Visiting Kyiv, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg criticized what she said was an international lack of response to “ecocide” in Ukraine after severe flooding caused by the destruction of a hydroelectric dam.
“I don’t think the global reaction to this ecocide is enough,” the activist said at a press conference alongside the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriï Yermak.
“Ecocide and environmental destruction is a form of warfare. Ukrainians know this only too well, as does Russia. That’s why they deliberately go after the environment,” she continued.
The June 6 destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine poured downpours on towns and villages downstream, including the regional capital of Kherson.
kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of this disaster which caused several dozen deaths on both banks of the Dnieper, each controlled by one of the two camps.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky deplored the lack of humanitarian aid in early June, saying that the UN and international NGOs had not risen to the occasion.
The destruction of the dam has also decimated local flora and fauna, with authorities fearing the damage will last for decades.
As for the population, the floods have caused a lack of drinking water both in the affected areas and in Crimea, a peninsula annexed in 2014 by Russia which was supplied by the Kakhovka reservoir.
“We must do everything in our power to talk about it and to try to raise awareness and share information about what is happening,” Greta Thunberg said Thursday.