I am watching a lot of stories here about Russia’s conflicts with Ukraine and haven’t seen much, if any, discussion of the Dnieper-Crimea canal. This is a headline from Bloomberg Opinion in 2021 here:
Crimea’s Water Crisis Is an Impossible Problem for Putin
The Russian-occupied peninsula is thirsty, with reservoirs running low. It’s an unwelcome predicament at a time when pressures on the Kremlin are rising.
There is a canal from the Dnieper River — in central Ukraine — to the Crimea. The Ukraine government cut off the canal seven years ago. Crimea is semi-arid. Much of the industrial capacity depended on the canal for feedstock water. The article last year indicated:
Water isn’t the only struggle, but it’s been the toughest to resolve, especially since winning the return of Crimea remains a priority for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Last month, the Simferopol reservoir was 7% full. Without water from the Dnieper River, Crimea’s arable land has shrunk, from 130,000 hectares in 2013 — already a fraction of Soviet-era levels — to 14,000 in 2017. Thirsty crops like rice have shriveled.
This is a real issue. This water shortage has caused Russia to have to subsidize Crimea to the level of about $1.5 billion US dollars a year. With sanctions in place, this blows a real hole in both the Russia budget and Putin’s ability to ransack the Russian economy. In addition, this has caused significant dissatisfaction with Russian occupation in Crimea as the water taps run dry.
If Putin gets Ukraine, he gets access to push natural gas through AND he solves a huge budget issue and he makes Crimea more functional and less restive. Win-Win-Win. Pushing this now while the EU needs his gas and the US doesn’t want more cuts in oil supply makes a lot of strategic sense.
My question is why did I just hear about this now?