On March 18, 2022, the representatives of the ICO “Environment People Law” and the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group took part in a webinar on Environmental Impacts of Russia’s Invasion: Voices from Ukraine. The meeting was organized by Center of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Petro Jacyk Program of University of Toronto, Munck School.
EPL experts spoke about the collection and analysis of information on the impact of the war on the environment.
«Environment – Law – People” has been monitoring the impact of the war on the environment since 2014. Since then, we have studied all major publications on environmental impact assessment of the war in Kuwait, Sudan, Kosovo, Albania and other countries.
We collected a number of facts of environmental destruction in eastern Ukraine in 2014-2019 and published two manuals. You can see them on our website.
What are we doing now? Lawyers carefully analyze 14 environmental conventions and look for mechanisms to protect the environment. Lawyers also analyze international criminal law and international humanitarian law through the prism of the environment.
Environmental scientists carefully collect the facts of environmental destruction, make their analysis, study methods of calculating the damage caused to the environment» – stated Olena Kravchenko, Executive director of EPL. «As of now, we are collecting information in the table “Crimes of the Russian Federation against the nature of Ukraine.” It has the following sections: protected areas, industrial facilities, marine pollution, exposure to various types of bombs and missiles, mine pollution, fires, the state of zoos and animal shelters, animal deaths.
We will cooperate with the military, the Security Service of Ukraine, environmentalists from different regions» – environmental scientist of EPL, Kateryna Polyanska added.
Olha Melen-Zabramna from EPL outlined the threats to nuclear facilities posed by Russian soldiers, namely current hazards to two nuclear power plants (NPP) in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia region and one nuclear power plant in Mykolaiv region. The acts of nuclear terrorism committed by Russian Federation undermine the nuclear safety of European region.
Namely, during the first day of the war Russian army occupied Chornobyl NPP, took its staff as hostages. Due to the war activities the power grids supplying electricity to NPP were damaged and as a result the NPP lost power supply. This created the risk for normal functioning of two spent nuclear fuel storages. Such storages (dry and wet) were able to receive electricity from diesel generators which had fuel for 48 hours only. The staff on NPP had been working without shifts since the first day of the invasion. Luckily, the power supply was renewed as the result of enormous efforts of Ukrainian workers. But transmission of data from radiation monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl NPP had been suspended since the first day of the war and occupation of NPP by russians.
On March 2, 2022 russian military forces had taken control of the territory around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Projectile hitting targeted a training building within the site of the six-unit Zaporizhzhia plant. The fire that broke out did not affect “essential” equipment and that plant personnel were taking mitigatory actions. Russian forces took control of the plant on 4th March. Russian company “Rosatom” sent their workers to Ukrainian NPP and claimed to be holding control of this NPP.
Another Ukrainian NPP is under the huge threat due do the military activities nearby. South Ukrainian NPP is located in Mykolaiv region where active military activities are taking place. Russian army was reported to make an attempt to occupy the nuclear facility, but Ukrainian armed forces blocked their way and their attempt failed. Aforementioned confirms that russia is committing the acts of nuclear terrorism in Ukraine and weak response from the side of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) allows russia to use Ukrainian NPPs to threaten the whole Europe and Ukraine with the risk of nuclear accident.
Experts of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group (UNCG) spoke about main threats to the protected areas in Ukraine, mainly those located in the zone of active military activities. They also mentioned what currently UNCG is focusing on assisting the administrations and staff of protected areas that are under huge threats and function in extremely difficult conditions. The main problems that protected areas are facing are forest fires, bombing of protected areas territory, absence of personnel and guards necessary to perform the nature protection functions, absence of financial resources and inability to execute transactions or receive supplies of food, equipment, etc. Thus, UNCG are fundraising to provide necessary financial support to protected areas and provide them with necessary supply of food, equipment, etc.
At the end of the meeting the parties agreed that environmental threats of Russian aggression are enormous and we need to assist governmental bodies in documenting all the damage caused to environment and protected areas in Ukraine during this terrible war.
