Instead of creating new recreation areas, Kyiv city authorities mostly formalize existing green areas and create the illusion of growth on paper, while the total area of green space in the city is shrinking due to development.
These were the results of an investigation published by the KyivVlada publication.
The journalists sought to find out why officials and activists demonstrate diametrically opposite figures and dynamics regarding the area of parks in the capital. In January, the director of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center, Volodymyr Boreiko, said that over the past 10 years, the total area of Kyiv's parks had decreased by 800 hectares. In response, Oleksandr Voznyi, then Director of the Department of Environmental Protection and Climate Change Adaptation of the Kyiv City State Administration, cited a completely different figure. According to him, from 2014 to 2024 inclusive, the area of the capital's parks increased by 637 hectares.
Official data from the KCSA
According to the information received by journalists at the request of the Kyiv City Administration, there were 125 parks in Kyiv at the beginning of 2025. Their total area was more than 3,373.66 hectares. 10 years ago, at the beginning of 2015, there were 111 parks, covering an area of 2,736.18 hectares. Therefore, formally, we can see an increase in the area of parks by 637.48 hectares, and their number by 14.
But to what extent does this data correspond to reality? KyivVlada reminded us that the balance sheet of district communal enterprises for the maintenance of green spaces, in addition to parks, also includes squares and “other objects of green economy improvement,” including urban forests, recreation areas, coastal plantations, and adjacent territories.
So, according to official data, over the past 10 years, the area of parks has increased by 637.48 hectares and the area of squares by 50.8 hectares, while the area of these “other objects” has decreased by 653.22 hectares.
“In other words, the total area of all green spaces in the capital, including parks and squares, has increased by only 35 hectares since the beginning of 2015 (equivalent to the area of the Kyiv Zoo or about a quarter of the National Botanical Garden named after M. Hryshko),” the journalists summarized.
They also created a very visual infographic that demonstrates the real state of affairs with Kyiv's greenery:
Source: kyivvlada.com.ua.
What activists say
Volodymyr Boreyko, an environmentalist and active defender of the capital's green areas, said in a commentary to the publication that almost all of the new parks listed by the department were formally created on the site of existing natural green areas.
"The so-called new parks are a fraud, because we have no new parks. The way Klitschko opens parks is to take a green area and call it a park. For example, the Natalka Park was a nice green area with floodplain poplar forests, some of which were destroyed, fir trees and flower beds were added, benches were put in and it was called a park. Similarly, Obolonsky Island, where benches and toilets were installed and tiles were laid. But this is a destroyed natural green area where the Red Book irises grew," the expert is indignant.
The only exception, according to Boreyko, is Poznyaki Park near the subway station of the same name. This is really a planted, artificially created park.
Hlib Antonenko, a Kyiv activist and head of the NGO Park Pryrechna, also considers the rapid increase in parks according to the KCSA department to be declarative.
"There are a lot of green areas in Kyiv that have actually existed for decades, but for which technical documentation for the land has not been developed and approved. It is the creation of such documentation that increases the area of existing parks on paper. This was the case with the Natalka Park at one time, and this is what happened to the territory of the Pryrechna Park in 2025," the activist explained.
Vadym Zhezherin, chairman of the board of the Kyiv City Organization of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine, also agrees that the optimistic data from the KCSA is purely formal.
"Without analysis, it is clear that the administration issues information that is formal but not real. They invest some money in landscaping, but in reality, there is much less greenery per capita. You can feel it. Especially in residential areas, it's a disaster," the architect emphasized.
The journalists analyzed satellite images of parks and other green areas of the capital and concluded that some of the new parks were indeed built on the site of existing natural areas. As examples, they named the parks near Lebedyne and Sribnyi Kil lakes, as well as Jordanske and Kyrylivske lakes.
KyivVlada also stated that most of the lost green areas were mostly used for construction of residential complexes.
Recently, EcoPolitic has already cited figures from the head of the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor's Office of the Prosecutor General's Office, Borys Indychenko, who claims that the area of parks, squares and other green recreational areas in the capital has decreased by more than 700 hectares over the past 10 years.
