Russia has caused over $210 billion in environmental damage to Ukraine

The amount of damage inflicted by Russian forces on Ukraine's subsoil, atmospheric air, water, and land resources is estimated at over $210 billion (UAH 8 trillion.)

Oleksandr Stavniychuk, a spokesman for the Ministry of Environmental Protection, makes this statement.

Today, the damages caused to atmospheric air, water, and land amount to over $50 billion. Subsoil losses are already estimated at about $160 billion, he said.

However, our work continues as we all understand that the main goal is to receive Russia's reparations for these damages. But, of course, we seek to unify all approaches at the international level, he added.

According to the official, seven methods developed by the State Environmental Inspection are used in damage assessment.

To improve these tools, Ukraine's Ministry of Environment collects all data and works on European directives, so Ukrainian legislation will be implemented in line with European.  It will make it much easier to recover from damages inflicted on the environment.

I believe these methods will be partially changed after we work more on them. Both international experts and our specialists are all working to improve these documents as much as possible. Now our main task is to collect cases.

It will not be a big problem to reassess something later. However, it is important that we have a sufficient evidence base, which will be used in the future in order to receive all this compensation in court, Stavniychuk added.

Ukraine's Ministry of Environmental Protection has recently launched a screening of legislation on environmental protection for compliance with EU law.