"The situation in national parks is critical": blowing up of Kakhovka power plant has caused almost US$1.5 billion worth of environmental damage

By blowing up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), Russia has placed 30% of Kherson Oblast’s nature reserves under threat of disappearing.

The amount of damage done to the environment by the occupiers' blowing up of the Kakhovka HPP is estimated at almost US$1.5 billion, said Ruslan Strilets, Ukraine’s Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources.

So far, the Kakhovka Reservoir has lost 62% of its volume, or 12.24 cubic kilometres of water.

The water level in the reservoir is already at the 10.55-metre mark, and it is continuing to drop, Strilets says.

The situation in the national parks is also critical. The occupiers have caused over US$1.2 billion worth of damage to the Nyzhniodniprovskyi (Lower Dnipro) National Park alone.

"The situation in the national parks is critical. 30% of the nature reserve fund of Kherson Oblast is in danger of disappearing. Water from the Kakhovka Reservoir has turned the Nyzhniodniprovskyi National Park into a water mirror.

The water area in the national parks continues to be drained: by 4.2 metres in Velykyi Luh, and by 6 metres in Kamianska Sich," the minister wrote on Facebook.

The Russian-occupied Oleshky Sands are threatened by rising groundwater.

In addition, about 1,200 hectares of the Kinburn Peninsula have been flooded due to the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP dam.

Environmental inspectors, national park workers, water transport workers and foresters at the site of the ecological disaster continue to record evidence of the occupiers' crimes.

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