The President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky instructed the government to solve the flood “once and for all”. The reason for this statement became floods that struck the Western region of the country. Floods have destroyed hundreds of kilometers of roads, damaged dozens of bridges, was flooded and about 230 settlements. There is information on dead and missing.The Western regions of Ukraine — Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattia, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ternopil suffer from floods every year, but this year the revelry was almost a record. According to the MOE, flooding resulted in the flooding of about 10 thousand houses, complete destruction of the bridges 64 and 117 km of roads, damage to several dozen bridges and many roads. About 300 residents of remote villages cut off by floods from the rest of the world. The water hit the popular ski resort Bukovel and the city of Chernivtsi with population of about 300 thousand people.To the West of the country from Kiev was sent a government Commission, composed of the Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal and interior Minister Arsen Avakov. “The situation is really terrible. The last time a similar level of flooding in the Ivano-Frankivsk region was in 2008. Then he took the lives of 38 people. Today, unfortunately, in the field, three people were killed. The body of one victim has not yet been found, the bodies of two women found”,— said at a briefing in Ivano-Frankivsk Mr. Smegal.Only in Ivano-Frankivsk region, where the level of water flowing through its territory Dnestr has risen by almost two meters, on the struggle with the elements already allocated more than 500 million hryvnia (nearly 1.3 billion). The final amount required to overcome the effects of flooding, according to the Prime Minister, will be determined only after the water recede.These figures are the head of state announced during a conference call with the West sent to members of the government. He gave his officials an order to prepare an effective programme to combat the floods. “Time to find a systemic solution to strengthen the river banks. To strengthen the banks of the Dniester, Tisza to solve this issue once and for all. It is necessary to develop a truly great program with foreign experience, not to waste every year people and money,” said Mr Zelenski.Later in his video message to the people of the affected regions, the Ukrainian President promised in the near future to begin work on a strategy for the integrated flood control, which would solve the problem of floods forever, or at least for the next few decades.Photo: office of the President of Ukraine this video Vladimir Zelensky also stressed that all victims can count on the help of aNY state. “First of all I want to Express my sincere condolences to the families of the victims. Other affected citizens want to assure the state will not leave you in the lurch. We will rebuild damaged roads and bridges and other infrastructure. Will solve the housing question: restore or destroyed, or find a new one. We understand that the consequences of you may need more than one billion hryvnia, but these means will necessarily be found,” said Mr Zelenski.After the floods of 2008, a government Commission investigating the causes of catastrophic floods came to the conclusion that the flooding was triggered by a number of factors, including global warming and unchecked economic activities in mountain and forest areas of Western Ukraine. First and foremost it was about deforestation in the Carpathians, where annually exported thousands of cubic meters of wood. Moreover, according to analysis of British environmentalists from non-governmental organizations Earthsight, is the situation with deforestation getting worse. The report, published on 23 Jun, that is already in the midst of the flood, suggests that forests in the Carpathian mountains produced a lot more established norms.”I worked for ten years as a lumberjack in the forestry. There’s a lot of what I had seen. For example, our foresters are expanding the boundaries of the cutting area or parcel boundaries for harvesting for their own needs. If officially we are cutting down 200 cubic meters of wood, thanks to the extension of boundaries is additionally chop off another 100 cubic meters”,— are presented in the report Earthsight the words of one of the anonymous sources of the organization.In the report, in particular, says that one of the most popular products of the company — Terje folding chair, annually sold up to 1.5 million pieces are produced from illegally deforested Carpathian beech, which the Swedes sell unscrupulous agents under the guise obtained a legal way.IKEA even had to declare innocence of the company to illegal schemes in the Carpathians. “We recognize that illegal logging remains a widespread global problem and actively working on the implementation of measures to verify our suppliers ‘compliance with the law”,— said the representatives of the Swedish company told Reuters.On June 24, the press service of the SBU announced the elimination of the scheme of legalization of illegally extracted in Chernivtsi region forests, in which participated employees of the state forestries.However, the Ukrainian environmentalists believe that only stopping deforestation will not solve the financial and human losses from floods. “Thousands of years the river overflowed and flooded and formed a floodplain — the area that is periodically flooded with water. And therefore,��WMD floods to prevent, in principle, impossible,”— said in a published last year on the website texty.org article analyst independent environmental organization “Environment — people — law” Peter test. He proposes to abandon the construction of new protective dams and straightening of riverbeds, which in Soviet times was the basis of all anti-flood measures in Western regions of Ukraine. On Thursday, the water level in the rivers flowing through the territory of the Western regions of Ukraine, began to fall. However, the State service for emergency situations reported that the danger of a new rise of water is saved, and warned of a possible flooding of those areas that have so far escaped floods.Matthew Shimanov, Kiev
