Svitlana Hrynchuk, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, officially introduced the new head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management (SAUEZM), Hryhoriy Ishchenko, to the staff.
The relevant message was posted on social media and on the agency's website.
She described the newly appointed head as a professional with many years of experience in nuclear safety who had undergone special training at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Ministry of Environment reported that Hryhoriy Ishchenko also has extensive experience in radioactive waste management.
Photo: mepr.gov.ua.
There is very little information about the new head of DAZV on the Internet. Here is what EcoPolitics managed to find:
- according to the data of declarations , Hryhoriy Hryhorovych Ishchenko until recently worked at SE NAEK "Energoatom";
- in 2003-2004 he hugged the position of general director of the State Specialized Enterprise "Radon Association";
- in 2021 worked deputy director for radiation safety at "Energoatom".
We remind you that violations of environmental legislation in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone are systematic. And the meager fines issued by environmental inspectors are not able to stop the offenders. For example, a very illustrative case was when, during a raid on October 11, environmental inspectors of the Capital District caught employees of the state specialized enterprise “Northern Forest” who were exporting wood from the territory of the Chornobyl Radiation and Environmental Reserve without documents. As a result, they issued two fines of 510 (!!!) UAH each.
The enormous corruption background of the Northern Forest suggests that the practice of exporting timber without documents is a daily and routine practice at the state enterprise, and that environmental inspectors only occasionally witness it.
In February, EcoPolitics reported that the environmental prosecutor's office was investigating the felling of 200 centuries-old oaks in the Chornobyl reserve, which may involve officials from the state-owned enterprise “Northern Forest”.
In March, we told you that during the first unscheduled inspection of the Chornobyl zone, a raid team found more than 500 stumps of cut trees and plowing of land for agricultural work in the radiation and ecological biosphere reserve.
In April, EcoPolitics informed about the discovery of 12 illegal logging sites in the Chornobyl zone. And in June, we talked about the illegal demolition of centuries-old trees worth UAH 120 million under the guise of “sanitary felling” in the area of responsibility of the SAUEZM.
