They say water is life. But what happens when conflict deprives a nation of this essential resource?
For millions of people in Ukraine, access to clean water remains a significant challenge as the country marks four years since the Russian invasion of February 2022. The war has severely damaged the country’s infrastructure, including healthcare facilities, electricity grids, educational institutions and water-collection facilities. The situation is even more challenging in frontline regions, such as Dnipropetrovsk oblast.
The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and the subsequent loss of the Kakhovka Reservoir severely disrupted the centralized water-supply system across the region, leaving more than 200,000 people without immediate access to piped water. In the city of Pokrov, approximately 40,000 people lost access to their primary water source, creating a crisis for the municipal water authority.
The sudden loss of the main water source caused several ruptures in the water-supply network, forcing the authority to reduce pressure in the system to prevent a complete shutdown. This measure left many residents—especially those on the upper floors of residential buildings—without reliable access to water, meaning thousands of residents suddenly had little or no water for drinking, cooking and hygiene. “We live on the fourth floor, so the water wouldn’t reach our apartment,” says Iryna Averianova, a resident of Pokrov. “We had to carry buckets from neighbors on the lower floors or rely on stored water. It was exhausting and uncertain.”
The challenge was enormous for the local water utility, Pokrov Vodokanal. The damaged pipelines exceeded the capacity of the company’s repair team, and without immediate intervention, the entire network risked collapse. “We needed a technical solution that could stabilize the system quickly and ensure that residents would not be left without water,” says Dmytro Drozd, Chief Engineer of Pokrov Vodokanal.
Targeted Solution, Real Difference
To address the urgent water-supply problem, International Medical Corps partnered with Pokrov Vodokanal to implement a targeted solution: installing booster pumps in high-rise buildings to maintain water pressure. Our Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) team installed the pumps, which deliver between 20 and 180 liters of water per minute, at eight key locations in Pokrov—an intervention that significantly relieved the city’s centralized water system by maintaining stable local water pressure while enabling the primary network to operate at a lower, safer pressure level.
The project, which helped 17,280 residents of Pokrov, delivered immediate and tangible results, including:
- reduced hydraulic stress on the city’s water distribution networks;
- fewer breakdowns and emergency repairs;
- lower maintenance costs for the company; and
- reliable water access for residents on upper floors.
“The partnership with International Medical Corps has made a real difference,” Drozd says. “We managed to stabilize the water system, reduce the number of burst pipes and provide better service to the residents. For many families, this means they can finally count on having water every day.”
Mobile Treatment Units Make Clean Water Possible
People in other towns and villages across the oblast face the same daily struggle accessing clean water. For example, Oksana Soiko, an internally displaced person living in the town of Yuriivka, faced a serious problem with poor water quality from both the city’s water system and from local wells, which created health risks for her family and made cooking and maintaining hygiene difficult. “The tap water was so bad that even boiling it didn’t always help,” she says. “We were afraid to give it to the children and often had to buy water, which strained the family budget.”
Oleksandr Lobunko, director of the water utility company in Yuriivka, faced many challenges in ensuring the community’s water supply. Damaged infrastructure and limited resources made it difficult to provide residents with safe water, especially in remote areas with polluted water sources and outdated treatment systems.
After our WASH team conducted a humanitarian needs assessment in the region and identified several communities with minimal access to safe drinking water, they installed mobile water treatment units (MWTUs) to ensure that residents had access to clean water. These MWTUs have so far filtered 565,000 liters of water, benefiting more than 11,300 households. The WASH team continues to visit the MWTUs, monitor needs and identify new areas without access to clean water.
“Working in these communities always comes with challenges—damaged infrastructure, remoteness and a lack of resources,” says Pavlo Ivanov, WASH Assistant with International Medical Corps. “But knowing that clean water can fundamentally improve people’s lives strengthens us. The stories of these families are especially moving. For them, water is not just a resource; it’s a matter of health and survival.”
Replacing Water Pipes to Restore Supply
The pumping station in Mala Dolyna village, in Kryvyi Rih district, had suffered extensive damage from artillery shelling over the course of eight months in 2022, causing a 60% loss of drinking water and requiring urgent repair.
“As a result of the shelling, the water pressure in the taps was weak, and we often had no water at all,” says 43-year-old resident Olena Polozok. Other residents reported that the tap water was contaminated.
In response, International Medical Corps carried out a large-scale replacement of the village’s water network, replacing 3,670 meters of pipeline and bringing clean water to a community reeling from the impact of war.
Polozok is grateful for our support. “We now have peace of mind that we won’t be left without water again.”
“After the work was completed, the number of emergency repairs significantly decreased, water losses were reduced, the water pressure became stable and the quality of drinking water improved greatly,” says Tetiana Fandiushyna, Head of the Production and Technical Department of the Zelenodolsk City Vodokanal.
International Medical Corps implements WASH projects across Ukraine, including rehabilitating and drilling boreholes, undertaking environmental cleanup and waste-management projects, setting up water-storage tanks, purification systems and filtration devices to ensure that public and health facilities have access to clean water, and distributing potable water, hygiene kits, and infection prevention and control kits.
Learn more about our lifesaving work in Ukraine.