Ecological Disaster in East Ukraine is Real

The Ukrainian government, perhaps as a follow up to a UN study, has issued a dire warning to the global community that an ecological disaster of significant proportions in eastern Ukraine is an undeniable possibility.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov rang this alarm in an op-ed on September 1 in the “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” weekly.

The flooding of mines, sinking of land, the release of “dead” water into utility water supply system and drinking water reservoirs, chemical and radioactive contamination – these are all risks facing not only the temporarily occupied areas in eastern Ukraine, and not only Ukraine in general, he wrote.

Avakov said each of these threats is real and pressing to neighboring European countries as they all could lead to catastrophic consequences for the entire ecosystem across the continent.

Earlier, in a blog that I wrote on August 13, I quoted the United Nations as having written that in addition to extreme human casualties, Russia’s more than four-year war against Ukraine has destroyed eastern Ukraine’s bio-diverse geography. A UN report said in springtime, several species of feather, sheep fescue and blue grass as well as forget-me-nots, and yellow cress, have been known to blossom on its steppes. The region is also recognized for a wealth of mineral resources, including deposits of rock salt, gypsum, raw cement materials, flux limestone, and dolomite as well as granite and clays.

However, according to the United Nations, today the region’s ecological purity has been greatly tarnished. In addition to toxic waste from nearly two centuries of intensive coal mining, and chemical and metal industries accumulated in its soils, the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-18 – one of the bloodiest in Europe since the 1990s Balkans wars – has added another layer of significant and partially irreversible damage to local ecosystems, the UN concluded.

According to Avakov, as of today, there is no reliable information about the actual situation at top hazard facilities and the level of threat amid the ongoing natural and man-made processes.

“It might as well be that the things have already gone so bad that an urgent large-scale international operation is required” to eliminate the consequences of ‘management’ of seized territories by Russia-puppet self-proclaimed authorities in the occupied Donbas, he said in his article in the newspaper.

“Such an operation is possible only if the hostilities cease and only within the framework of a comprehensive Donbas de-occupation process. So this makes de-occupation the most urgent issue in global politics,” Avakov wrote.

Therefore, he continued, the tough position of international organizations and international public should become an argument for introducing the issue of Donbas settlement to the top agenda of foreign politics.

As I wrote in my blog, the best place to raise this Russian environmental crime against Ukraine is the United Nations, which has acknowledged Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Ukrainian, x-captive nations and sustainability-related NGOs at the UN must prepare documents and declarations condemning Russia for destroying Ukraine’s ecology and demanding global remedies. The upcoming 73^rd UN General Assembly offers a wide range of opportunities to do so.