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“There was no water for 17 hours.” “The water disappeared at night during shelling. During the day she never showed up. They brought process water to our yard.” These are stories from people from different areas of Kyiv about the consequences of recent Russian shelling.
This is a translation of an article by BBC Ukrainian Service correspondent Diana Kuryshko. The original can be read here.
After missile and drone attacks in the fall of 2026, in addition to light in their homes, Kiev residents also began to lose water.
Adding to the drama of the situation were statements from representatives of Kievvodokanal that without electricity there would be no water in the city at all, and with non-functioning sewage systems, an epidemiological disaster could occur in Kyiv in three days.
What is the water situation in Kyiv, how vulnerable is the water supply system of the Ukrainian capital and is the city at risk of being flooded with sewage?
Shelling and disappearance of water
“Kyiv, how are you there? Is there light, water, heat?” - “Of all of the above, there is only Kyiv.”
Memes have become a common response of Ukrainians to stress from Russian shelling. On the afternoon of October 11, as a result of another Russian attack in Kyiv, a high-voltage power line was damaged. Problems with water began in four districts of Kyiv, where hundreds of thousands of people live.
Utility workers were able to restore water supply only the next day.
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Shelling, damage to energy facilities, problems with light and disappearance of water - during October-November 2026, one after another happened in Kyiv six times already.
In some places, the water disappeared immediately the next day after repairs - due to new shelling and new damage.
The Russian army delivered one of the most powerful blows a week ago. On November 3, the water disappeared throughout the capital at once. On that day, Russian attacks cut off power to Kyiv's main water supply facilities.
Photo by Telegram Kievvodokanal
“The capital’s water supply directly depends on the constant operation of the energy system, because lifting, transporting and supplying water requires the operation of pumps,” Kievvodokanal told the BBC. They added that the reason for the water outages was not only a power outage, but also power surges.
Water supply and sewer systems are sensitive to such changes. If the voltage in the network changes sharply, the pumps are automatically turned off, otherwise they may fail, explain the company’s specialists.
“There’s a catastrophic shortage of people”
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Running generators at water utility facilities requires time and people.
“You need at least two electricians or two engineers to run a generator at one pumping station. Since the system is complex, it is necessary to run both sewage pumping stations and water pumping stations at the same time. You need at least a few hours,” Alexander Sergienko, director of the Urban Institute research center, told the BBC.
The Kyiv State Administration and Kievvodokanal say that the municipal infrastructure of the capital has very few personnel.
“There is a catastrophic shortage of people in all directions; Kievteploenergo has 1,500 vacancies. This is the situation for every enterprise,” says the acting director. First Deputy Head of Administration Pyotr Panteleev.
According to Sergienko, about 40% of Kievvodokanal employees have left the company in recent years - a significant part was mobilized, while others left in search of better work and higher salaries.
Under all these conditions, the water supply is restored as quickly as possible: somewhere in 12 hours, somewhere in 24, says Panteleev.
“The water supply system of Kyiv consists of hundreds of kilometers of networks that need to be filled with water, pressure must appear, the pressure must meet the standards, a cascade system of pumps must work,” says the official.
According to him, it is also necessary to take into account the fact that the Russians use tactics of repeated attacks, when it is impossible to immediately begin repairs, which further delays the process of water supply.
“Kyiv is a big city. Water supply systems are centralized. This construction principle has remained since Soviet times,” Panteleev said recently at a briefing.
Then he assured that the city authorities are working to ensure that the water supply system has backup power and can operate autonomously.
Will generators help?
If the problem with water in Kyiv is the power supply to the pumps, is it possible to connect them to generators so that the water does not disappear?
Kyiv officials say no. There are generators, but they are not enough.
“The fact is that the power of most of the water supply is such that generators cannot handle it,” explains Pyotr Panteleev.
According to his estimates, Kievvodokanal facilities consume 67 MW, and the total capacity of the company’s generators is 11 MW.
As an exception, he cited the Obolonsky district of Kyiv, where 300 thousand people live and it is possible to provide backup power using generators with a capacity of up to 1 MW. This only takes an hour.
“There are no problems for quickly switching to backup power. Therefore, in the Obolonsky district there is almost always water,” says Panteleev.
For backup water supply to other districts of Kyiv, it is necessary to create a separate energy infrastructure, says the deputy head of the city administration.
In Kyiv, 16 MW diesel power plants have already been built for water supply. The plans are to build another 40 MW. But it won't be soon.
Equipment for this was purchased in different countries. There is still construction and laying of networks ahead.
Complete completion of construction is expected by spring, the head of Kievvodokanal Igor Palamar recently said at a meeting of the temporary investigative commission.
When asked whether Kiev residents will have water in January, he replied: “There will be water in any case... But in what volume it will be, we must proceed from how ready we will be by that moment.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko says he cannot guarantee that at some point the capital will not lose power or experience other problems.
