Water supply under threat. Is Kyiv prepared for a "water blackout"?

Following yet another massive attack on the energy sector, Kyiv spent nearly the entire day without water, or with pressure in the taps that was barely noticeable. This is not the first such incident this autumn. Will the capital's water supply survive the winter?

Water outages in Kyiv began on the afternoon of November 3, following one of Russia's largest attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during the night and morning of November 3, Russia deployed 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles, and 59 cruise missiles. The strikes damaged facilities within the Kyiv regional energy hub, leading to emergency power cuts across the city and leaving key water supply infrastructure without electricity. By the morning of November 4, water service had been restored to the Left Bank and the Obolon district, while the Right Bank experienced low water pressure for several more hours. Later that afternoon, Kyivvodokanal reported that the capital's water supply had been fully restored and that pressure within the network had "stabilized and meets regulatory standards."

This is not the first such incident this autumn. In late October, after drones struck a critical infrastructure facility, the Left Bank, as well as the Pecherskyi, Solomianskyi, and Holosiivskyi districts, were left without water. Earlier in October, water pressure dropped in the city's central districts due to power outages. Why water supplies disappeared across the city

Russia has generally not targeted water supply facilities themselves.

"In 99 percent of cases in Ukraine, the reason for water outages is a loss of power. Fortunately, the water supply facilities themselves are not yet a direct target for the enemy," explains Oleksandr Kravchenko—head of the Department of Water Supply and Wastewater at the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture and Director of the Institute for Municipal Infrastructure—in an interview with DW.

Water supply facilities are given the highest priority within the energy system, meaning that electricity is routed to pumping stations first. However, according to the expert, this time there was a power outage on both banks of the Dnieper simultaneously.

"We have sufficient system capacity in Kyiv to keep things running on at least one bank," says Kravchenko. When power was lost on both banks, the water drained from the system—as dictated by the laws of physics—and once electricity was restored, the network had to be refilled.

Dmytro Novytskyi, president of the "Ukrvodokanalekolohiya" association and former head of "Kyivvodokanal," highlights the scale of the problem. According to him, the "Kyivvodokanal" infrastructure consumes up to 200 megawatts of electricity. Previously, the bulk of the city's energy was provided by Kyiv’s thermal power plants (TE-4, TE-5, and TE-6), but following Russian strikes, Kyiv has become dependent on the unified national energy grid. "The enemy is attacking energy supply facilities. And that is why water supply and sewage facilities are being shut down," the expert explained to DW.

Why Generators Don't Help

Kyiv has backup power sources, but they are insufficient for the largest facilities. According to Ihor Palamari, the Director General of Kyivvodokanal, about half of the water utility facilities had backup power as of late October. The problem lies in capacity.

"Pumping equipment sometimes reaches a capacity of 1.4 megawatts. No diesel generator can provide power for pumps of this capacity," says Dmytro Novytskyi.

For such facilities, he believes, installations using gas-piston engines or gas turbines—capable of operating in "island mode"—are required. According to experts, the city is working on this, "but these complex issues should have been addressed a bit sooner."

Oleksandr Kravchenko explains that generators with a capacity of several megawatts are custom-made; there are only a few such manufacturers in Europe. Production takes about six months, and delivery adds another month. Fuel and staffing present additional challenges.

"A generator like this must be operated by a qualified specialist who has to reach the site," says Kravchenko. Water utility companies do not have a 100 percent redundancy in personnel, as many specialists have joined the military. By the time a specialist navigates through traffic to reach the facility and starts the generator, the system has already begun losing water.

Energy expert Stanislav Ignatiev points out that the presence of a generator at a facility does not equate to energy independence.

"Ensuring the operation of a single pumping station and guaranteeing a normal water supply for an entire district are completely different engineering tasks," Ignatiev emphasizes. The expert considers high-rise buildings—where water is delivered to the upper floors via booster pumps maintained by property management companies or the buildings themselves—to be particularly vulnerable. Consequently, even when the main water network is operational, water may fail to reach the 15th or 20th floor.

Does the water supply system have a safety margin?

Despite everything, experts are not predicting a collapse of the system.

"There is a certain safety margin; this is evidenced by the fact that, since 2022, there have been almost no long-term service interruptions in Kyiv," says Dmytro Novytskyi.

The system was designed back during the Cold War and, in his view, has proven its stability. Oleksandr Kravchenko adds that the process of shutting down and restarting the network does not, in itself, damage the system.

"Simply put: you disconnect the power, the system stops working; you reconnect it, and after a certain amount of time, it begins operating again," explains Kravchenko.

Voltage fluctuations—which are still occurring—pose a much greater danger to the pumps.

Stanislav Ignatiev sees greater risk in repeated power outages. If the power cuts out several times a day, it causes backflow in the water lines, which can damage pumps located in building basements. He also considers the uneven restoration of electricity supply to be dangerous—for instance, when some pumping stations are operational while others are not. This creates an imbalance in the hydraulic system, increasing the risk of major water mains bursting. Furthermore, he points out that, according to the city’s development plan, more than half of Kyiv’s water supply network was either worn out or in a critical state by the beginning of 2026.

Oleksandr Kravchenko acknowledges that during prolonged power outages, even the best-prepared system cannot guarantee a 24-hour water supply. Therefore, the city is also developing contingency scenarios, such as providing water on an hourly basis or supplying only the lower floors.

"From a system perspective, it can withstand many such restarts. The question is how long the people of Kyiv can endure such a regime," says the expert.

For comparison, in the spring of 2022, after the water supply line from the Dnipro was damaged, Mykolaiv went without water for a month and a half, recalls Dmytro Novytskyi. Later, water unfit for drinking was supplied to the network—a situation that has persisted in the city for several years—while residents collect drinking water at pumping stations, adds Kravchenko.

What Needs to Change

Stanislav Ignatiev is convinced that Kyiv should shift from providing backup power to individual stations toward creating "local energy islands" for the water supply system—an approach already adopted by Kharkiv. This would involve installing gas-piston cogeneration plants at key facilities, implementing industrial-scale energy storage, modernizing pumping equipment, and zoning the network to prioritize hospitals and boiler plants.

Dmytro Novitskyi views the problem in a broader context. Water utility companies have been underfunded for years; since 2022, consumer tariffs have been capped, yet—unlike in other sectors—no compensation has been provided. In his view, the city and the state should cover the costs of fuel and new generators, and the state should also streamline the project approval process. Most importantly, the expert emphasizes, authorities should stop "arguing publicly about who is to blame" and instead sit down together to define and distribute responsibilities.

"And these gas-piston generators would last a long time," Novitskyi asserts.

For now, pumping stations remain the primary backup option for Kyiv residents. There are over 170 such stations in the city, and as of October, 155 of them could be connected to generators. However, Stanislav Ignatiev points out the sheer scale of the challenge: to provide three million people with at least three liters of drinking water each per day, a total of nine million liters is required—which translates to 900 tanker-truck deliveries daily. Therefore, experts advise having a supply of water at home for at least three days, about five liters of drinking water and 12 to 15 liters of technical water per person per day. Kravchenko advises boiling the water from the pumping stations, and after the supply is restored, releasing the first water from the tap.

"We are used to measuring power outages for hours. But the real crisis of a big city begins when the water runs out," warns Ignatiev.