Residents of Mykolaiv live without fresh water for the past six months. In April, after Russia hit a pipeline supplying water from the Dnipro river to the city, the city has been pumping yellowish water, good only for washing and flushing toilets. Additionally, the salty water, now drawn from the Dnipro-Buh estuary, corrodes pipes, leading to increased leakages and accidents.
Every day people have to queue at water distribution points for drinking water, putting themselves under danger due to risk of being shelled by the Russians. Russian troops are located dangerously close to the city, so it is impossible to conduct repairs.
BBC has conducted an investigation proving that the destruction of the pipeline was a deliberate act by the Russians. Satellite images of the destroyed pipeline and open source photos of the damage were shown to military experts, who said that the damage was extremely unlikely to come from a stray round and was most likely from the deliberate placement of explosives.
UN experts told BBC that this is a “certainly” a violation of international humanitarian law.
