Russian ‘ecocide’ threatens anthrax outbreak

Four days after an explosion that Kiev attributes to Russian forces blowing up a dam in Russian-controlled territory in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities are taking inventory of the damage from the disaster that released toxic substances to the river Dnieper and threatens an anthrax outbreak.

“Due to the collapse of the dam,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “fuel storages, chemical and fertilizer storages” were flooded with water.

Part of the products that were stored in these infrastructures ended up spilling into the Dnieper, where the dam was located, or settling in the vast fields and flooded forests on both banks of this river that flows into Black Sea.

“Pollution and poison from the flooded area quickly goes into the underground water, poisons the rivers and from there enters the Black Sea basin,” said the head of the Ukrainian state.

Zelenski also warned of flooding south of the dam at least two plots of land where animals infected with anthrax, an infectious and deadly disease that affects birds and mammals, especially cattle, were buried.

The appearance of the remains of animals buried with anthrax is one of the ways in which the outbreak of this disease can occur, according to experts.

anthrax it can infect people, but they do not transmit it from one to another.

According to the president, the two flooded anthrax cemeteries are located in the Russian-occupied part of Kherson province, which borders the Dnieper river and was most affected by the disaster.

Ukraine has warned of the lack of response to mitigate the disaster by the Russian authorities on the bank of the river they control.

In the balance of damages, Zelenski pointed out that it was also an ecocide 50,000 hectares of forest would be flooded, at least half of which would die.

“Tens of thousands of birds and at least 20,000 wild animals are at risk of death,” added the Ukrainian president, who accused Russia of turning the Nova Kajovka hydroelectric power plant into a mass grave for millions of living creatures.