in Ukraine, the strategic issue of water supply near the front line

The pumping station overlooks the Seversky Donets River. The pipes run from one building to another, from here the drinking water goes to the towns of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Druzhkivka, a basin of 300,000 pre-war inhabitants. The supply has never let up while some infrastructures found themselves on the front line and still bear the marks of this war in Ukraine. “We manage to produce 30,000 m³ of drinking water per day with the artesian well”, explains Guénadi, an engineer, aware of having a great responsibility on his shoulders. I have 22 pumps, I turn them on to fill the tank, there I turned four of them, and in two days they will supply 6,000 cubic meters.”

>>> War in Ukraine: the titanic challenge of demining

Until September, the river was the dividing line. “Arriving here, testifies Guenadi, we risked falling on saboteurs. So at the beginning, I was always accompanied by three, four soldiers, we could go to work downstairs and they protected us.” The Ukrainians are trying to clear this pumping station booby-trapped by the Russians, near Lyman. The site is strategic, the Russian soldiers ensured their departure, says this engineer. “Look here, there were trip wires, over there, it exploded. Approaching, we could detect here the trap wire, a grenade was hanging there, everything was mined“.

This is the fifth team of deminers who pass. The work is meticulous. “I pass the metal detector, explains Maxime, one of them. If it reacts, I probe with a pick to see if it’s an explosive or a metal shard.” The five deminers concentrate in silence as the fighting continues in the distance. Dmytro the team leader watches them progress.

“After the fall of the USSR, they stored their old Soviet ammunition in the depot. They use it today, often they don’t explode, and if you move them, it’s the detonation!”

Dmytro leader of a demining team

franceinfo

The operation is delicate. “If an artillery shell has not exploded, we put a bread of explosive in it, describes Dmytro. We destroy it by moving away from a good distance. If it’s small caliber, we put ourselves to protect ourselves at 200 meters but if it’s 152 caliber, it takes two kilometers to be safe. “We always tell ourselves that the best thing is to find the explosive devices, before they find us.” A bit of humor and fatalism, in two hours the team progressed slowly and secured a small band without finding any explosive devices this time. The Ukrainian authorities estimate that it will take 30 years to demine the country.