Serhiy Kraskov picked up a twig and poked at a small fish floating within the Desna River. “It’s a roach. It died recently. You can tell because its eyes are clear and not blurry,” he mentioned. A whole bunch of different fish had washed up close by on the river’s inexperienced willow-fringed banks. A big pike lay within the mud. Close by, in a patch of yellow lilies, was a immobile carp. “Everything is dead, starting from the tiniest minnow to the biggest catfish,” Kraskov added mournfully.
Kraskov is the mayor of the village of Slabyn, in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv area. The country settlement – inhabitants 520 – escaped the worst of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. However the battle arrived final week in a brand new and horrible kind. Ukrainian officers say the Russians intentionally poisoned the Seym River, which flows into the Desna. The Desna connects with a reservoir within the Kyiv area and a water provide utilized by thousands and thousands.
A poisonous slick was detected on 17 August coming from the Russian border village of Tyotkino. In keeping with Kyiv, chemical waste from a sugar manufacturing unit had been dumped in huge portions into the Seym. It included ammonia, magnesium and different toxic nitrates. On the time, fierce combating was occurring within the surrounding space. Ukraine’s armed forces had launched a shock incursion into Russia and had seized territory in Kursk oblast.
The air pollution crossed the worldwide border simply over a mile away and made its means into Ukraine’s Sumy area. The Seym’s pure ecosystem crashed. Fish, molluscs and crayfish have been asphyxiated as oxygen ranges fell to close zero. Settlements alongside the river reported mass die-offs. Kraskov acquired a name from the authorities warning him a catastrophe was coming his means. He noticed the primary lifeless fish on 11 September. “There were a few of them in the middle of the river,” he mentioned.
He returned the next weekend to search out the Desna’s banks clogged with rotting fish, stretching for 3 metres. Volunteers sporting rubber boots, masks and protecting gloves shovelled the fish into sacks. They discovered a metre-long catfish. “The stench was terrible. You could scarcely breathe. The river was quiet. Nothing moved apart from a few frogs,” Kraskov mentioned. A tractor took the sacks to an abattoir that used to belong to the village’s Soviet-era collective farm. They have been buried in a pit.
Serhiy Zhuk, the pinnacle of Chernihiv’s ecology inspectorate, described what had occurred as an act of Russian ecocide. “The Desna was one of our cleanest rivers. It’s a very big catastrophe,” he mentioned. Zhuk traced the slick’s route on a map pinned to his workplace wall: a looping multi-week journey alongside the Seym and Desna. “More than 650km is polluted. Not a single organism survived. This is unprecedented. It’s Europe’s first completely dead river,” he mentioned.
In his view, the Kremlin was waging complete battle of a form not seen for the reason that final century. Vladimir Putin’s want to eradicate Ukraine prolonged to the pure world, he instructed. “They are sending rockets through the air, burning our forests and threatening to blow us up with nuclear bombs. You can rebuild a bridge or a school. It takes longer, unfortunately, for wildlife to recover.”
Because the contamination approached, Zhuk ordered the closure of Zolotyi Financial institution, the central seashore in Chernihiv. A ban was imposed on fishing, swimming, and on utilizing the river to water cattle or gardens. Scientists took samples, testing each 15-20km and bringing glass vials again to a laboratory. The outcomes have been hair-raising. Within the metropolis of Baturyn, a one-time Cossack capital on the Seym, oxygen content material dipped to zero on 29 August. The subsequent day it was 0.1 mg/dm³. At the very least 4 mg/dm³ is required for fish to breathe.
Zhuk mentioned it will take years for the river to get well. There was little prospect of this occurring whereas combating in Russia’s Kursk oblast continued, he mentioned. Ukraine’s armed forces have blown up bridges over the Seym, including gas and particles to an already noxious combine. Round Chernihiv, native helpers – some in boats – collected about 44 tonnes of lifeless fish. “That’s what we recovered. There’s a lot more inside the river and on the bottom,” Zhuk mentioned.
Emergency groups have used compressors to pump oxygen into the Desna, to offer the remaining fish a greater probability of survival. Latest rains dispersed some toxins. Zhuk was optimistic these measures could be sufficient to avoid wasting Kyiv from the worst of the air pollution. However he admitted the state of affairs was grim. “There is a difference between a natural and man-made disaster. This was a diversionary act. Russia’s ecological genocide won’t stop until the war stops,” he mentioned.
On the central seashore, Olha Rudenko and her boyfriend Roman Svichkar strolled alongside the golden sands. An indication in purple letters warned “Do not bathe”. “This is a huge eco-tragedy. The river smells weird,” Olha remarked. She famous that final 12 months Russian troops blew up the Khakovka reservoir in Ukraine’s southern Kherson province, flooding villages and killing individuals and fish. “This is Russia again, 100%,” she mentioned. “We used to drink water from the tap and buy fish from the market. Now we can’t.”
Svitlana Hrynchuk, Ukraine’s minister for environmental safety, mentioned water consumption in Kyiv remained protected. Varied particular measures had been taken to eliminate the nitrates, she mentioned, with 120 tonnes of cleansing brokers imported and nets strung throughout the Desna to catch lifeless fish. Within the Kyiv area, none had turned up. Moreover, water was routinely purified earlier than it was extracted for family use, she mentioned, including: “We don’t have a fish plague.”
Hrynchuk mentioned this newest episode was a part of a dismal sample. Russian troops had destroyed nationwide parks in occupied areas, killed animals and mined 1000’s of hectares of forest. Explosions had prompted wildfires, an issue exacerbated by current scorching climate. “Ukraine is fighting for its future. That future has to include nature. We need clean water, clean air, woods, everything,” she mentioned. “We have a beautiful country. We have to save and protect it.”
She mentioned the river was part of Ukrainian tradition. In 1956, the Soviet film-maker Oleksandr Dovzhenko revealed a novel referred to as The Enchanted Desna. Reminiscing about his childhood, he wrote: “It would be long past sunset and the large catfish would leap in the Desna under the stars as we listened agog till we dozed off in the fragrant hay under the oaks. Grandpa regarded the tench as the best fish of all. He scooped them right out of the water with his bare hands like a Chinese magician.”
Again at Slabyn, Kraskov mentioned that earlier than he turned village mayor he labored at Chornobyl nuclear energy station. He was concerned within the development of a concrete sarcophagus designed to include radiation from the reactor, which blew up in 1986. “I know how to bury dangerous substances,” he mentioned wryly. “I also know how bureaucracy works. That’s why we acted quickly with the dead fish.” He continued: “If something goes wrong, officials like to find a scapegoat. So you better do everything correctly. Our life is like this.”
