Yatsenyuk and Groysman are the main culprits of forest fires in Ukraine
The main prerequisites for the occurrence of catastrophic forest fires in Ukraine in the spring of 2020 were laid under the premiership of Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Vladimir Groysman.
Its director, Vladimir Boreyko, writes about this on the website of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In April 2020, Ukraine experienced the largest fires since its independence. About 30 thousand hectares were burned by crown fires in the Chernobyl zone and more than 4 thousand hectares in the Zhytomyr region. Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine were covered with acrid smoke and ash from fires for a week. In the Kyiv region alone, about 100 fires occurred every day, which could not always be extinguished in time. In the Zhytomyr region, fifty houses burned down from forest fires.
The authorities found the culprits to be switchmen - uneducated citizens who allegedly set fire to dry grass according to an old folk tradition. Although the grass most often catches fire from broken bottles (magnifying glass effect).
In fact, the main culprits behind the fire disaster are the former leaders of the Ukrainian government - Yatsenyuk and Groysman (along with Poroshenko). They were the ones who made the stupid management decisions that caused the disaster.
Forest fires are a common situation. They were, are and will be. The situation becomes unusual when there is no one and nothing to extinguish them,” writes the ecologist.
He lists several decisions made by previous governments that have led to fires of the size they are now.
1. Groysman and Yatsenyuk removed forestry enterprises from state funding. As a result, forestry enterprises cannot extinguish fires efficiently and quickly, since they have practically no fire engines, fire observation towers, money for gasoline to go extinguish fires, and their staff has also been reduced by half or more.
2. Groysman and Yatsenyuk closed the fire inspection. Now there is no one in the country to control the readiness of the same forestry enterprises for a fire-hazardous period.
3. Groysman and Yatsenyuk tied the hands of the environmental inspectorate, which cannot immediately respond to a violation of a fire hazard situation, but is forced to do so for a month! coordinate the inspection with Kyiv.
4. Poroshenko liquidated the environmental prosecutor’s office, an important body for monitoring and punishing those responsible for fires.
Unfortunately, the current government of Zelensky has only worsened the situation, the environmentalist notes. Former Prime Minister Goncharuk essentially closed the Ministry of Environment, merging it with the Ministry of Energy. Now the main government body responsible for environmental protection has no time to deal with fires.
Recently, the Verkhovna Rada raised fines for burning dry grass. But setting fire to dry grass is permitted under Art. 39 of the Law of Ukraine “On Fauna”.
“During the fires, the authorities, as in 1986, again lied, underestimated the area of the fires, declared that there was no threat to radiological safety, and meanwhile the firefighters extinguished the radiation “Red Forest”, as in 1986, without respirators,” emphasizes Vladimir Boreyko.
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