War has caused more than UAH 2 trillion in damage to Ukraine's environment

This was discussed at a visiting session of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management in Kharkiv, Ukrinform reports with reference to the press service of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration.

"We count every destroyed tree. And every hryvnia that the Russian Federation will pay us for what they have done. Every day we record new facts of damage and destruction. According to preliminary estimates, the total damage to the environment is already worth more than UAH 2 trillion: this includes contamination of land and air pollution, burned forests, and destroyed objects. Russia is provoking a climate crisis, a nuclear crisis due to the situation at the ZNPP, a humanitarian crisis," said First Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Ruslan Hrechanyk.

Oleksandr Filchakov, Head of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office, noted that the agency investigates cases of intentional or accidental damage to the natural environment.

"We record and analyze all environmental crimes, attacks on industrial facilities, oil depots," Filchakov noted.

MP Pavlo Yakymenko emphasized that all government agencies were instructed to jointly develop new concepts and programs for the restoration of Ukraine's ecology. Using the example of the situation with the shallowing of the Oskil reservoir, which the committee members visited the day before, Yakymenko pointed out the need to foresee the possibility of natural and humanitarian crises now to prevent them from happening or to quickly solve the problems.

As reported, the environmental damage caused to Kharkiv by Russian shelling is estimated at UAH 200 billion.