Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Grechanyk said that Ukraine has appealed to the UN, EU members and the Council of Europe regarding the creation of a specialized international tribunal to consider the crimes of the Russian Federation.
At the Climate Summit COP27, Ukraine demonstrates to the international community what Russian aggression has done to the environment, and emphasizes the scale of the consequences, the Ministry of Environment reports on Facebook.
Grechanyk said this during hearings at the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management.
"For more than 8 years and 8 months, Russia has been endangering the environmental safety not only of Ukraine, but also of most of Europe. The aggressor country is deliberately destroying our hydrotechnical infrastructure, oil depots, thermal power plants and other energy facilities, which can make the environment unfit for life for tens of years", emphasized Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Yevgeny Fedorenko.
The report cited some examples of the destructive impact of the war on Ukraine's environment:
- due to targeted strikes on the dam of the Karachuniv Reservoir on the Ingulets River in Kryvyi Rih, a large amount of waste and sewage was washed into the river waters;
- more than 499,000 tons of toxic substances were released into the atmosphere only due to fires at oil depots;
- Currently, hundreds of thousands of tons of demolition waste are polluting Ukrainian lands. More than 12,000 high-rise buildings, more than 100,000 private estates and more than 500 industrial enterprises were destroyed or damaged.
"Given the existing chemical pollution of soil and water, it is important to take care of an effective environmental monitoring system after the war. This will help record the true extent of environmental damage and prevent further deterioration, and take steps to restore ecosystems to a safe state for both humans and wildlife. For this, the ministry works 24/7 in the conditions of war," Fedorenko stressed.
The message noted that the Ministry of Environment is reformatting the work of international technical assistance projects in wartime in order to effectively use the help of international partners. And also develops the necessary regulatory and legal framework:
- The government has already approved the procedure for disposal of demolition waste;
- draft law No. 8037 "On chemical safety and management of chemical products" was approved in the first reading;
- the framework Law "On Waste Management" was adopted;
- preparations are being made for the ratification of the Minamata Convention on mercury;
- The government approved the plan of measures for the implementation of the Concept of increasing the level of chemical safety until 2026;
- the order of interaction and cooperation between the prosecutor's office, law enforcement agencies and the State Inspectorate regarding the investigation of crimes against the environment was approved.
Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Olena Kramarenko emphasized that it was the war that posed new challenges to Ukraine and forced to look for new approaches in ensuring the responsibility of the aggressor country for environmental damage.
"Environment has made every effort to reflect these approaches in the methods of determining damage and losses as a result of armed aggression and hostilities. Currently, 6 methods for calculating the amount of damage to environmental components have been approved, one more is being adjusted," she said.
According to her, the methods take into account the ecosystem approach, that is, they will allow to objectively take into account losses not only of ecosystems, but also of ecosystem services.
The Ministry of Environment cooperated with the US State Department, NASA, and the US Environmental Protection Agency on their development.
The message noted that at COP27, Ukraine will initiate the process of discussing unified approaches to assessing damage to the environment and climate from military actions. Dozens of countries have already supported such an initiative. Therefore, Ukraine has a chance to change global approaches that can be applied by the international community.
"Everyone can view all the reliable information about the damage caused to the environment of Ukraine as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation on the website or in the mobile application "EkoZagroza", emphasized the message.
As EcoPolitic reported before, Yevhenii Fedorenko, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, stated that during the 8 months of the full-scale invasion, Russia had harmed Ukraine's environment more than €37 billion in losses.
