Environmental Damage Caused by War Has Exceeded Trillion Hryvnas: Russia Will Be Forced to Pay
If destroyed infrastructure can be rebuilt in years, nature will have to recover after the full-scale Russian invasion for decades.
Russia will be forced to pay environmental damages caused the war, which have already exceeded one trillion hryvnia, TSN report. Environmental damage caused by the Russian missile strike at the oil depot in Krivoy Rog District of Dnipro Region are estimate to be UAH 117 mission. In September, Russian Kh-101 missile caused a large fire at the oil depot, which took almost 24 hours to extinguish, resulting in toxic emissions from the thousands of tons of burning petroleum products being released into the atmosphere.
"Two thousand-cubic-meter-volume tanks were damaged, and four more similar tanks were destroyed. The estimated amount of damages has reached 117 million hryvnas. Extra damages caused to environment as a result of petroleum leakage and soil contamination were estimated as to 7 million hryvnas according to one methodology or 5 million hryvnas according to other guidelines", Serhii Solohub, the Head of Predniprovskyi District Environmental Inspectorate, says. After Russian Kh-101 missile hit an oil depot, the flames and thick black pile smoke were seen in the radius of many kilometers.
Residents of Kryvyi Rih were advised to shut the windows and avoid going outdoors It took almost a day for the first responders to extinguish the raging fire. Over 100 million hryvnas of environmental damages are the result of only one particular missile strike. In general, the environmental damages suffered by Kryvyi Rih District during the last six months of continuous missile strikes and artillery attacks have already exceeded billions of hryvnias. It is still impossible to accurately estimate these numbers, since some areas are still heavily contaminated with landmines.
"In June and July, we faced multiple massive fires, including burning crop fields, burning steppes and burning woods. The State Emergencies Service’s fire teams were busy every day trying to contain the fire at the dozens of hectares of burning land. This also affected the water supply and the river bed resulting in the rising water level", Yevhenii Sytnychenko, the Head of Kryvyi Rih District Military Administration, says. While the government cannot disclose details about some affected facilities until the end of the war, the special commissions thoroughly document the damages and systematically submit reports to the law enforcement agencies.
"We have documented many cases which cannot be disclosed to public due to the obvious reasons. In order to share these reports, we need a permission from the law enforcement agencies and from the Ministry of Defense, because the related to sensitive critical infrastructure facilities", Ihor Zubovych, the Head of the State Environmental Inspection of Ukraine, says. Another issue with documenting the crimes against environment committed by the Russian troops used to be the lack of a reliable mechanism for assessing losses, the Environmental Committee representatives complain. However, according to them, such mechanism is almost finished and soon it will be ready for use.
"Leading domestic and global researchers are helping us to develop a reliable damage assessment methods," Olena Kryvoruchkina, the Deputy Chairman of the Environmental Committee, says. The estimated amount of environmental damages suffered by Ukraine, has long exceeded one trillion hryvnias, and this is not the limit.
"The amount of environmental damages caused by the Russian aggression is now estimated as 1 trillion 256 billion UAH and it is expected to grow consistently until we regain control over temporarily seized territories”, Olena Kryvoruchkina adds.
After the victory of Ukraine, Russia will have to compensate all the damages causes. However, if the infrastructure can be rebuilt in the short-term perspective, the nature will take decades to recover.
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