The prosecutor’s office has moved to the forefront in the fight against environmental enemies.
In March, we held a large-scale joint meeting of the leadership of law enforcement and other government agencies to step up the fight against environmental crime. We coordinated joint activities to strengthen state control and ensure the inevitability of liability for violations of the law.
We noted relative progress last year but set out to increase efforts to save the environment and keep the population healthy.
This period also coincided with the approval on March 23 by presidential decree of an important decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, which identified challenges and threats to Ukraine’s national security in the environmental sphere and priority measures to neutralize them. According to this decision, the Cabinet of Ministers has been instructed to immediately develop and approve the National Action Plan for Environmental Protection for 2021–2025.
The prosecutor’s office and public authorities should work in unison for the sake of nature conservation. We have identified the counteraction to criminal offenses against the environment as a priority. Moreover, after the joint meeting, the efforts of all law enforcement and other government agencies have been consolidated. We immediately set about implementing the steps planned at the joint eco-meeting.
Costly crimes
In just the past month we have made a number of significant achievements.
Notably, 24 interagency working groups, set up by orders of the chiefs of regional prosecutor’s offices, have started working in the regions. Representatives of executive and state supervision bodies are involved in their work.
In addition, law enforcement officers have already revealed about a thousand criminal offenses in the field of environmental protection during this period.
Thus, the facts of illegal mining of more than three million tons of coal — easily worth many hundreds of millions of hryvnias — have been revealed in Donetsk Oblast.
Law enforcement officers of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast exposed a group of officials who legalized illegally felled wood and sent it to Moldova on a monthly basis. The value of the exported wood is almost Hr 15 million.
Furthermore, the channel for the large-scale export of valuable tree species abroad under the guise of low-grade products at low prices has been blocked in Kirovohrad Oblast. Every month, 500 cubic meters of wood were sold in such a way, the estimated value of which is over Hr 5 million.
During this period, persons were notified of suspicion of having committed 135 criminal offenses against the environment.
In particular, one of the heads of the branch Industrial Management Center of Ukrzaliznytsia, who allowed five illegal explosions and extraction of almost 219,000 cubic meters of gabbro-anorthosite and granite, was notified of suspicion. Damage to the environment amounts to approximately Hr 500 million.
The investigation has been completed in a number of proceedings against three dozen officials, half of whom are members of an organized group who illegally felled trees in the territory of one of the state forestries in Zhytomyr Oblast, resulting in total damage of more than Hr 9 million.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.
135 cases referred to court
Criminal proceedings for committing 135 offenses have already been referred to court.
Thus, an indictment was sent to court against the chairman of the company’s board, who organized illegal sand extraction in the capital through his subordinate enterprise, which caused losses of Hr 626 million.
The former first deputy head of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine will also be tried, who as a result of official negligence allowed the illegal use of minerals without proper permission, which resulted in damage of more than Hr 38 million.
Indictments against three forestry officials in Zakarpattia and Kharkiv oblast have been filed with the court for illegal forest devastation. Losses from such illegal activities total almost Hr 20 million.
Over the last month alone, prosecutors have filed lawsuits totaling Hr 1.3 billion to protect the state’s interests in the field of environmental protection. So far, the court has satisfied the prosecutor’s claim to recover from the company Hr 4.4 million in damages for taking water from boreholes in the capital in excess of the limits.
Preserving our planet
During this time, the courts have opened proceedings upon lawsuits filed by prosecutors in a number of cases to stop the illegal reduction of territories and objects of the nature reserve fund with a total area of more than 1,500 hectares worth almost Hr 791 million. In particular, in Zaporizhzhia Oblast these are the lands of two reserves of local significance, in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast — the Hutsulshchyna National Park, in Odesa Oblast — the Dnistrovski Plavni Nature Reserve and in Mykolaiv region — the Mishkovo-Pohorilove Forest Reserve.
Within a month, the court decisions for more than Hr 335 million in the field of environmental protection were actually executed.
What are the plans of the prosecution service in the near future? We are currently working on the introduction of specialization of inquiry officers, investigators and prosecutors in criminal proceedings in the field of environmental protection.
We are also examining the improvement of legislation that establishes liability for violations in the field of environmental protection, as environmental crimes are usually minor crimes, but are one of the most socially dangerous and common types of illegal acts.
We remember that we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children, so we must all work together to preserve and save it.
Iryna Venediktova is the prosecutor general of Ukraine. She took office in March 2020. She is a former acting head of the State Investigation Bureau and ex-chair of the Committee on Legal Policy of the Verkhovna Rada.
