The water utility has replaced around 20% of the pipes damaged by salt water in Mykolaiv

Pipes damaged by salt water, stored at the ‘Mykolaivvodokanal’ facility, August 2024, photo by NikVesti

Technical water with a high salt content has damaged at least 240 kilometres of water supply networks in Mykolaiv. So far, the city has managed to replace around a fifth of them — 49 kilometres of pipes.

This is stated in the response from the municipal utility «Mykolaivvodokanal» to an information request from NikVesti.

The water utility noted that the total length of Mykolaiv’s water supply networks is over 1,225 kilometres.

Almost 319 million hryvnias have been spent on restoring the damaged networks during this time, the water utility reported.

The lion’s share of the funding was provided by international partners — over 132.2 million hryvnias. The water utility allocated a further 79.5 million hryvnias from its own funds. Over 63.8 million hryvnias were allocated from the city budget for the restoration of the networks, and over 43.2 million hryvnias from the state budget.

Response from the municipal utility ‘Mykolaivvodokanal’ to an information request from ‘NikVesti’

Read also the NikVesti article «The state is building new treatment plants, but Mykolaiv insists on modernising them with an EIB loan: what will the city gain from this».

When was the launch of the new water treatment plants promised?

They had promised to launch the new water treatment facilities for the centralised water supply in Mykolaiv as early as January 2026, but the plan was to fully commission them later. They were built using funds saved during the construction of the new water pipeline.

Initially, the plan was to take out an EIB loan to build the new water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv, with Denmark providing the remainder as a grant. The project was expected to take several years to complete and was intended to help supply the city with water meeting European standards.

However, Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Reconstruction, later stated that this idea had been abandoned. It was decided to build the new water treatment facilities using state funds – those saved during the construction of the city’s new water pipeline.

However, Mykolaiv’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych, supports the modernisation of the new water treatment facilities using a loan from the European Investment Bank, but believes that the state should pay for it.

Read also the article by NikVesti «When will Mykolaiv get drinking water from the taps and how much will it cost?».

The water pipeline for Mykolaiv. A brief history

It has been more than three years since Russian troops damaged the water pipeline that supplied Mykolaiv with water. Since then, the city of nearly half a million people has been left without a centralised supply of high-quality water.

All this time, the people of Mykolaiv have been receiving water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of such water and the salt content in it. The salt water has damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city’s water supply network. Borys Dudenko, Director of «Mykolaivvodokanal», stated that it is impossible to replace the entire length of the network damaged by the influx of salt water.

For a long time, representatives of central and local authorities sought ways to restore the drinking water supply in Mykolaiv. A final decision was reached in 2024: a new water pipeline will be laid from Nova Odesa, with funding allocated from the state budget.

The regional reconstruction service even selected contractors to work on a ‘design-build’ basis. These were three companies, each responsible for one of the three sections of work: «Ukrtransmist», «Rostdorstroi» and «Avtostrada». However, both the client and the construction contractor were subsequently changed. The client for the construction of the new water pipeline became the Infrastructure Restoration and Development Service in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and the contractor was the «Avtostrada» group of companies.

The new water pipeline for Mykolaiv was commissioned on 7 October 2025 — it was connected to the water supply network.

As early as November, the head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, Vitalii Kim, stated that drinking water could be available from the taps of Mykolaiv residents within six weeks to a month. That is exactly how long it will take to complete all work on the treatment facilities and receive the official laboratory reports.