160,000 Birds At Risk Of Death Due To Blowing Up Of Kakhovka HEPP - Environmental Protection Ministry

160,000 birds and more than 20,000 wild animals are at risk of death due to the Russian occupiers undermining of the Kakhovka HEPP.

This is stated in the notification of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"Due to the man-made flood by the Russians, Ukraine has significant losses of flora and fauna. The big water basically just washes away all our biodiversity. 9 objects of the Emerald Network, 5 Ramsar sites with an area of more than 76,000 hectares are under threat of disappearing. It will be almost impossible to restore these ecosystems in their original form, as nature created them. It will take tens of years. And no amount of money in the world will return our unique nature to us," said the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Ruslan Strilets.

Also, according to him, the flooding of lands will lead to degradation of soil cover, erosion and will wash away the entire fertile layer of soil into water, which in turn will not only destroy fertile soils, but also cause pollution of water resources of the Dnieper River.

"As of today, we have already lost a third of the water from the Kakhovka Reservoir, which was accumulated thanks to the spring flood. Due to the flood, the quality of the water may deteriorate, because tons of household waste, destruction waste and everything that has accumulated over the years on the shore of the reservoir will enter the Dnieper, and from there into the Black Sea," Strilets said.

According to him, the undermining of the dam seriously complicated the situation with the provision of drinking water in the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv Regions.

At the same time, all necessary measures are taken to provide the population with drinking water as soon as possible.

"The government has allocated UAH 120 million to the State Water Agency for the sustainable provision of drinking water to the residents of Mykolaiv. The project will be implemented, according to which water will be supplied to the city through the channel of the Inhulets River in a special mode of operation. The project will make it possible to achieve the necessary indicators of the quality of drinking water and return its supply to the city," Strilets said.

Strilets noted that by blowing up the Kakhovka HEPP, the occupiers destroyed the possibility of supplying Dnieper water to Crimea.

"The level of the Kakhovka Reservoir is so critical that the water simply will not reach the North Crimean Channel," he said.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on the night of June 6, Russian terrorist forces blew up the Kakhovka HEPP.

On June 6, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the consequences of the occupiers' undermining of the Kakhovka HEPP dam will be clear in about a week, after the water begins to fall.