Spills, destruction and dead animals: the toxic effects of 2 years of Russian invasion

The war russian vs Ukrainewhich is now two years old, has caused a long list of natural disasters such as the dumping of toxic substances into rivers and seas, the death of thousands of animals and the destruction of large areas of forests, which continue to worsen in the midst of hostilities and from which the affected areas will take decades to recover.

The worst “ecological crime” caused by the invasion took place in June 2023, when an explosion blew up the Kakhovka dam, an infrastructure located on the eastern bank of the Dnieper that is key to regulating the flow and guaranteeing irrigation of the land. of much of southern Ukraine.

The destruction of the dam partially devastated tens of thousands of hectares of forest in the southern region of Kherson.

According to the Ministry for the Environment of Ukrainein the blasting of this infrastructure, which was part of a hydroelectric power plant in the city of New Kakhovka, about 150 tons of motor oil were poured into the Dnieper, which today contaminate the final stretch of the river and also the Black Sea, in which flows out

The dead animals due to flooding or the toxicity of the spills are estimated in the thousands, including hundreds of dolphins that were found floating in the Black Sea after the destruction of the dam.

Paradoxically, this natural catastrophe could lead to the emergence of new forests on the land occupied by the dam.

As Anna Kuzemko, from the Ukrainian Group for Nature Conservation, explains to EFE, “a young willow forest is forming there” of the same type “that existed before the construction of the dam.” “According to information obtained with sensors remote areas, it currently covers about 43% of the old reservoir,” says the specialist, whose team does not have access to the area because it is occupied by Russia.

”Time will tell if they continue to develop, die from natural causes or are flooded by the waters of a new dam,” he concludes.

industrial plants

Strategic infrastructures for the economy such as the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, in the eastern Donetsk region, have been a priority objective for Russia in this war.

Russia It carried out a bloody siege of Azovstal between March and May 2022 during which it attacked the plant where the Ukrainian troops were entrenched with all types of weapons.

The destruction of storage and treatment tanks for chemicals and wastewater also caused toxic discharges into the area’s rivers and the coast of the Azov Sea around Mariupol, as documented by the Ukraine Accountability Project in a study on the effects of the invasion of the environment.

A similar situation occurs at the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, in eastern Ukraine, which was constantly bombed by Russian troops between May and June 2022 to expel Ukrainian troops from their last stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region.

The plant purified the city’s water and produced fertilizers for agriculture. The destruction of its infrastructure caused some of the chemicals used in the process to spill into the surrounding area.

The bombings against fuel and lubricant deposits are another concern of experts due to the serious consequences that fires and spills have on the environment.

From natural parks to battlefields

In the same region of Kherson, where the Kakhovka dam was located, there are two natural parks that have been seriously affected by the war caused by Russia.

Located just over forty kilometers north of the former dam, the Kamianska Sich National Park extends along the eastern bank of the Dnieper, recaptured by Ukraine in autumn 2022 after months of Russian occupation.

The russian troops They left behind a dense concentration of explosive mines that put the park’s animals at risk, according to experts from the Ukrainian Group for Nature Conservation who examined it.

The occupation forces also cut down numerous trees, built fortifications and littered the area with garbage, fuel and other polluting substances.

Another Askania Nova reserve is on the east bank of the Dnieper, and is therefore still under Russian occupation.

There, “Russian occupiers burn protected lands, eliminate endangered animals and destroy unique flora,” Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of the Ukrainian Military Administration of the Kherson region, tells EFE.