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Portal Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg visited Kiev on Thursday to draw attention to the environmental damage caused by the war in Ukraine and criticized the world’s reaction to the June 6 collapse of the giant Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.
Ukraine is investigating the dam explosion that caused floods in southern Ukraine and Russianheld areas of the Kherson region as a war crime and possibly criminal environmental degradation or “ecocide”. The cost of the dam collapse is estimated at 1.2 billion euros.
Kiev and Russia blame each other for the destruction of the dam.
“I don’t think the global response to this ecocide has been sufficient,” said Thunberg, who was in Kyiv at the inaugural meeting of a new environmental group that includes European leaders.
“And we need to talk about it, we need to raise awareness of what’s going on,” she said, according to a Ukrainian translation of her comments.
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The task of the group is to assess damage to Ukraine’s environment and develop mechanisms to hold Russia accountable, said Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential team and cochair of the group, along with former Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Margot Wallstrom .
The environment is at risk of becoming a “silent victim of war” as around 30% of Ukraine’s territory is contaminated with explosive objects and more than 2.4 million hectares of forests are damaged, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said in a Twitter post to prepare for the meeting.
“We call for increased international efforts to investigate and prosecute Russia’s war crimes against the environment and ensure that the aggressor pays,” he said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the meeting and thanked the group’s members for their visit as a “very important sign of support”.