Basement intended for use as a shelter flooded by sewage in Mykolaiv

Shelter in one of Mykolaiv's schools. Archive photo NikVesti for illustration

Residents of the building at 69 Zakhysnykiv Mykolaiva Street (Dekabrystiv) in Mykolaiv complained about the critical condition of the basement, which they would like to use as a shelter. According to the residents, the basement has a leaking sewer system and a strong odour, and their appeals to the management company Mykolaivdomservice have gone unanswered.

The residents filed a complaint through the Contact Centre at the Mykolaiv City Council. A local resident reported that due to flooding, the items in the basement were wet and it was impossible to stay there.

«69 Zakhysnykiv Mykolaieva Street, shelter, sewage leak. Just imagine the smell, things that could be used to sit on, put children to sleep, if there is an alarm at night, everything is wet, the housing and communal services department is doing nothing, Mykolaivdomservice,» the appeal says.

The state of the basement. Photo from the Contact Centre at the Mykolaiv City Council

The condition of the basement. Photo from the Contact Centre at the Mykolaiv City Council

The state of the basement. Photo from the Contact Centre at the Mykolaiv City Council

According to residents, they need shelter because the courtyard of the building has been shelled several times.

«The pipes, walls and floor need to be repaired and put in order. Please help, we really need this shelter, the courtyard has been hit four times,» the residents appealed to the authorities.

As it turned out, this basement is not marked at all on the public interactive map of shelters in the city. The nearest functioning shelter is located 117 metres away on Oleksii Vadaturskyi Street (Falieievska Street).

Screenshot from the public interactive map of the location of bomb shelters and shelters in the city of Mykolaiv

In response to an information request from NikVesti, the executive committee reported that this 97.5 m² basement had been transferred from the balance sheet of Mykolaivoblteploenergo to the economic management of the municipal enterprise «Zakhyst».

According to the city council, on 29 January 2026, there was a blockage in the city sewer system in the basement, which was eliminated by employees of the municipal enterprise Mykolaivvodokanal. During the inspection, experts determined that it would be impossible to equip the shelter without partially replacing the water supply and drainage pipes.

The city council noted that the issue of financing the replacement of pipes for the second quarter of the year is currently being considered.

«The possibility of financing measures to repair and equip the basement for further use as a shelter for the population is being considered. The replacement of the pipeline network in the basement of the residential building and the start of repair work are planned to begin in the second quarter of 2026,» the document says.

As a reminder, there are currently 461 shelters in Mykolaiv, but a survey of NikVesti readers showed that part of the city's population does not use them.

Earlier it was reported that Mykolaiv lacks more than two thousand shelters, and this problem is most acute in the neighbourhoods of Lisky, Namyv and Pivnichnyi. It is there that the city authorities plan to install mobile shelters, as there are virtually no permanent shelters in these areas.

See also the article by NikVesti: «White spots on the security map: how the situation with shelters in Mykolaiv has changed in almost four years of war».

At the same time, the government has decided to allocate 231 million hryvnias in subsidies to complete the construction of school shelters in 11 regions, including Mykolaiv.