Perhaps, the true reason for Russia-Ukraine tensions.
https://twitter.com/AndrewKramerNYT/status/1391479091711381507Where Ukrainians Are Preparing for All-Out War With RussiaA dried-up canal running from Ukraine into Russian-occupied Crimea is emerging as one of Europe’s main flash points.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.
Blocking 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.
Ukrainian officials are unmoved. 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. 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.
“No water for Crimea until de-occupation,” said Anton Korynevych, the representative for Crimea of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, spelling out government policy. “Period.”
Mr. Zelensky checked Ukrainian troops’ readiness in a visit to the trenches at the Crimean border last month. Even though Russian troops are withdrawing, he warned, Ukraine must be prepared for them to return at “any moment.” In Washington, senior American officials believe that an incursion to secure the water supply remains a real threat, though the costs and difficulty of such a move appear to have been sufficient to dissuade Russia for now.
