The Zaporizhzhia region is one of the leaders in paying environmental taxes in Ukraine. Throughout 2025, its businesses contributed UAH 392 million to the budget for environmental pollution. Only the Dnipropetrovsk region, the city of Kyiv, and the Ivano-Frankivsk region provided more revenue.
Zaporizhzhia is a region with intensive industry that produces a lot of emissions. At the same time, the region is under constant attack by the enemy, and part of it is occupied by Russians. But despite this, local councils are using environmental tax funds not for the environment or even for defense, which would be understandable.
EcoPolitic analyzed the available information about environmental measures planned in the region. Among them, there were purely economic ones.
In just two months of 2026, polluters in the Zaporizhzhia region paid UAH 106.5 million in environmental taxes to the budget. According to the regional branch of the State Tax Service, this is UAH 21.4 million more than last year. Of this amount, UAH 83.7 million went to the state budget, and UAH 22.8 million was allocated to local budgets.
These funds go to environmental protection funds in the budgets of the region, cities, and rural communities. They can be directed solely to environmental measures. However, their list is still determined by morally outdated documents, which allows communities to see the environmental component wherever it is convenient for them and necessary to close budget gaps.
Millions for greening
For example, in 2025, the list of initiatives of the Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration, which allocated the special fund's balance from 2024, included the following:
- almost UAH 2.2 million – greening of the National Reserve "Khortytsia";
- over UAH 8.9 million – greening cities and towns of the region (undistributed balance).
According to the regional authorities, these initiatives are “aimed at protecting and rationally using natural resources.” Regarding the first initiative, we will refrain from commenting, since although the reserve is considered historical and cultural rather than natural, restoring the ecosystem there does make sense. However, concerning the settlements, we again see improvement and beautification issues being resolved using environmental funds.
Emission reduction in Zaporizhzhia
In spring 2025, the city of Zaporizhzhia approved the Environmental Protection Program for the phased reduction of pollutant emissions by business entities.
Funding for all initiatives related to industrial enterprises is assigned to the enterprises themselves, with the possibility of attracting loan funds, investments, or grants. This section concerns eco-modernization of specific installations at specific assets.
Meanwhile, other pollution control measures will be funded by the budget. Some of them appear to be included in the environmental program simply “for the sake of numbers.”
Under the pretext of reducing the negative impact of emissions from mobile sources in Zaporizhzhia, plans are being made to organize bypass roads and replace small “marshrutka” minibuses with larger, higher-capacity buses. To combat dust, the environmental program included plans to purchase street vacuum cleaners and sweeping machines. Rather unexpectedly, the cleaning of roads, sidewalks, and residential areas is considered part of Zaporizhzhia’s environmental program. Indeed, the city is heavily polluted with dust, but does that really make cleaning an environmental activity?
The environmental program also provides for the improvement and maintenance of the air monitoring system, conducting air quality research, and implementing environmental measures.
For obvious reasons, information about the region’s environmental programs is extremely limited. Within the available data, it was anticipated that some of the listed environmental measures would be questionable. However, understanding the region’s specifics, we expected to see the use of environmental tax for wartime needs, as even regions far from the front, like Ivano-Frankivsk region, have done.
Still, millions allocated for greening and dust removal genuinely surprised us. Despite the fact that enterprises pay colossal amounts in environmental tax, these funds are not used to reduce pollution but rather to mask it.
EcoPolitic recently published a comprehensive article explaining why the environmental tax does not work and what kind of reform is needed to correct the situation.
Previously, we examined environmental programs in Poltava, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Cherkasy and other regions.
