[CPEO-MEF] GLOBAL: Environmental impact of Russia's attack on Ukraine

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

HOW RUSSIA’S WAR IN UKRAINE THREATENS THE PLANET
The war has cost lives and destroyed the Ukrainian economy. But it has also been a major environmental hazard.

By John Feffer 
Foreign Policy in Focus
May 31, 2023

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has resulted in the deaths so far of more than 8,700 Ukrainian civilians, including more than 500 children. It has caused a massive drop in the country’s economic output, with GDP declining by 29.1 percent.

And it has had widespread consequences for the environment: inside Ukraine, in surrounding countries, and beyond.

Russia has occupied at least 25 percent of Ukraine’s renewable energy facilities and destroyed about 6 percent of the country’s renewable energy capacity. The war has rendered 40 percent of the country’s energy system at least temporarily inoperable. The air, soil, and water of Ukraine have been severely contaminated, with more than 1,000 industrial, agricultural, and maritime cases tracked by the Ukrainian NGO Centre for Environmental Initiatives “Ecoaction.” Thousands of landmines pose a continued risk to residents and farmers.

An even greater environmental catastrophe lies in wait at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such facility in Europe. A meltdown at Zaporizhzhia on the order of the Chernobyl accident would have even greater impact than what happened on the territory of Ukraine in 1986.

…

For the entire article, see
https://fpif.org/how-russias-war-in-ukraine-threatens-the-planet/?emci=7284b55d-c500-ee11-907c-00224832eb73&emdi=c7cb08ad-3401-ee11-907c-00224832eb73&ceid=4050769

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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