[Summary translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

Occupied Crimea faces new environmental disaster, 28 January 2019

A new threat of environmental disaster is brewing in the Russian-occupied Crimea near Kerch due to the activities of Komysh-Burunsky Iron Ore Plant, said Dmytro Tymchuk, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense.

Environmental deterioration on the peninsula began due to dismantling of a storage facility for metallurgical waste that accumulated as a result of Komysh-Burunsky Iron Ore Plant's operations. The storage facility is being dismantled by commercial construction companies controlled by Russia. Now the accumulated stocks of bulk waste are used as additives in the manufacture of cement and construction sand.

"The situation could lead to an outbreak of diseases and threaten flora and fauna hundreds of kilometers away from the storage facilities by spreading toxic substances by sea water along the Black Sea coast," Tymchuk emphasized.