Media learned about the increase of harmful emissions in Ukraine to 55 million tons

The volume of harmful emissions into the atmosphere in Ukraine increased and amounted to 55 million tons last year due to forest fires triggered by military operations. This was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian on Monday, February 24.

According to experts' calculations, during the three years of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the total volume of greenhouse gas emissions reached almost 230 million tons. In 2024, both the area of fires and the number of new fires increased significantly - this was due to the dry and hot summer.

The situation with fires may have been aggravated by campfires made by soldiers. Also, drones (UAVs) crashing are also contributing to the fires.

"The biggest contributors to climate change are the military actions themselves, including emissions from tanks, warplanes, construction of fortifications, exploding ammunition and so on," the publication writes.

On September 10, 2024, the deputy head of the State Agency for Water Resources of Ukraine, Igor Gopchak, said that the pollution of the Desna River has led to multimillion-dollar losses to the ecology of Ukraine. Thus, the material damage from the river pollution amounted to 415m hryvnyas (about $10m).