State Environmental Inspectorate refuses to inspect logging on the Runa polonyna where a wind farm is being built

The company building the turbines belongs to a former member of the Party of Regions.

The State Environmental Inspectorate has no intention of inspecting the logging on the Runa polonyna where a wind farm is planned, the Holka initiative reported. Earlier, scientists found species of animals and plants in that area listed in the Red Book of Ukraine. Holka received the relevant documents from the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group.

The turbines are being built at an altitude of 1 400 meters above sea level. Construction is being carried out by Friendly Wind Technologies, which, according to YouControl, is owned by Maksym Yefimov — a former member of parliament from the now-banned Party of Regions. In the current convocation of the Verkhovna Rada he was part of the Restoration of Ukraine group. When the full-scale war began, Yefimov resigned his parliamentary mandate but continued to develop a business relocated from Kramatorsk in Zakarpattia — wind power plants.

Veteran and biologist of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, Andriy Tupikov, discovered that a Red Book species, the woodland lily, grows at the site where the wind farm is being built.

“We sent a letter to the State Environmental Inspectorate. It refused to carry out an inspection because the request came from an organization rather than an individual. This is a stalling tactic. There are court decisions confirming that the Inspectorate has responded to appeals from public organizations, including when our organization appealed. And after the Carpathian Economic Forum the threat of developing the Carpathians has only increased,” Tupikov said.

At the same time, the chair of the Verkhovna Rada committee on European Union integration, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, said that wind farms in the Carpathians are under the patronage of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“We learned that the wind farms in the Carpathians have the president’s patronage. He presents this as European integration and concern for national security. It’s strange that after months of struggle by ecologists, activists, and journalists, after two joint hearings of the parliamentary European integration and environmental committees with our European partners participating, after the European Parliament resolution and the petition to protect the Carpathians, which very quickly gathered the necessary number of citizen signatures, no one informed Zelensky about the widespread violations of the law that accompany erecting turbines in the mountains. We must bring the truth to EU institutions, because I do not believe they would even consider participating in any form of cooperation that leaves the environment out of the equation,” the deputy said.

Last year the Verkhovna Rada passed the law “On Zakarpattia,” which creates risks both for logging and for developing a corrupt scheme to buy property from certain people at a price 3-3,6 times higher than market value using budget funds. This controversial bill was supported by members of parliament Robert Horvat, Valeriy Lunchenko, Vasyl Petiovka, and Vladyslav Polyak, who represent the region in parliament.

Meanwhile, the text of veteran and ecologist Andriy Tupikov’s petition, in which he demands that the president urgently submit a bill to parliament that would protect the Carpathians, was published only on the fifth attempt. And when the petition gathered the number of signatures required for Zelensky to consider it, he simply redirected it to then-prime minister Yuliia Svyrydenko and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov.

Read more in the article “Turbines in the Carpathians: What’s Really Happening in the Mountains?” by ecosystem conservation specialist Bohdan Kuchenko of the NGO Ecodiya.

And about who and how allowed turbine construction to begin in the heart of the Carpathians despite the absence of an environmental impact assessment, read the article by Holka analyst Heorhii Mohylnyi, “The Corruption Scheme of DIAM. Which side is the state on when Carpathian peaks are being developed with turbines?”.