Russia has been accused of deliberately dumping chemical waste into rivers in Ukraine to attack water supplies.
Kyiv – It’s something like the forgotten victim of Ukraine war: The nature. While the number of deaths, the weapons used and the territories conquered are reported daily, the damage to flora and fauna is less in focus. But they are also significant. And Russia could use this to get another one advantage in war to provide.
As several media outlets reported, Moscow is said to have already deliberately contaminated the two rivers Seim and Desna in order to disrupt the Ukrainian water supply. More than 30 tons of dead fish have been recovered from the waters so far.
“Everything is dead, from the smallest minnow to the largest catfish,” local resident Erhiy Kraskov told the Guardian. Kraskov is mayor of the village of Slabyn in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region on the Desna River. And it’s not the first incident.
Desna River ecosystem destroyed due to toxic oil spill from Russian sugar factory
In mid-August, a toxic oil slick was discovered on the Seim River just before the Ukrainian border. According to Kiev, large amounts of chemical waste from a Russian sugar factory were dumped into the Seim. It contains: ammonia, magnesium and other harmful nitrates.
Since the Ukrainian border is less than two kilometers away, the oil slick entered the Sumy region and flowed into the Desna. The river’s natural ecosystem collapsed. Fish, molluscs and crayfish suffocated and oxygen levels fell to almost zero.
Advantage in the Ukraine war: Russia should specifically attack the drinking water supply
There is a suspicion that Russia deliberately poisoned the rivers in order to attack the drinking water supply. The Desna flows into a reservoir in the Kiev region from which millions of people get their drinking water. “There is a difference between a natural disaster and a man-made disaster. This was a diversionary tactic. “Russia’s ecological genocide will not end until the war ends,” Serhiy Zhuk, head of Chernihiv’s environmental inspection, told the Guardian.
The Ukrainian Minister of Environmental Protection Svitlana Hrynchuk also sees a deliberate attack on Russia behind the pollution: This is part of a dark pattern, the magazine quotes her as saying.
Environment Ministry gives the all-clear: water supply in Kyiv remains safe
However, Hrynchuk gave the all-clear: the water supply in Kyiv remains safe. Various special measures have been taken to eliminate the nitrates. 120 tons of cleaning products were imported and nets were stretched across the Desna to catch dead fish. However, none appeared in the Kyiv region. Additionally, the water is routinely cleaned before it is withdrawn for domestic use, she said.
Hrynchuk said this latest incident is part of a sinister pattern. Russian troops destroyed national parks in occupied territories, killed animals and mined thousands of hectares of forest. Explosions have caused wildfires, a problem exacerbated by recent hot weather.
Greenpeace sounds the alarm: It’s not just rivers that are at risk
The environmental organization Greenpeace has also repeatedly drawn attention to the environmental damage caused by the Russian war of aggression in the past. Among other things, the organization is monitoring the situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. The organization had an office in Kyiv in the 1990s. With the start of the war in 2022, the work was increased again, it was now said. (bg).
#Ukrainian #rivers #polluted #Putins #perfidious #war #tactics