MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Kherson region will lose much of its vegetable harvest due to a shortage of water in the North Crimean and Kakhovka canals, Russian-installed governor Vladimir Saldo said on Thursday, according to the TASS news agency.
The Kakhovka dam, a huge Soviet-era dam on the Dnipro River, which separates Russian and Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine, was breached in June.
The breach not only unleashed flood waters across a swathe of southern Ukraine, but also virtually emptied a vast reservoir that had been a key regional source of fresh water for households and agriculture.
Saldo appeared to be referring to the larger part of the Kherson region south of the Dnipro, which Russia controls. The North Crimean Canal and the Kakhovka Canal, which branches off it, run south and southeast from the mouth of the reservoir.
He said both canals were now “without water”.
“It is precisely because of this that the harvest will be lost,” TASS cited him as telling the Rossiya 24 state television news channel.
He said the water shortage would primarily affect the yield of vegetable crops.
Andrey Alekseyenko, chairman of the regional government, earlier said almost 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres) of irrigated farmland growing water-intensive crops such as corn, soybeans and rice had been left without water, according to TASS.
The Kherson region is famous in Ukraine for its fruit and vegetables. In 2021, Ukraine’s agriculture ministry reported that it had also produced over 3.3 million metric tons of grains.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Kevin Liffey; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mike Harrison)
