By Galina Korol | 2025-12-18

In occupied Donetsk, tap water has crossed a rare line: It is now officially classified as dangerous to human life, a toxic mix of radiation and heavy metals flowing through household pipes.

Natalia Ananieva, the chief health inspector of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, signed a directive recognizing the region's water distribution system as a source of radiation and heavy metals.

The document states that the water "constitutes a genuine threat of harm to the population's health, including posing the risk of chronic poisoning by heavy metals and an elevated total radiation load."

The decree was shared December 2 on the pro-Russian Telegram channel Mariupolsky Oper.

Since November 27, residents of the occupied territory have been barred from using running water for even the most basic needs -- drinking, cooking, washing dishes and showering. Health inspectors documented extreme excesses of radiation and toxic elements, including lead, mercury and cadmium, in sampled pipes.

The findings amount to official confirmation that a toxic mix of industrial and mining waste, long sealed underground, has entered the water system. Authorities have urged residents to buy consumer dosimeter-radiometers and test water before any household use.

Mine water substitution

Observers say the crisis escalated after occupation authorities began feeding mine water into the water supply. The National Resistance Center previously reported an information campaign promoting mine water as an "alternative" to drinking water.

A representative of the center named Dmytro, who withheld his last name for security reasons, told Kontur that the policy endangers civilians while masking official failure.

"The occupation authorities are trying to create the illusion that the situation is under control . . . but it looks more like a justification of their own inability to meet the population’s basic needs," Dmytro said.

Water scarcity has worsened across occupied areas. Reservoirs have dried up, and the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas canal, the main artery supplying the region, was bombed by Russian forces during the full-scale invasion in 2022.

"The occupiers sometimes bring in water from other regions. People line up to get it when it's distributed, and obviously there isn't enough," Dmytro said. "People often collect water from puddles. Last winter many people melted snow, and they'll probably do the same thing this winter."

Mine water, he stressed, cannot serve as drinking water. It is a technical fluid saturated with salts, heavy metals and industrial chemicals and cannot be fully purified.

Vera Yastrebova, a Ukrainian rights activist and director of the Eastern Human Rights Group, told Kontur that the policy reflects contempt for residents. Born and raised in Debaltseve, she said locals know miners never used such water even to wash their hands.

"What they call 'potable mine water' isn't just filth. It's water that contains poisonous substances,” Yastrebova said.

She warned that heavy metals accumulate in bones and organs, causing anemia, kidney damage and neurological disorders. In children, exposure can delay development and raise cancer risk. Radionuclides worsen those effects.

"This water is deadly for pregnant women, people with chronic illness and children," she said, calling the policy deliberate mass poisoning. Given the collapse of medical care in occupied areas, consuming the water amounts to "a death sentence."

Radiation and collapse risks

Alarm has also focused on the Yunkom mine near Yenakiieve, which sits atop a secret Soviet nuclear experiment conducted in 1979 at a site known as Klivazh. Soviet authorities detonated a nuclear device deep underground to fracture rock layers. Details of the blast remain classified.

The explosion created a melted radioactive capsule sealed in concrete. For decades, Ukraine kept groundwater levels below the site by continuous pumping, even during power shortages in the 1990s. Since the area has been under occupation, independent experts have had no access. Media reports indicate local leaders planned to halt pumping entirely in 2018.

"The water has absolutely already reached the capsule, and it absolutely has spread farther," Mykola Osychenko, a blogger, volunteer and former president of Mariupol TV, told Kontur.

He said contamination can move through soil into crops.

"The water from this mine seeps into the soil and feeds the plants, and then people eat those plants," he said, adding that cancer cases are rising in occupied areas.

Infrastructure failure compounds the risk.

Osychenko said Donetsk residents receive tap water for four hours once every three days, while leaks number in the hundreds during summer. Some residents draw water from heating systems, prompting authorities to add dye to radiator water.

Thousands of blue plastic barrels holding five cubic meters of process water have appeared in cities. Residents line up with canisters despite not knowing the source.

"People justifiably suspect that this is mine water," Osychenko said.

As temperatures drop, the barrels risk freezing shut. Authorities have said officers will defrost spigots with blowtorches.

Clean water has become a commodity. Those unwilling to "drink cancer from the tap" must buy bottled supplies at soaring prices.

"They've made a humanitarian catastrophe into a tool of enrichment," Yastrebova said. "Only affluent people can buy water. Everyone else is doomed."

Kostyantyn Batozsky, a political analyst and director of the Azov Development Agency, told Kontur the crisis shows decades-old structural problems. Even rebuilding waterworks would not be enough, he noted, because expertise has fled.

"In Russia there are no deep mines like in Donbas," Batozsky said. "The inability to . . . manage mine water will cause a local earthquake and the ground will collapse."