In Ukraine, the environmental impact of the clashes in the Kursk region

Since the end of August, two large rivers have been experiencing a pollution episode which has killed dozens of tonnes of fish.

It is normally the beautiful season on the banks of the Desna River. The season for swimming and fishing. But not this year. Volodymyr, who lives in the small village of Horytsya in Ukraine, came to see the damage. “The Desna was a very beautiful river, he said. What a misfortune they have done to us. Everything is poisoned.”

“The river has changed color, it has become dark, dirty and then there is a foul smell. Before, the river was clear. The water was always pure, transparent”. he adds. This episode of pollution began in mid-August, during the fighting in Kursk : five tons of pollutants from an industrial site were dumped into the Seym River in Russia. And this pollution then ended up in the Desna River in Ukraine.

The mayor of the village of Boromyky will remember it for a long time : “In the morning, when we arrived at the river, it was a sight of horror. Along the shore there were various dead fish : pikeperch, pike, catfish, roach, bream. One meter wide and 700 meters long !”
In total, over a few dozen kilometers, 30 tons of fish were collected. It will take nearly three years for the Desna to restore its ecosystem.

This is a new illustration of the consequences of war on the environment, according to Sergui Tsyboulya, professor of ecology at Chernihiv University. “There is the pollution of the land by the construction materials of destroyed buildings, mined territories, violent fires during the fighting, the destruction of fuel tanks. The destruction of the landscape, the pollution of the atmosphere. The impact on ecology is also one of the crimes of this war.”

According to a report, the cost of climate damage since the start of the war amounts to more than 30 billion euros.