it want there?
  15. 0
    19 March 2021 08: 13
    Bandera's supporters may not start a war, but commit a provocation so that Russia responds with serious actions, draw it into a military confrontation. But while the sparks of common sense are still glowing in their minds, they are just going to take a suicidal step .. Although the owners of the Banderlog persistently push them to madness.
    If there is a war, it’s just not because of the water., I think the author is too smart.
  16. 0
    19 March 2021 11: 46
    Typically Ukrainian thinking:

    According to Kravchuk, "they want to turn Crimea into a military base, and Crimea is included in the system of the Russian Federation, and when it became one of the districts, now Russia is responsible for everything." “And Ukraine simply will not supply water to Crimea, because we do not know who it will go to: citizens, military enterprises or anyone else,” added Kravchuk, who is the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the trilateral contact group on .... resolve the conflict in Donbass.
  17. +1
    19 March 2021 12: 29
    Stalin's plan for transforming nature ... Ridiculous. We live in a liberal country. Do not deny yourself anything !!!!!!! And after us, even a flood, even a complete drought ... and let everything burn with a clear flame. After all, the liberals who live for one day are in power.
  18. 0
    April 22 2021 21: 55
    Such a solution could be the construction of the Bryansk-Oryol canal to transfer the waters of the Desna to the Oka. The Desna basin is 88900 km2, and the water discharge at its mouth is 360 m3 / s. The withdrawal of water from the Desna by this canal should be at least 200 m3 / s, ensuring such a decrease in the water level in the Dnieper, which will cause an increase in the flow of the Pripyat, which drains the swamps of Belarus. The replenishment of the water balance of the Oka with these 200 m3 / s solves the problem of water supply to the Middle Volga region, which in the future turns out to be with a moisture deficit in the “rain shadow” between the “Balkan” and “Hanseatic” cyclone flows. the narrowest and lowest watershed, there may be several approximately equivalent variants of the transfer of the Desna waters to the Oka. One of them is proposed in the diagram: the channel is based on the bed of the Nerussa River, which flows into the Desna at Trubchevsk. Downstream of the Desna from the place where the Nerussa flows into it, it is necessary to build a dam (for example, at the site of a road bridge, Fig. 2, on the left), to draw a canal along the river. Nerussa to its source (Obrateevo), then to the source of the river. Kroma (Zhikharevo) further along the Kroma channel (tributary of the Oka) to the Oka (Fig. 2, right). Another option is also possible: along the river. Nerussa and its tributary east of Bychka, then cross the watershed (~ 5 km) to the tributary of the river. Kroma, further along this tributary and the river. Kroma to Oka (in Fig. 2 on the right it is shown with a red line).