Russian aggression caused damage to Ukraine's environment in the amount of more than $46 billion, and the state will demand compensation for these losses from the Russian Federation.
This was stated by the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Ruslan Strilets, in a commentary for The Economist, the Ministry of Environment reports on Telegram.
He said that since the beginning of the full-scale war, about 2,300 crimes against the environment have been documented.
It is noted that the volume of additional emissions of greenhouse gases due to the Russian invasion is approximately equal to the annual volume of emissions of Bulgaria. The main causes of these emissions were forest fires and attacks on energy infrastructure facilities. According to the estimates of the State Environmental Inspection, more than 680,000 tons of oil and fuel have already been burned as a result of Russian shelling.
Strilets emphasized that the war also poisoned a large part of the Ukrainian land and damaged a third of the forests. Thus, damage from soil pollution reaches $18 billion, and in many occupied nature reserves and national parks, trees were felled.
He emphasized that despite the war, Ukraine is already implementing projects to restore the environment. In 2022, 180 million new trees were planted as part of the Green Country program, and in September 2022, a new forest seed center was opened just a few kilometers from the border with Belarus.
"By opening a forest seed center on the border with Belarus, we showed them that we are not afraid and that victory will be ours," said Strilets.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, during his speech to the New Zealand parliament, called for support for the Ukrainian peace formula and the start of world consolidation for the sake of countering ecocide.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, eco-inspectors calculated more than 55.7 billion hryvnias in losses from Russian aggression for pollution, clogging of waters and arbitrary use of water resources during 10 months of full-scale war.
