Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian authorities have registered over 8,000 cases of destruction to Ukraine's environment caused by Moscow’s war.

Kyiv

Russian forces have invaded Ukraine from land, air and sea with strikes causing widespread damage. Global leaders have condemned the move and imposed sanctions.

Ukraine Invasion

Ukrainian authorities report that since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, over 8,000 cases of environmental destruction have been documented. The Ministry of Environmental Protection has shifted its focus to tracking these incidents, which include pollution of water resources, destruction of infrastructure, soil contamination, and forest fires. 

The estimated financial impact of these damages exceeds €85 billion, not including areas currently occupied by Russia or recent attacks such as the one on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Chernobyl site, which had received significant international investment for safety improvements, suffered damage to its safety confinement following a Russian drone strike, resulting in a fire that lasted several weeks.

Russian environmental attacks in Ukraine caused €85 billion in damage

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine's Ministry of Environmental Protection had to change its focus from managing the country's natural resources and addressing climate change to tracking each case of the environment being deliberately attacked. From February 2022 until today, Kyiv has registered and documented over 8,000 cases of Russia's crimes against Ukraine's environment, the country's minister told Euronews. We call them crimes against the environment, because there is pollution of water resources, destruction of water infrastructure, infrastructure of water supply, pollution of soils, mining of soils, forest fires as a result of mining, as a result of hostilities. Today, all these 8,000 cases, we previously estimate in terms of money, in losses, it is more than 85 billion euros. This number does not include the damage to the territories Russia currently occupies and therefore Ukraine cannot access. These losses also do not yet include the most recent Russian attack in February this year on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the damage to its safety confinement. More than 45 countries have contributed during this period of the Chernobyl disaster and only in 2017 we completed the construction of a new safe confinement, which cost more than one billion euros. And now we understand that the functionality of the confinement is damaged. A Russian drone hit the confinement over the fourth nuclear reactor, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, on the 14th of February. The drone exploded upon impact with the confinement, causing a fire that took approximately three weeks to extinguish.

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Russian environmental attacks in Ukraine caused €85 billion in damage

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Ukraine Invasion