On May 28, the Kyiv-Svyatoshynskyi District Court issued a ruling prohibiting the National Military Memorial Cemetery from cutting down the Markhalivskyi forest near Kyiv and conducting burials.
The director of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center (KECC), Volodymyr Boreiko, reported this on Facebook.
The plaintiffs in the case were the NGO “Markhalivka. Support” and two citizens, and the defendant was the National Military Memorial Cemetery.
What did the plaintiffs ask for?
They wanted the court to prohibit the State Institution, Avtospetsyug LLC, as well as any other persons from carrying out construction work on land plots belonging to the Emerald Network within the Gatne territorial community of Fastiv district, Kyiv region:
- before the Berne Convention Committee considers a complaint about Ukraine's violation of the Convention's norms in the design and construction of the cemetery;
- without conducting a strategic environmental assessment;
- without an environmental impact assessment and a transboundary environmental impact assessment.
They also requested a ban on the passage of vehicles, interference with inviolability, deforestation without special permission, burials until all the work envisaged by the project is completed and the completed construction is accepted.
The judge's decision
The court partially granted the plaintiffs' claim.
The ruling, a photo of which was provided by an environmentalist, states that the institution is prohibited
- to carry out deforestation without a special permit on two land plots with the indicated numbers and other plots that are part of the Emerald Network within the Gatne territorial community of Fastiv district of Kyiv region;
- to carry out burials on the two plots with the previously mentioned numbers until all the works envisaged by the project are completed and the completed construction is accepted.
This decision is subject to immediate execution.
Photo: facebook.com/kekz.ua.
Photo: facebook.com/kekz.ua.
“It seems that the dispute between environmentalists and residents of Markhalivka and officials of the Ministry of Veterans has been put to rest. Now it will be impossible to build a military cemetery in the Markhalivka forest. And the officials of the Ministry of Veterans will have to look for a new place for a military cemetery for the fourth time,” said Boreyko.
He also said that the kECC and the NGO “Markhalivka. Support” have filed 5 different lawsuits in different courts against the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Kyiv Regional State Administration, Fastiv District State Administration, and the military cemetery management ”for gross violations of the laws of Ukraine and international treaties.”
As a reminder, on March 18, EcoPolitics reported on the suspicion of environmental activists that the Ministry of Ecology wants to remove the Markhalivskyi forest from the Emerald Network. The activists also caught the Ministry of Environment lying to Europe about logging in this forest.
Later, the KECC accused the Cabinet of Ministers of falsifying the information to exclude the Markhalivskyi forest from the Emerald Network.
This was preceded by three lawsuits won by environmental activists and the public against the Cabinet of Ministers and the Kyiv Regional Military Administration. Here is the chronology:
- On September 25, 2024, the Kyiv District Administrative Court declared illegal the Government of Ukraine's Resolution #225, which allowed massive felling of the Markhalivskyi forest near Kyiv for a military memorial cemetery.
- On January 16 of this year, the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal also confirmed the illegality of the resolution. In early February, we reported that despite the court's ban, logging continued in the Markhalivskyi forest.
- On March 6, EcoPolitics informed that the Kyiv District Administrative Court had declared illegal the order of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration to allocate the territory of the Markhalivskyi Forest for the National Military Memorial Cemetery. This was the third trial that ended in favor of the forest's defenders.
At the end of April, environmental activists warned that the Ministry of Veterans Affairs had drafted a new resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on work in the Markhalivskyi forest, similar to the resolution #225 that was recognized as illegal.
In mid-May, we wrote that the Bureau of the Standing Committee of the Berne Convention criticized the decision of the Ukrainian authorities to provide part of the Emerald Network for the construction of the National Military Memorial Cemetery.
