Rivers of Ukraine
The main rivers of Ukraine
Being in the news there are a lot of things I am learning about Ukraine. I never fully studied the history of the area in college or personally but I am becoming more aware there is a lot of history not was never covered during my school days.
The following list of rivers in Ukraine are important rivers given the current conflict. They are near areas, such as Eastern Ukraine, that are in the middle of the conflict. Those are the last two rivers that are in Donetsk. The Kalmius river also goes right through Mariupol.
This information is available elsewhere but I made this list to include just the main rivers that are near centers of conflict to give us all a little perspective on the geography of Ukraine.
The Dniester River
The Dniester River rises in Ukraine near Drohobych, near the Polish border, and flows toward the Black Sea. Its route follows part of the Ukrainian-Moldovan border before flowing through Moldova for 398 kilometers (247 miles), separating Moldova’s main territory from the separatist region of Transnistria. It then runs across Ukraine to the Black Sea, where its estuary becomes the Dniester Liman.
The Dnieper
The Dnieper is one of the major rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and Belarus and the fourth-longest river in Europe, after the Volga, Danube, and Ural rivers. The total length is approximately 2,200 km (1,400 mi)[2] with a drainage basin of 504,000 square kilometres (195,000 sq mi).
The Sula
The river flows into the Dnieper through the Kremenchuk Reservoir, with which it forms a large delta with numerous islands on which rare kinds of birds live. An important tributary is the Uday, smaller ones being Orzhytsya, Sliporid, Romen and Tern.
The Snov
The length of the river is 253 km. The area of its drainage basin is 8,700 km2. The Snov freezes in November — late January and stays icebound until March — early April. Part of the river forms the Russia–Ukraine border.
According to Ruthenian chronicles, in 1068 on Snov River took place a battle between Duke of Chernihiv and the Duke Sharukan.
The city of Chernihiv is along this river.
Irpin River
The Ukrainian Armed Forces demolished three lower bridges over the river northwest of Kyiv in the first two days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to thwart the Russian assault on the capital. The bridges were located in Demydiv hamlet (near Kyiv Reservoir) and Irpin city On the second day of the attack, Ukrainian troops opened the Kozarovychi dam, flooding the Irpin basin, including residences in Demydiv. The flooding essentially formed a shallow lake that Russian vehicles were unable to cross. The dam was later damaged by Russian bombardment, making it more difficult for the Ukrainians to drain the region when the Russians left.
The ancient confluence of the Irpin and the Dnieper is located beneath the surface of the Kyiv Reservoir, which was created in the mid-1960s by the dam for the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant. To prevent the reservoir from inundating further on the Irpin river basin, a second dam was built directly south of the village of Kozarovychi. The Irpin enters the dam at a depth of 6.5–7 meters below the reservoir’s level when it is raised into the reservoir by electrical pumps.
The Kalmius
The Kalmius is one of two rivers that flow through Mariupol, Ukraine. The Kalchik, which flows into the Kalmius, is the other. Near Mariupol’s Azovstal steel production complex, the Kalmius empties into the Sea of Azov.
Kalmius was the name of a 16th-century Cossack encampment near Mariupol, which ultimately became the city of Mariupol
The Danube
The Danube was formerly a long-standing Roman Empire frontier and is now the world’s longest river, passing through the most countries. The Danube runs southeast from Germany for 2,850 kilometers (1,770 miles), passing through or bordering Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine before emptying into the Black Sea. Its drainage basin encompasses nine other countries. Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, and Bratislava, all capitals of their own nations, are the river’s major cities. The Danube, more than any other river in the world, passes through four capital cities. Bucharest, Sofia, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Sarajevo are five more capital cities in the Danube’s basin.
The Luhan
Luhan or Lugan, also known as Luhanka, is a river in Ukraine that flows into the Don basin and is a right tributary of the Seversky Donets. It stretches over 198 kilometers (123 miles) and drains 3,740 square kilometers (1,440 sq mi). It is named for the city of Luhansk, which is located along the river. This runs through the middle of the Luhansk Oblast in Eastern Ukraine, where a lot of the fighting is currently happening.
The Derkul
The Derkul is a left tributary of the Donets River that flows through Luhansk Oblast in northeast Ukraine, near the Russian border. It has a length of 163 kilometers (101 miles) and a catchment area of 5,180 square kilometers (2,000 sq mi).
On the western slopes of the Central Russian Upland, the Derkul rises north of Markivka in the Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast. It flows primarily south over a mountainous plain in the northeast of the oblast, then turns left after 163 kilometers into the Siverskyi Donets. It forms the Russian Rostov Oblast’s boundary in parts of the lower course. In its lower reaches, the Derkul passes through Bilovodsk, a city-like town.
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