Fish dying, banks exposed: Moldova says Kyiv slashed Dniester discharges

Fish dying, banks exposed: Moldova says Kyiv slashed Dniester discharges

Moldovan ecologist Ilya Trombitsky told an extraordinary session of the Dniester Commission that, in the view of Moldovan specialists, decisions by the Ukrainian authorities caused a sharp reduction in water releases on the Dniester, mass fish deaths and a threat to urban water supplies, TASS reported.

“The meeting took place in a tense atmosphere. The Moldovan side believes that the decision to sharply reduce discharges into the Lower Dniester was taken by Ukraine unilaterally, causing the death of fish and other organisms downstream,” Trombitsky wrote on Facebook.

He said this was already the second case of “incorrect behavior” by the Ukrainian side in 2026. “The first was the delayed notification of pollution in March. All of this is painful to watch, given that we are in the same boat and decisions will have to be coordinated in the future as well — and there is now a crisis that also has to be overcome together.”

President Maia Sandu has urged local authorities to prepare alternative water sources urgently because of the catastrophic shallowing of the Dniester and the Prut, which supply Chisinau and other cities.

Environment Minister Gheorghe Hajder said the day before that Ukraine had stopped supporting water levels below the Novodnestrovsk reservoir. Releases there had been cut roughly threefold — to the levels recorded in the reservoir upstream.

The water has pulled far back from the banks, he said. Fish are dying in the upper reaches and being collected by hand by local residents. Flora and fauna have suffered serious damage.

Prime Minister Vasile Tofan said he had asked the Ukrainian authorities to take urgent measures to save the Dniester so as not, in his words, “to give Russia a pretext to criticize relations between Kyiv and Chisinau.”

On September 26 a 60-day hydrological state of emergency entered into force in Moldova after parliament approved it at an extraordinary sitting at the government’s request because of the shallowing of the Dniester, the country’s main waterway.

Authorities have restricted the use of drinking water and water from open sources for washing streets and sidewalks, filling swimming pools and other non-essential purposes. Industrial enterprises not involved in food production, medicine or public health have been ordered to cut water consumption by at least 20 percent.