“Until air defense works effectively, we cannot guarantee anything,” the mayor said in an interview with the BBC Ukrainian Service about Kyiv’s preparedness for winter.
What about the sewer?
If the water supply system is so dependent on light and power backup, how might shelling and damage to power infrastructure affect the sewer system? If there is no electricity for a long time, could sewage flood some areas of the city?
“Sewage is a network that requires backup power in a very small volume,” Valery Pundik, chairman of the board of the association of co-owners of apartment buildings in the Solomensky district of Kyiv, told the BBC.
According to him, in those places where power is needed, and there are not many of them, backup sources have been installed, and they are coping.
“Wastewater will be pumped out even in the worst scenarios,” the expert believes.
“All this talk that the sewage system may overflow and spill onto the streets and boulevards is manipulation. People don’t understand how the system works,” says Alexander Sergienko from the Urban Institute.
He describes the Kyiv sewerage system as complex, branched and protected - its length is about 3 thousand kilometers, most of it lies underground, that is, it cannot freeze, the specialist says.
Yard sewer networks are laid below the freezing level of the soil. Wastewater has a positive temperature and is constantly moving - therefore such networks cannot freeze, explain the Kievvodokanal.
Photo by Vitaliy Klitschko
But in the basements of some houses there were cases of sewerage freezing last winter.
Alexander, a mechanic with many years of experience, spent many days and nights in Troyeshchyna in January–February 2026, rescuing heating systems and sewer beds in basements.
“Pipes can freeze locally. Why did this happen? The doors and rooms in the basements were open. The local residents and I insulated the sewer system in many places, and it continued to work,” says the mechanic.
He considers Kyiv's sewer system reliable and does not believe in the possibility of flooding the city with sewage.
“For example, there is a house with 25 floors. There, waste flows through pipes to the lower floors. And the basement has a lot of twists and turns. In order for nothing to get stuck, for the system to work, there must be water pressure all the time so that the water washes everything away,” says Alexander.
According to his forecasts, in Kyiv everything will be difficult with sewerage only if there is no electricity or water for about a month.
Where does wastewater go?
Once sewage is discharged from your home, it ends up in the city sewer system. Then there are collectors of different diameters, they gradually converge to the main sewer collector, which leads to the bank of the Dnieper, says Alexander Sergienko from the Urban Institute.
To pump wastewater on the difficult Kiev terrain, the city has 32-34 pumping stations. In the event of a power outage, all pumping stations, both supplying water and pumping out sewage, are equipped with backup power sources, the expert says.
Sewage passes through underground pipes to the banks of the Dnieper. Six large-diameter pipes are laid along the river bottom, through which wastewater flows to the Bortnitskaya aeration station on the left bank.
What could threaten Bortnitskaya station
Photo copyrightKyivvodokanal
Bortnytsia aeration station is the only wastewater treatment system from Kyiv and part of the cities and towns of the Kyiv region.
All wastewater, as well as industrial wastewater, is treated at the station.
At the station itself there are three treatment areas, each of which can receive 600 thousand cubic meters of wastewater per day. The design capacity of the entire station is 1.8 million cubic meters per day.
According to the station, from 600 thousand to 900 thousand cubic meters of wastewater are received for treatment per day.
“Even the work of one section is enough to treat wastewater. And there are three of them. That is, they insure each other. If one doesn’t work, a second or third one will be turned on,” says Alexander Sergienko.
The BBC asked the mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, whether such an important facility for Kyiv as the Bortnytsia aeration station is sufficiently protected.
Klitschko replied that even second-level protection does not completely protect objects from destruction, from direct hits from missiles or drones.
“It protects the equipment from debris if an explosion was nearby, but there are no guarantees against a direct hit. Therefore, I emphasize once again that the work of air defense is extremely important,” the mayor noted.
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Sewage in the Dnieper?
Does Kyiv have an alternative if the Bortnytsia aeration station stops receiving wastewater altogether?
According to Alexander Sergienko from the Urban Institute, in extreme cases, instead of a station, the wastewater can go directly to the Dnieper.
“I calculated that the Dnieper carries 118 million cubic meters of water through Kyiv every day. Kyiv's discharge per day is about 700 thousand cubic meters. This will be about 0.6% of the water flow that passes by Kyiv. I believe this will not affect water quality. Moreover, next comes the Kanevskoye Reservoir, and its volume is 2.5 billion cubic meters of water,” says the expert.
In his opinion, the risks that Kyiv could be flooded with sewage are negligible, unless suddenly all the substations are knocked out at once and there is generally no light and fuel for a long time.
Alexander, a mechanic who has worked for many years in one of the housing offices in Troyeshchyna, says that in the operation of the sewerage system, a lot depends on the residents themselves.
During his decade of work in the housing office, he got everything from the sewer system - from diapers and pads to rags and bones.
“The main thing is for people to understand that they shouldn’t throw anything into the toilet, because it all needs to be repaired later. That the basements where the networks pass must be kept warm. And if there is water, everything will be fine,” says Alexander.
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