When seismic data emerged that the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine may have been blown up on 6 June, a former Ukrainian minister warned that the breach could be Ukraine’s “worst ecological disaster since the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown”.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyi initially condemned the dam’s destruction as an act of Russian terrorism on Twitter – but has since characterised it as a “crime of ecocide”.
Ukraine is one of the few countries to recognise ecocide as a crime under its domestic law. Interestingly, so does Russia, which has recognised ecological crimes since the introduction of a new criminal code in 1996. Under Article 441 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, ecocide is the “mass destruction of flora or fauna, pollution of atmosphere or water resources, as well as committing other actions that can cause an environmental catastrophe”. The offence is punishable by “imprisonment for a term of eight to 15 years”.
