Sienkevych explained why it is necessary to modernise the new treatment facilities for Mykolaiv: They will be able to make even salt water potable

Mayor of Mykolaiv Oleksandr Sienkevych at the Ukraine 2025 Recovery Conference in Rome, photo by NikVesti

Mayor of Mykolaiv Oleksandr Senkevych insists that the new treatment facilities need to be modernised — equipped with modern membrane filters. This will allow even salt water from an alternative source — the Inhulets River — to be purified.

This is discussed in the article NikVesti «The state is building new treatment facilities, and Mykolaiv insists on their modernisation with an EIB loan: what the city will gain from this».

«Our desire is to have a water purification system with membranes. That is, today, after the modernisation of our water supply system, we will not be able to purify salt water to drinking quality. Any water, but not salt water. This means that we will not be able to remove salts until we have a membrane system, i.e. osmotic purification,» explained the mayor.

To put it simply, water passes through a very thin membrane with microscopic pores, and anything larger than these pores — bacteria, viruses, small particles, organic impurities — remains on the surface of the membrane. Such filters are usually installed after mechanical purification to prevent contamination from clogging the membrane.

The mayor added that the modernisation of treatment plants involves not only the installation of membranes, but also the complete replacement of outdated structures, which were built 70 years ago, with new ones.

«In other words, this is a new pressure filter station. And the membrane, as they say, is the 'crown' of water purification,» he added.

This will allow water to be purified to drinking quality even from the Inhulets River, which is an alternative source for the city in case of repeated damage to the water pipeline due to shelling, explained Oleksandr Sienkevych.

«Therefore, our task is to build world-class systems that can purify any water to drinking quality — whether it is water from the Southern Bug, water from the Inhulets, or, God willing, when everything returns to normal and we can get water from the Dnipro,» said the mayor.

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

In particular, it says that new water treatment facilities for centralized water supply in Mykolaiv are promised to be launched as early as January 2026, but they are promised to be fully operational later. They were built with funds saved during the construction of a new water pipeline.

Initially, it was planned to take out an EIB loan for the construction of new water treatment facilities for Mykolaiv, with Denmark providing part of the funding as a grant. The project was expected to take several years to complete and was intended to help provide the city with water of European standards.

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

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

Water pipeline for Mykolaiv. A bit of 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 almost half a million people centralised supply quality water.

All this time, Mykolaiv residents have been receiving water from a backup source, which raises many questions about of such water and its salt content. Salt water has damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city's water supply network. Borys Dudenko, director of Mykolaivvodokanal, said that it is impossible to replace the entire length of the network that was damaged by the supply of salty water.

For a long time, representatives of the state and local authorities sought options for restoring the drinking water supply in Mykolaiv. A final decision was reached in 2024: a new water pipeline will be laid from Nova Odesa, and the money will be allocated from the state budget.

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

The new water pipeline for Mykolaiv was put into operation on 7 October 2025 and connected to the water supply network.