Russia building 200-km water pipeline to Donbas, TASS agency says
13/02/2023 01:40
Feb 13 (Reuters) - Specialists from Russia's defence
ministry are building a water pipeline system that would connect
the country's Rostov region bordering Ukraine with the Donbas
region inside Ukraine, the state TASS news agency reported late
on Sunday.
Moscow last year claimed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,
which make up the broader Donbas region in Ukraine, as
"republics" of Russia, in a move condemned by most members of
the United Nations as illegal.
The project, to be completed in the next few months, will
have the capacity to carry 300,000 cubic meters of water per day
and will include two 200-km (124-mile) lines, TASS reported,
citing the defence ministry.
"More than 2,600 specialists ... from the Russian Ministry
of Defence and over 1,000 units of equipment are involved around
the clock in the construction," TASS cited an unnamed defence
representative as saying.
The structure will pass through the territory of the Rostov
region in Russia and into the Donetsk region to the Severskiy
Donets-Donbas Canal, which extends from the Donets River near
the village of Raihorodok to the city of Donetsk.
The water situation in the Donbas region, which has few
resources, has been critical. The region depends on large-scale
pipelines that have been damaged by nearly a year of fighting
and which require electricity that is often interrupted.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Paul Simao)
((lidia.kelly@thomsonreuters.com;))