Visiting Kiev, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg criticized what she said was a lack of international response to “ecocide” in Ukraine after severe flooding caused by the destruction of a dam.
“I don’t think the global reaction to this ecocide is enough,” the activist said at a press conference with the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Andriï Yermak.
“Ecocide and destruction of the environment is a form of warfare. Ukrainians know this all too well, as does Russia. That is why they are deliberately attacking the environment,” he said.
The destruction on June 6 of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine dumped downpours on downstream towns and villages, including the regional capital of Kherson.
kyiv and Moscow blame each other for this disaster that caused several dozen deaths on both banks of the Dnieper, each controlled by one of the two camps.
Lack of drinking water
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had deplored the lack of humanitarian aid in early June, believing that the UN and international NGOs had failed to rise to the occasion.
The destruction of the dam has also decimated the local flora and fauna, and authorities fear the damage could last for decades.
As for the population, the floods have caused a lack of drinking water both in the affected areas and in Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 and which was supplied by the Kakhovka reservoir.
“We have to do everything in our power to talk about it and try to raise awareness and share information about what is happening,” Greta Thunberg said on Thursday.
Source: BFM TV
