Compensation and damage restitution: The conference addressed the impact of the Russian invasion on the environment across Europe.

On November 21 and 22, 2024, the USAID Program "Justice for All," in partnership with the Council of Europe, the Loss Registry for Ukraine, and the International Organization for Migration, held an international conference titled "Compensation and Reparation for Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine: Developing International and National Mechanisms."

The event served as a platform for over 190 representatives from the Government of Ukraine, justice sector institutions, communities, businesses, civil society, and the donor community to discuss the current state of compensation and other efforts by international and national stakeholders to address damage and to identify ways to enhance coordination and coherence among them.

On November 22, a representative from the State Environmental Inspection of Ukraine participated in the conference.

The Director of the Department of Environmental Supervision (Control), Maksym Zheleznyak, delivered a report outlining the extensive destructive consequences of the war on the environment. He emphasized the significant losses inflicted on the environment due to the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, particularly highlighting the issue of transboundary impacts from pollutant emissions into the atmosphere resulting from missile strikes on oil depots, transformer substations, gas stations, etc.

Maksym Zheleznyak noted that in 2024, the State Eco-Inspection, in collaboration with the UkrHydroMetCenter of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, analyzed the most high-profile cases of fires in regions of Ukraine neighboring EU countries. Utilizing the meteorological data system of the National Center for Environmental Forecasting of the National Weather Service of the USA, they modeled the trajectory of contaminated air mass dispersion. It was established that the contaminated air masses did not only move within the territory of Ukraine. Their dispersion trajectory also extended toward EU countries, particularly Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Hungary, and Croatia.