Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post video unit is working on an investigative project highlighting Ukraine’s ecological challenges. The first episodes will start airing in autumn 2020. The project is led by staff video journalist Austin Malloy and is funded by the government of the Czech Republic.
As Ukraine braces for the coming social and economic devastation of the COVID‑19 pandemic, another looming crisis — Ukraine’s ecological and environmental challenges — has the potential to derail the nation’s future.
If it weren’t for the global pandemic, overshadowing the extreme weather events happening in this country, 2020 had been shaping up as a year of greater environmental awareness.
From Kyiv’s virtually snowless winter and April’s wildfires in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone to the worst floods in western Ukraine in more than a decade, the country could find itself on the brink of environmental disastes.r
To make matters worse, outdated policies, political failures to reduce greenhouse emissions, systematic corruption in vital ecological regions, and haphazard chemical and hazardous waste storage threaten ecosystems.
Fortunately, Europe’s largest country also boasts a growing number of bright, ambitious activists and inventors who are driving eco-friendly initiatives and robust environmental policies.
Their courageous struggle against some of Europe’s most troubling ecological hazards will ultimately determine the future of Ukraine, a dynamic country that turns to the West for political, social, and economic integration.
But the activists will ultimately need assistance for Ukraine to marshal an effective response to the challenges the country faces in air, land and water pollution.
Air
According to Air Visual, the world’s largest air quality database, Kyiv is one of the most polluted capitals in Europe, and often ranks in the top 10 most polluted cities worldwide. While environmentalists say that an influx in motor vehicles is mostly to blame, global warming also poses a significant threat to Kyiv’s air.
This year, Ukraine’s unusually warm winter left forests parched and dry in the spring, putting the country at greater risk of forest fires. By April, as wildfires raged in and around the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, smog from the wildfires blanketed Kyiv, causing Ukraine’s capital to suffer the world’s worst air pollution.
The timing could not have been worse, as the country was battling a potentially lethal respiratory disease that studies show is more deadly in areas of higher pollution — COVID‑19.
Furthermore, throughout the country — including in the heart of Kyiv — abandoned chemical production factories and shoddy obsolete pesticides storage centers spew their toxic contents into the atmosphere.
As temperatures rise, some chemicals evaporate, polluting the air supply with their hazardous compounds. One of these defunct factories sits near Kyiv’s popular Darynok shopping center and the cultural and entertainment venue Art-Zavod Platforma, known for hosting festivals that bring thousands of visitors.
Most people who work nearby are completely unaware of the hazardous chemicals — primarily mercury in this case — that silently poison the surrounding area. That’s in addition to the threat of soil and groundwater contaminations, which could poison some of Ukraine’s most important waterways and natural resources.
Land
With thousands of obsolete pesticide storage facilities scattered across Ukraine, and tons of expired pesticides in storage — or unaccounted for — Ukraine faces significant challenges in hazardous waste management and disposal.
Several of Ukraine’s most polluted areas are brimming with hazardous waste and chemical compounds, some of which are stored in old mines that were flooded to stabilize rickety underground tunnels. No one knows the exact chemical mixtures that were left to rot in the dark mineshafts.
Also unknown is the amount of hazardous waste that’s contaminating the soil and underground water sources. Worse yet, experts fear that poisonous chemical waste could bleed into some of Ukraine’s most vital waterways, potentially contaminating the water supply of millions of people.
Water
Ukraine’s waterways face significant challenges.
Ukraine’s Volyn Oblast, 400 kilometers west of Kyiv, is home to the Shatskiy National Nature Park and the country’s deepest and one of the biggest lakes, Lake Svitiaz.
To the untrained eye, Lake Svitiaz would likely appear to be one of the healthiest lakes in Ukraine. Known for its beautiful nature and clear waters, Lake Svitiaz is the most popular of the Shatski Lakes situated near Ukraine’s northern border with Poland and Belarus.
Lake Svitiaz, however, seems to be in a losing battle with climate change, with a major decline in water levels.
Some 475 kilometers south of Kyiv, Ukraine’s Black Sea coast is arguably the most polluted sea in Europe. Numerous sources of pollution are destroying its ecosystem, including a lack of regulation at ports and regular violations, fertilizers dumped into rivers that run into the Black Sea, and mass industrial pollution. Corruption also plays a key role in Black Sea pollution, especially in Odesa, where even state port inspectors are often denied access to certain areas of the Port of Odesa.
Despite the significant challenges, Ukraine has the ability to better manage its ecological issues, though immediate action is required.
Right to safe, healthy environment
In Ukraine, however, many people are denied the basic human right of a safe and health environment. Activists have only recently started to get their voices heard about the serious environmental struggles facing Ukraine.
Empowering environmental activists will help.
