You're reading: War-torn Donbas faces threat of ecological disaster

Aside from the human disaster of Russia's war against Ukraine, in which more than 5,000 people are estimated to have been killed, there is an ecological disaster looming.

Massive shelling in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts has triggered fires and polluted the air. Infrastructure damage has led to flooding of coal mines that may contaminate rivers, lakes and reservoirs with toxic and radioactive substances.

The damage could poison drinking water and cause other health problems, not only to people in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts but also other areas of Ukraine, such as those living near the Sea of Azov.

Disaster is only one shell or bombing strike away, if one of the numerous Donbas metallurgy and chemical plants, storages of toxic wastes, pipelines, are struck.

Halyna Oliynykova, head of the Donetsk regional office of MAMA-86, an ecological organization, noted the Donbas’ highly concentrated population – with nearly 15 percent of the nation’s population in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, at least before the war sent nearly 1 million elsewhere.

“Now when everything is left on its own their without any control and military actions continue … it will be really a big calamity and not only for Ukraine,” she said.

More than 17 percent of the war zone has been damaged by fires caused by massive shelling over the summer, according to the Environment People Law, an international charity organization. The group counted more than 3,000 fires from June through September, 15 times more than during the same period last year.

Fires caused by military actions damaged over 17 percent of the vegetation cover in war zone in Donbas. Source: Environment People Law.

Fire destroyed agricultural fields, as well as steppes and forests that had been state-protected. Environmentalists say that, in two natural reserves, Sviati Hory and Donetskiy Ridge, a total of 3,000 hectatres were burned. The war also damaged 33 different nature parks in Donbas that are a home for many endangered species.

Shelling destroyed pines in Sviati Hory nature park in Donbas.

“If field after the fire remains a field and steppe after the fire can be recovered, then burned forest will never be a forest again,” said Oleksiy Vasyliuk, an environmentalist at the Environment People Law. He explained that most forests in the region were planted decades ago to make hot, dry and windy climate of the steppe zone of Donbas milder.

“The environmental consequences of war for human beings will be much worse than for the nature itself,” Vasyliuk said. “Now, chances to grow new trees there are very little due to global climate changes. So, conditions for agriculture and for the life of people in the region will be worse.”

Landscape park Donetskiy Ridge before and after the war.

Exploding heavy ammunition contaminates the air with hazardous substances harmful for the respiratory system. “Increased concentrations of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon oxide and in the air definitely pose a threat for human health,” said Olena Kravchenko, the executive director of Environment People Law.

According to the environmentalists, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide cause acid rain that worsen respiratory diseases and worsen health in other ways. Those rains may fall in the Donbas as well as in the neighboring regions.

Sulfur dioxide causes throat discomfort and burns the eyes.

Nitrogen oxides cause irritation of the mucous membrane, interrupt breaking, cause impairment of smell and night vision, as well as decreasing the level of hemoglobin in blood. This gas decreases the resistance of human organism to diseases, causes oxygen hunger of tissues, especially with children.

Carbon monoxide causes dizziness and nausea, deprives blood of the ability to transport oxygen to tissues of organism. Inhaling causes an impact similar to drugs and leads to depression, convulsion and breathing difficulties. It harms the blood system and blood-producing organs, liver and endocrine system. It also causes nervous system disorders.

But the biggest environmental threat in Donbas is flooding of the mines. Conditions are not right for pumping water out of the many mines of the region. Those waters may contaminate with toxic and radioactive substances. They may poison the Siverskiy Donets River, the biggest source of the drinking water in the region, and a contributory to the Don River, and the Sea of Azov. Toxic water may appear even in the Dnipro, the biggest source of drinking water in Ukraine.

In the Donbas, about 100 coal mines are shut down and flooded at the moment, experts say. All of them are situated in the separatist-controlled area with no access to the Ukrainian authorities.

“Poltavska mine in Yenakiyeve has been flooded, Vuhlehirska mine next to is being flooded,” Mykhaylo Volynets, head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine told ukrlife.tv, an internet TV channel. “Close to them Yunkom mine is situated, where a nuclear explosion had been conducted in 1979. Now dirty mine waters are rising and they will bring radioactive substances to the surface, where the level of radioactive contamination will exceed the norm 1,000 times.”

Another dangerous object, Volynets said, is Oleksandr-Zakhid mine in Horlivka. Starting from 1989, it stores 50 tons of dangerous monochlorbenzol that has already connected with other harmful compounds underground since then. The mine was shut down but now uncontrolled flooding may bring those substances to the surface and create a toxic swamp.

Environmentalists say a big danger is a lack of information what is going on at the separatist-controlled area and blame Ukrainian authorities for poor response to environmental threats. “

All ecological services should live under martial law,” Vasyliuk said. “But the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources acts as if there was no war. It has not made any statements, any warnings.”

In an emailed answer to a Kyiv Post request, Olha Molotska, head of the press service at the ecological ministry, said that the ministry is not obliged to inform citizens and is responsible only for the nature reserve fund of Ukraine.

“The work on these territories is suspended now,” she wrote. “However, right after military actions end, the Ministry of Ecology will conduct an inventory of the nature reserve fund and on the result of it will develop a plan how to eliminate the devastating effects.”

But by the time the war is over, It may be too late for the environment.

“With each passing day the consequences will be worse,” Vasyliuk said. “If we say, let’s save the country and the people first and then solve ecological problems, they will be of such scale, that it will be simply impossible for people to live there.”

Meanwhile, residents of Donbas remain poorly informed about the scale of environmental threats caused by war.

One pensioner from Ilovaisk said he was worried about environmental problems, including the slow removal of corpses. However, a nurse from Artemivsk said that “factories cause more harm” environmentally than the war.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Lyachynska can be reached at [email protected]. Staff writer Oleg Sukhov contributed to this story and can be reached at [email protected].