«Water Will Be Here Tomorrow». NikVesti is releasing a documentary to mark the anniversary of the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station

There Will Be Water Tomorrow. A documentary by NikVesti

To mark the third anniversary of the bombing of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station, NikVesti is releasing the documentary «Water Will Be Here Tomorrow» by journalist Lesia Bakalets.

The film tells the story of the village of Afanasiivka in the Mykolaiv region, which endured an eight-month occupation, followed by the flooding and contamination of drinking water sources following the bombing of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station by Russian troops on 6 June 2023.

The village of Afanasiivka in the Snihurivka district is surrounded on all sides by lakes and a river, so water is of great importance to its residents. In the summer of 2023, all the boreholes and wells were contaminated, so volunteers had to bring water to the villagers for a while.

«On the one hand, it’s a massive natural disaster that destroyed one in five homes. And you know how houses are built down here in the south: they’re all made of straw and clay, and they take a very long time to dry out. Water means grief, misfortune and destruction. The entire wave that came from the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station reached Afanasiivka in its most polluted state; it was literally coffins, oil slicks and all sorts of waste. And every possible water source in this village, including the wells, was contaminated. So contaminated that you can’t even use this water for watering, you can’t give it to the cows. And so, at the same time, water becomes the greatest luxury. The third aspect is that they were also under occupation for eight months. And despite all this, my main character doesn’t lose her optimism; she adores orchids, and you’ll see how she saved them there. She wants to rebuild the houses, and the whole village simply lives in the hope that water will one day return to them,» said Lesia Bakalets during a screening of the film in Mykolaiv last year.

As Ivan Kukhta, head of the Snihurivka Town Military Administration, told NikVesti, a well has already been drilled in Afanasiivka at the expense of the American organisation United Help Ukraine, and purification equipment is currently being installed. In effect, the residents of Afanasiivka will receive drinking water, which was previously unavailable there.

The film was made for the online media outlet NikVesti as part of the «Documentary Lab» project by the Media Development Foundation, with financial support from the Czech Embassy in Ukraine.

The public screening of Lesia Bakalets’ documentary «Water Will Be Here Tomorrow» began in Lviv, after which the film was presented at the Ukrainian festival Chysto on 1 August 2025.It was then screened in Mykolaiv — the region where this story originated — and in October 2025, the film was shown at the CineEco Seia eco-film festival in Portugal. The film has also been presented in the US to a charity that helps people gain access to water, and later this year it is due to be screened at the World Water Film Festival in the US. In March 2026, «Water Will Be Here Tomorrow» was screened in Oslo, Norway, in partnership with Caritas Norge, where the story of Afanasiivka was presented in the context of the humanitarian crisis, water security and the long-term consequences of war for critical infrastructure; screenings are also being prepared in Lithuania — in collaboration with Caritas.

Lesia Bakalets, director of the film «Water Will Be Here Tomorrow» about the flooded village of Afanasiivka, photo by NikVesti

As a reminder, Lesia Bakalets is originally from Mykolaiv. From 2004 to 2010, she studied at the Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and subsequently worked for media outlets such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Channel 5 and 1+1 in Kyiv. From 2017 to 2023, she worked for Voice of America in Washington. In 2023, she moved to Warsaw. As a native of Mykolaiv, she has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by local residents, as her family has been living for three years in conditions similar to those in Afanasiivka.

See also the report «Afanasiivka. What has changed in the year since the village in the Mykolaiv region was flooded?».