During the year of the war, the amount of damage to the environment from the actions of the Russian Federation increased 5 times

During the year of the war, the amount of damage to the environment increased 5 times. This was announced by the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ruslan Strelets.

Ruslan Strelets provided some arithmetic from our environmentalists, who keep records of damage to the environment:

• May 2022. Expulsion of the occupiers from Kyiv region. The first figures that we announced after the full-scale invasion were 13.2 billion hryvnias.
• August 2022 – the amount of losses is 395 billion hryvnias.
• December 2022. The de-occupation of Kharkiv Oblast, the liberation of Kherson, and mass rocket attacks are behind us. Almost 1.5 trillion hryvnias in damages to the environment.
• August 2023. We have updated data in the amount of 2 trillion hryvnias. The work on the calculation of damages in the case of Kakhovskaya HPP continues.

The amount is growing every day. These are far from the final numbers. Ukraine will get the full picture after the deoccupation of the entire country.

Ruslan Strelets: “Today is a special day for interim results. August 27 is the Day of Environmental Debt of Ukraine. Every year, the Global Footprint Network determines with the help of a special formula the day when a country has used the annual amount of renewable natural resources. This methodology shows when each individual state begins to live “on credit”. Everything we take from nature from today will be at the expense of future generations. For the entire planet, this day came on August 2.”

Russian troops use the Zaporizhzhіa NPP as a platform for shelling peaceful settlements in Ukraine. Yuriy Malashko, the head of the Zaporizhzhіa Regional Military Administration, said: “The Russians use the Zaporizhzhіa NPP as a platform from which they fire at our settlements. They also use the nuclear power plant as a weapons warehouse, and not only that. They understand that we will not shoot at the ZNPP. As of now, the level of radiation both near the ZNPP and in the 50-kilometer zone corresponds to the norm. Still, there is a certain pressure on our Ukrainians who work there. Some people are even taken away and then they disappear,” he noted.

According to him, the aggressors are forcing workers at the ZNPP to obtain a Russian passport so that they can sign a contract with Rosatom.

“Some agree, but many still do not agree. They remain loyal to Ukraine,” Malashko added.

On August 16, the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration denied information about a terrorist attack at the occupied ZNPP.

“The information circulating in the mass media about a planned terrorist attack by the Russian occupiers at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is not confirmed. It does not correspond to reality,” Malashko noted.

He also emphasized that he does not understand the spread of Russian narratives by the Ukrainian mass media, thus sowing panic in society.