The lack of a clean water supply is worsening the humanitarian situation on the Crimean peninsula. Russia is increasingly blaming Ukraine for the problem as part of its overall attempts to lift sanctions.

There are rising concerns that drinking water in the Pernik area has been deviated for industrial use by a local factory and a private hydropower plant with the government’s blessings.

A combination of rapid population growth and climate change, which some believe may lead to the vanishing of much of the region’s river-feeding glaciers within the next half century, is going to pose the greatest challenge Central Asia has ever confronted in its history.