The strategically-important Dnieper hydropower plant in Ukraine is targeted by both Soviet and German troops during WWII. On August 18, 1941, the dam and power plant are dynamited by Soviet troops retreating in front of advancing German forces. The facility is bombed again in 1943 by retreating German troops.
World War II inflicts enormous harm to hydroelectricity systems in the Soviet Union. Over two-thirds of the hydroelectric power stations are lost.
In one of the few verified German tactical uses of biological warfare, German forces pollute a large reservoir in northwestern Bohemia, Czechoslovakia with sewage in May 1945. See also the entry for the Pontine Marshes in 1944.
In June, the Soviet air force attacked the Svir River Dam near Leningrad, then under the control of the Finnish military.
In November 1941, Soviet troops flood the area to the south of the Istra Reservoir near Moscow in an effort to slow the German advance. Just a few weeks later, German troops use the same tactic to create a water barrier to halt advances by the Soviet 16th Army.
Reported threat by Moldavian General Nikolay Matveyev to contaminate the water supply of the Russian 14th Army in Tiraspol, Moldova with mercury.
Hungary abrogates a 1977 treaty with Czechoslovakia concerning construction of the Gab??kovo?Nagymaros project based on environmental concerns. Slovakia continues construction unilaterally, completes the dam, and diverts the Danube into a canal inside the Slovakian republic. Massive public protest and movement of military to the border ensue; issue taken to the International Court of Justice.
In June, hostilities between Moldova and Russia in a short but intense conflict inclujde a rocket-artillery attack on the hydroelectric turbines at the Dub?sari power station on the Nistru (or Dniester) River.
Water processing plants are targeted, among other structures, in an air attack on Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
A water tank car is destroyed by a landmine in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. A teenage girl is also wounded in the explosion.