The territory of the Donetsk water filtration station has been cleared of mines, meaning access to the key installation, which provides water to the cities of Avdiyivka and Yasynuvata, was finally restored on March 2.
Ukraine’s ministry for the occupied territories and internally displaced persons said an Emergency Situations Service demining team had successfully cleared the Donetsk water filtration station of land mines.
After six days of trying to obtain security assurances from Russian side, OSCE observers and local repair brigades finally regained access to the station, which is situated south of the occupied city of Yasynuvata, in the no man’s land between the lines of Ukraine’s armed forces and Russian-backed forces.
Emergency crews now intend to make safe a stockpile of 2.5 tons of chlorine which was at risk of leaking, the ministry also reported.
The mine clearing station was carried out amid heavy clashes all along the Donbas frontline, with fighting particularly intense near Avdiyivka, according to Ukrainian military spokesperson Andriy Lysenko.
“Hostilities near Avdiyivka are taking place nearly day and night again,” Lysenko said. “The enemy is firing from two principal directions – from Yasynuvata in the east and Spartak in the south, using mortars, cannons and tanks. The number of shells fired is into the hundreds.”
According to Ukraine’s military press center, residential areas of Avdiyivka were shelled again on the afternoon of March 2, with five-storey apartment buildings on Gagarina Street reported to have been damaged by tank fire for the second time in recent weeks. In all, as many as eight buildings were hit on March 2, including a kindergarten. No casualties have been reported.
It will take at two or three days to repair the Donetsk water filtering station, according to officials in the area.
Caught in the crossfire between the opposing forces in the Donbas, the station had continued operating, despite there being the heaviest period shelling in the area since 2014. Because of its importance to the region, the plant was included in the Minsk agreements as a vital civil infrastructure object.
But amid ongoing artillery and mortar shelling, it underwent emergency shutdown on Feb. 24.
On that day the Avdiyivka area had seen the worst clashes in weeks. Social network users reported heavy artillery rounds being fired by Russian-backed forces from various parts of the occupied city of Donetsk. As many as eight 82-millimeter mortar shells hit the station that day, damaging its chlorine pipeline and storage reservoirs, as well as the water filtering equipment.
Due to the danger, the station’s personnel were evacuated and water supplies to parts of Donetsk, Yasynuvata and the whole of Avdiyivka were stopped.
Avdiyivka, which is totally dependent on supplies from the station, was confronted with running out of fresh water – together with being cut off electricity – for the third time in the last month. Drinking water had to be delivered to the city’s houses, and by Feb. 28 there was only enough water for two more days, according to Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Zhebrivsky.
The damage to the Donetsk water filtering station also raised concerns of chemical pollution of the region due to leaks of poisonous chlorine gas. Moreover, other filtering units attached to the South Donbas water pipeline were damaged by shelling on Feb. 26, putting as many as two million people in the region, including residents of the cities of Dobropillya, Volnovakha, Pokrovsk, and Mariupol, at risk of losing their water supplies.
Considering the critical importance of the plant, the Triliteral contact group, consisting of representatives of the Ukrainian, Russian and separatist forces, agreed to an Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe initiative to set up surveillance cameras near the Donetsk water station to carry out 24-hour observation of the area. However, the Russian part of the Joint Coordination and Control Center, a group that liaises between the warring sides, granted security guarantees to OSCE observers, mine clearers and repair crews to access the station only on the morning of March 2.
Meanwhile, amid fierce fighting in the region, another three Ukrainian soldiers have been reported killed – two on March 1, and one on March 2.
