The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of Ukraine warns of a possible invasion of the Russian Armed Forces in the Kherson region in order to solve the problem of water supply to Crimea. About this it is said in a message on the agency’s website.
The SVR recalled that before the annexation of Crimea to Russia, 85 percent of the peninsula’s fresh water needs were provided by the mainland of Ukraine. “Potentially, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation can, under a far-fetched pretext, carry out a march deep into the territory of the Kherson region in order to establish control over the dam of the North Crimean Canal,” the report says.
According to the department, Moscow has turned Crimea into a “continuous military base” with a ready-made infrastructure for storing nuclear weapons. The Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service admits that in the future, Russia’s activity towards Ukraine may transform into a large-scale military operation with the seizure of Ukrainian territories.
In December 2020, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin spoke about the lack of water in the south of the country, including in Crimea. He noted that geological exploration is currently underway on the peninsula. Putin explained that “apparently, there are enough fresh reserves, they just have not been engaged in them before.” Desalination of water will be effective only pointwise so far, he added.