Throughout December and January, many local residents in Toretsk had no running water and central heating as a result of damage to the water pipeline running to their town from the separatist-controlled, self-declared People’s Republic of Donetsk. Thus the local residents depend on improvised coping strategies: they buy drinking water at the local store, hot water is provided by emergency-aid water trucks sent by UNICEF, and many families set up small coal- or wood-heated cast-iron stoves.

Sophie Lambroschini, associate researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin analyse the consequences of the infrastructure collapse in Donbas, both for individual residents of the region and for Ukraine as a whole: 

“One of the long-term consequences of the conflict is attrition of infrastructure. And the collapse of infrastructure not only complicates economic rebuilding, but also engenders further state weakness in a geopolitically fragile region”.

Read more on the Focus Ukraine website in English. 

Previously, Sophie has already written about the destruction of the water infrastructure in the Donbas. The text of the publication is available in German.