Sappers and archaeologists led the way, said the canal’s resident historian, Volodymyr Sklyarov they cleared World War II ordnance and the occasional trove of ancient Scythian treasure. “Period.”Ībout 10,000 young people from across the Soviet Union helped build the canal, a marvel of engineering that drops about an inch in elevation every mile for the first 129 miles so that gravity keeps the water flowing. “No water for Crimea until de-occupation,” said Anton Korynevych, the representative for Crimea of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, spelling out government policy. The Kremlin says that Crimea willfully joined Russia in 2014, aided by Russian troops, after the pro-Western revolution in Kyiv nearly every government in the world still considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine. Under the Geneva Convention, they say, it is Russia’s responsibility as an occupying power to provide water, and they add that sufficient underground aquifers exist to provide for the population. In Crimea, after a major drought last year, the water shortage has become so dire that Russian officials have started to evoke the specter of mass death - though warnings of humanitarian catastrophe are contradicted by Russian officials’ assurances that even tourists to Crimea will not go thirsty.īlocking the canal, a senior official in the de facto Russian government controlling Crimea said in February, represented “an attempt to destroy us as a people, an attempt at mass murder and genocide.” Moscow has pledged to spend $670 million to address the water shortage, but this year reservoirs have been running dry and water is being rationed. Putin annexed it in 2014 and Ukraine, in a secret operation, hastily built the dam to block the canal’s flow. A prime reason is the 250-mile-long Northern Crimean Canal linking Crimea with Ukraine’s Dnieper River: the main source of water for Crimea until Mr. Putin of Russia ordered some of the troops he had massed on Ukraine’s border this spring to pull back last month, but as many as 80,000 remain within striking distance, and many Ukrainians believe that the threat of a new invasion remains. “Putin could send his troops in here at any moment,” said Olha Lomonosova, 38, explaining why she had packed a getaway suitcase this year at her home upstream. But some Ukrainians fear it could be the thing that ignites an all-out war with Russia.
This quiet spot just north of Crimea may not look like much. A duck slides into a wall of reeds below the bare, concrete banks.
Beyond it, swans drift in the trickle of water that remains. KALANCHAK, Ukraine - A makeshift dam of sand and clay, covered with patches of grass, blocks one of Europe’s great canals.
0 kommentar(er)
