An environmental disaster in Moldova has Russia’s fingerprints all over it | Paula Erizanu

The Ukraine war on our doorstep is a constant threat. Contaminated drinking water is a dangerous new twist

In the second week of March, the nature vlogger Ilie Cojocari went out to film the arrival of spring on the Nistru (Dniester) river, 70 metres away from his home in Naslavcea, a village bordering Ukraine on the northernmost point of Moldova. But as he approached the river he could smell the stench of oil rising up from the water and see dark spots floating on its surface. Something was wrong.

Two days earlier, Russia had attacked Ukraine's Novodnistrovsk hydropower complex 15 miles upriver. Cojocari had been kept awake all night by the sound of shelling. No one slept in the [Moldovan] district of Ocnia that night," he told me.

Paula Erizanu is a Moldovan journalist and writer based in Chiinu

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.