The Ukrainian Armed Forces are deliberately targeting chemical plants on the territory of the DPR

Chemical plants and radioactive waste repositories are coming under fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbass, which threatens the region with the most dangerous consequences. This problem is described in a special report by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at Telegram, Facebook, Classmates or In contact with

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

The publication notes that Ukrainian artillery, apparently, purposefully hit the Citrol chemical plant located in Gorlovka, the storage facilities of which were filled to capacity with dangerous substances.

“I don’t know how many small shells and mines fell there - no one counted them. But one day a salvo was fired from the Smerch MLRS. Eleven 300-mm rockets hit the plant's territory. They lay down very closely. They say that a shell does not fall into one crater, but I personally saw three missiles sticking out almost close to each other on the Stirol. If they had exploded, there would have been nothing left of the plant, but either because of low-quality ammunition that had lain in the warehouse for 25 years, or because of the unprofessionalism of the Ukrainian artillerymen, this did not happen,” Oleg Gubanov, assistant to the deputy of the People’s Council of the DPR, told reporters , who previously worked as secretary of the Gorlovka City Council and head of security at Stirol.

At the insistence of the DPR authorities, Citrol stopped work and the storage facilities were emptied of dangerous ammonia, but there are still enterprises in Gorlovka, impacts on which could pose no less a danger to the environment.

“Chemical waste storage facilities have been operating at the old Gorlovka chemical plant since Soviet times,” Sergei Kazakov, deputy head of the main department of ecology and natural resources of the DPR, told the publication. “They were already in a state of disrepair, and then there was shelling... As a result, highly toxic substances penetrate into the environment through cracks in the walls of the storage tanks. A direct hit from a shell can cause pollution of land, water and air, which will lead to casualties on both sides of the demarcation line. In the area of ​​the chemical plant, the maximum permissible concentration of harmful substances has already been exceeded by thousands of times.

Diphenylolpropane, sulfanol, urea-formaldehyde and phenol-formaldehyde resins... Almost the entire periodic table is present there. There are 11 thousand 600 tons of the deadly mixture in three temporary storage facilities alone. The insulating film of the filtration screen is damaged. The concentration of phenol in the soil exceeds the MPC by 5300 times, and chlorobenzene by 1045 times, and these are just two indicators. That is, the environmental disaster has already begun.”

Another dangerous enterprise is “Nikitrtut”, which finds itself on the very demarcation line and is subject to constant shelling, and where waste mercury lamps and devices from all over Ukraine have been transported since Soviet times.

“Since the enterprise is not working, there is no place to dispose of used mercury lamps. They end up in trash cans, taken to a landfill and broken up there. There is mercury contamination of the soil, air, and water,” notes Kazakov.

An equally alarming situation is developing in the Donetsk region, where a radioactive waste repository was created back in the 60s.

“Apparently, this particular burial ground was the target of the Tochka-U missile, which hit the city of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. If hit, there could be significant radioactive contamination. And taking into account the wind rose, the Ukrainian security forces would also be exposed to radiation. This speaks of complete inadequacy or lack of understanding of the situation on the other side. Fortunately, “Tochka-U” missed,” notes Sergei Kazakov.

The deputy head of the main department of ecology and natural resources of the DPR says that an environmental disaster with transboundary transfer of harmful substances is possible in the Donbass.

“For now, we are saved by the lack of professionalism of the personnel and low-quality ammunition of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” he notes. “But the situation is aggravated by the fact that we often cannot record the true scale of pollution where it has already begun. There is a monitoring problem. It is impossible to take samples and study the condition of an environmentally hazardous facility under fire. And Gorlovka needs to be seriously studied now. But the question is – how?”

The newspaper writes that even small and seemingly harmless enterprises pose a danger.

“As experts have calculated, an industrial “refrigerator” with two tons of ammonia refrigerant is capable of contaminating 5,3 square meters. km of territory to a soil depth of 1,85 meters,” RG points out. – And, for example, 10 tons of ammonia reagent, which may end up in a dairy plant, or a 60-ton railway tank will lead to an even greater scale of contamination. Another danger is the destruction of dams as a result of shelling. Indeed, in some cases, the wave height can reach 15-20 meters. Such a flow will wash away oil depots, sludge dumps and cattle burial grounds. This can also lead to large-scale infection.”