Ukraine is completing consultations with the European Commission on its involvement in the international environmental program LIVE, launched in 1992, with a budget for 2021-2027 of more than EUR5.5 billion, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets said.
“We are completing consultations on Ukraine’s accession to LIVE, and I am sure that within a few weeks, maybe a month, we will invite the European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius to Ukraine to finalize our agreements and join the modern financial instrument with a budget of 5.5 billion euros,” Strilec said on the air of the nationwide telethon “UA Together” on Monday.
The Minister noted that at the opening of the ongoing European Green Week, Sinkevičius urged the Europeans to pay close attention to the issue of involving Ukraine in the LIVE program.
“The attitude of the European Commissioner towards Ukraine is so warm that he clearly said that we should pay attention to the restoration of Ukraine under the LIVE program. This gives me confidence that we will soon receive concrete funds for the implementation of specific projects,” the minister described the situation.
He added that Ukraine has applied to the relevant department of the European Commission with a request to help in the quality preparation of the projects that it will submit.
In addition, Strylets specified that in Ukraine about 200 specialists of the Ecological Safety working group of the National Council for the Reconstruction of Ukraine under the head of state are working on such projects.
According to him, the implementation of projects within the framework of the LIVE program can become an effective method of overcoming the consequences of the military actions of the Russian Federation, in particular, in the direction of restoring the environment and preserving biodiversity.
He added that the program finances innovative projects very quickly.
According to the minister, in Ukraine, due to the aggression of the Russian Federation, about 20% of the area of all protected areas is under the threat of destruction, and the fighting has engulfed 12 national parks and reserves.
“About 3,000 hectares of forests have been damaged by shelling, on the territory of more than 500,000 hectares, hostilities are still ongoing. The situation is difficult in the Kherson region, where more than 4,000 hectares of forests have been destroyed by fire,” Sagittarius cited examples.
He noted that Ukraine is doing its best to calculate all the losses caused by the Russian Federation and make claims “either in the form of claims to international courts, or in the general basket of reparations.”
As previously reported, Strilets noted that Ukraine recorded approximately more than 100 cases of ecocide caused by shelling and seizure of territories by Russian troops.
According to him, on the basis of the State Ecological Inspectorate, there is an appropriate headquarters, the purpose of which is to record such crimes, including the calculation of losses. The Ministry of Natural Resources is also preparing an update of the Ecosystem electronic platform launched before the war, which will record all cases of environmental damage and open information on the preliminary extent of damage in order to subsequently create a common database.
