Russia has caused $57 bln in environmental damage in Ukraine

The damage to the Ukrainian environment due to the full-scale invasion of Russia has already reached $57 billion.

This was announced by the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ruslan Strilets, Rubryka reports.

According to him, during the last 2.5 months, this figure has increased by almost $1.5 billion.

Strilets noted that Ukraine has already begun partial restoration of ecosystems: it is restoring forests where possible and also, with the help of national park workers, sowing hundreds of hectares of the bottom of the Kakhovka Reservoir with annual plants to prevent dust storms and the spread of alien species.

The minister also spoke about developing and implementing a comprehensive plan for Ukraine's ecological recovery from the war's consequences. The International Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of War, headed by the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andrii Yermak, and the former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Margot Wallström, is working on this.

In particular, the group continues to advocate point eight of Volodymyr Zelensky's "peace formula" and seeks the support of international partners. Thus, the UNEP mission has already prepared a draft assessment of the environmental consequences of the detonation of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. Based on this report, an environmental restoration program will be developed.

We will remind you that one day of Russian aggression costs Ukrainian ecology ₴4 billion.

Rubryka also reported that nature on the territory of the Oskil reservoir, destroyed by the Russians, is being restored. The same can happen with Kakhovka Reservoir.