The reported damage only refers to the loss of value of the wood which could have been harvested on the above-mentioned 60,000 hectares. It does not, however, take the possible environmental damage into account which could result from the destruction of the forests. These are the findings of an investigation by the independent anti-corruption center NGLmedia. The NGO was founded by journalists eleven years ago and used satellite data to determine the damage caused in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
80% of the Holy Mountains National Nature Park (Ukrainian: Sviati Hori National Nature Park), which stretches over 41 hectares and is located in the Kramatorsk and Bakhmut districts, were destroyed. In the Luhansk region, Russians actively cleared forests, as pravda.com.ua reported. The Luhansk district is a steppe region, only 11% of which was covered by forests before the war. In the Kharkiv district, 40 to 45% of forests have reportedly been cut down or are affected by forest fires. In the Kherson district (5% forested area) in the south of the country, almost 55,000 hectares of forests were flooded on the eastern bank of the Dnipro when the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station was blown up.
Across the country, around 2.9 million hectares of forests are said to be affected by the war, with nature reserves accounting for 20% of that area. According to pravda.com.ua, the environmental damage caused by Russia since the start of the war amounts to UAH 2.2 trillion (€520 million).
