Two Kyiv exhibition owners will stand trial for destroying a nature reserve

Two Kyiv exhibition owners will stand trial for destroying a nature reserve facebook.com/kekz.ua

Anna Velyka

They face up to 12 years in prison

The Desnyansk District Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv submitted an indictment to the court against two former managers of the utility company for intentionally damaging the "Desnyansk Luky" nature reserve.

This was reported by the State Environmental Inspection (DEI) of the Capital District.

We are talking about officials of JSC "Kyivvodokanal". They face criminal liability for illegal instructions for construction, which was carried out on the territory of the nature reserve in the Desnyan district of Kyiv in the fall of 2022.

The investigators established that the head of the utility company gave instructions to the director of the company's division to conclude a contract for the construction of a pumping station on the territory of "Desnyanskiy Luki". At the same time, he did not have any authority to use the lands of this object of the nature reserve fund.

According to the signed contract, from October 2022 to March 2023, construction work was carried out on the territory of the reserve. The contractor's workers removed the fertile soil layer on the 1.38-hectare site. Eco-inspectors estimated the damages caused to the nature reserve at 2.6 million UAH.

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Photo: KECC.

Exhibitors will be tried for intentional damage to the object of the nature reserve fund, which caused serious consequences, as well as for abuse of official position with the aim of obtaining an illegal benefit for another legal entity, which led to serious consequences (Part 2 of Article 28, Part 2 Article 252, Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Punishment for the intentional destruction or damage of the objects of the nature reserve fund involves imprisonment for a period of 5 to 12 years.

About the arbitrarily arranged recreation area on the banks of the Desenka River in the territory of the "Desnyanski Luky" nature reserve Ecopolitics wrote in October 2023. Then the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office reported to two residents of Desnyan district about suspicion of arbitrary occupation of a plot of land.

In January of this year, we informed that The Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center discovered illegal construction on the territory of this PZF facility as early as March 2023, which was immediately reported to the law enforcement authorities.

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