Ukraine developing mechanism to assess war-related environmental damage

The facility is set to be presented at the forum of environmental organizations in Kyiv, according to Daria Zarivna, adviser to the head of the President's Office, who spoke at the national telethon, Ukrinform reports.

"The government’s tentative assessment suggested UAH 2 trillion in damage to the ecology. But this is a really preliminary estimate as this figure will change upward. Now a mechanism for calculating the damage incurred is being developed,” Zarivna said following the meeting between Andriy Yermak, chief of the President’s Office, and representatives of ecology watchdogs.

“It was a really productive meeting involving more than a dozen environmental organizations. We heard a lot of useful things from their representatives. The idea appeared to hold in Kyiv a forum of global environmental organizations, where the mechanism for calculating the damage caused would be presented," Zarivna said.

She added that there is a strategy for promoting in the international arena the issue of war-related environmental damage, in order to bring it higher on the agenda of negotiations with Ukraine’s international partners.

"The idea put forward by the head of the Office is that a number of countries, which are currently taking a cautious position in some issues, precisely in terms of the ecological damage caused by the war in Ukraine, and not only to Ukraine, but also to the European and global ecosystems, may take a tougher stance," said Zarivna.

The advisor to the head of the President’s Office added that the situation is very difficult at the moment as more than a third of the country's territory is contaminated with explosives, while the demining process is expected to take a significant amount of time. Considerable damage has been caused to the forests, about a third of which have been affected. Parts of flora and fauna in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov region have been wiped out.

Zarivna reported that immediately after the meeting with ecology organizations,Andriy Yermak had a phone call with Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor to the U.S. president, to discuss environmental issues among other things.

"This time we talked about ecology, we also talked about Russian crimes against our children, forcible deportation and adoption from temporarily occupied territories. This is also a separate trend that will be voiced very powerfully. The Office will be working on it separately, including with international partners, in diplomatic, communication, and media spheres," Zarivna said.

As reported earlier, as part of the ongoing dialogue with allies, the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, together with the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhnyi, had a phone call with the U.S. President's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Millie.