The article provides theoretical and practical arguments regarding the possibility of predicting local and strong distant earthquakes around the world, based on the detection of anomalous behavior of the groundwater physical properties in the Earth's tectonically stressed zones before local and strong earthquakes. The authors suggest that many strong and major events can be predicted at least a few months before they occur. The theoretical positions of the authors are confirmed by the successful prediction of an earthquake that occurred in Ukraine on January 21, 2022.