Over the past decade, the area of parks in the capital has decreased by 800 hectares
In the last five days, the capital's city administration has issued five warnings on social media about smog in the city. The poor air quality in Kyiv is attributed by the KCSA to low-wind weather, which contributes to the accumulation of dust in the atmosphere, and they advise residents to keep their windows closed and drink more water.
Indeed, meteorologists have recorded very low wind speeds in recent days, so weather conditions do play a role in the pollutants remaining in the air over the city. However, dust doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. What is polluting the air in Kyiv, what can be done to prevent it, and why hasn’t it been addressed yet – Vladimir Boreiko, head of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center, shared in an interview with Kashtan NEWS.
Cars, CHPs, and Bribes
Calm weather occurs in many regions, but Kyiv consistently ranks among the top twenty to thirty cities in the world with the most polluted air.
“The KCSA manipulates facts: they claim that pollution is due to the lack of wind. But why are there cities where there is no pollution even without wind? Here we come to the facts: about 80 percent of air pollution in Kyiv is caused by road traffic. How do we combat this? We need to develop the metro and electric transport, yet in the ten years of Klitschko's administration, not a single new station has been built. Moreover, tram and trolleybus lines are being shut down,” recalls Vladimir Boreiko.
In addition to cars, the atmosphere of the city is polluted by enterprises that release harmful substances into the air.
“We have an Environmental Protection Department led by Mr. Vozny (Oleksandr Vozny, Director of the Department of Environmental Protection and Climate Change Adaptation of KCSA – ed.), who has already been charged three times, one of which is for granting permits for air emissions of pollutants for a bribe. In other words, the person who is paid to prevent illegal emissions of pollutants, who should force polluters to install filters and fine them for violations, is instead granting them permits. And we wonder why the air in Kyiv is polluted,” says the ecologist.
Another factor is the Kyiv CHPs and the waste incineration plant “Energia,” which operate with outdated equipment.
0 “They have old filters, and I understand that they may lack funds for modern Japanese or German filters, which are indeed very expensive. But I don’t understand why Kyiv's money is spent on Klitschko's “toys” like the Glass Bridge or the glamorization of parks at the expense of nature, such as the destruction of Obolon Island. Why isn’t this money going towards filters for CHPs, sewage treatment plants, or the Bortnytsia Aeration Station? With those millions, we could install proper electrofilters at least at one CHP,” notes Vladimir Boreiko.
A City Without Lungs
At the same time, the area of green zones, which should retain at least some pollution, is decreasing every year. Kyiv is “balding”: residential development is replacing parks and squares.
“Green plantings are the lungs; they provide oxygen to the air and retain dust – the same dust that meteorologists write about. From a common-sense perspective, the area of green plantings in Kyiv should be increasing, but it is actually decreasing. We conducted research: we took the areas of parks before 2014 and surveyed the KP UZN, which responded to us about all parks at this time. Thus, it turned out that over the ten years of Klitschko's governance, the area of parks in Kyiv has decreased by 800 hectares. And this is only official parks – not any profit-making territories or green zones that are not officially recognized as green zones. For example: the “Pokol” park near Lysaya Hill, metro station “Vydubychi.” It used to be 90 hectares, but now it’s 45 – due to illegal construction of the so-called residential complex “Svitlopark.” Furthermore, the Kyoto park near the metro station “Chernihivska” has shrunk by half – the territory was handed over to developers, and they erected a fence there. Additionally, vast areas in parks are now occupied by churches and restaurants. For instance, the small Navodnytsky park, where the monument to Kyi, Shchek, and Khoryv is located: there is a small restaurant there, which I believe was built illegally,” believes the head of the KEC.
1 He points out that even new parks, which the KCSA boasts about opening, are not actually new.
“When Klitschko talks about some new parks – it’s a lie and manipulation, because it simply takes an existing green zone and declares it a park. This was the case with the “Natalka” park: there was already a green zone, there were trees and bushes; this is not a new park. A new park is when a vacant lot is taken and trees are planted on it. Or when an industrial zone is taken, destroyed, and black soil is brought in, and again trees are planted,” explained Vladimir Boreiko.
Protected Areas
Until recently, one of the most effective ways to protect Kyiv's green zones from destruction and development was to grant them the status of natural reserve fund objects. However, in May 2024, the Kyiv City Council adopted a decision that effectively closed this path.
“Developers found a deputy, Limar (Yuliya Limar, member of the “UDAR” faction in the Kyiv City Council – ed.), who started promoting a Kyiv City Council decision that contains points on reserving that we could not fulfill. We initially resisted: there was already a project that was signed by all members of the environmental committee, but I negotiated with Moskalev (Denys Moskalev, head of the Kyiv City Council's environmental policy committee – ed.). And Moskalev did not take action. Then she found an ally in the secretary of the Kyiv City Council, Volodymyr Bondarenko, and thanks to him, on May 10, the Kyiv City Council supported this decision,” says Vladimir Boreiko.
According to him, fulfilling the requirements outlined in the new procedure for creating objects of the natural reserve fund is practically impossible.
“For example, the law on the natural reserve fund states what documents are needed for reservation: this includes justification, a request, user agreement, and a scheme. But the Kyiv City Council stipulated that there must be cadastral plans, aerial photography, etc. In other words, things we cannot do because, for instance, many lands in Kyiv do not even have cadastral plans. Then the law states that protective zones can be created around reserves. Yet the new procedure states that they cannot be created, but must be created. It is impossible to do this in the city because it requires agreements with many land users, and they will not agree,” the ecologist explains.
2 As a result, during 2024 and the first two months of 2025, the Kyiv City Council has not created a single new object of the natural reserve fund, although previously five to six and even ten were created annually, Boreiko reminds.
“The Kyiv City Council had no right to adopt this decision at all. Neither the law on self-governance nor the law on environmental protection states that city councils can create their own procedures. We also appealed to the State Regulatory Service, which conducted an examination and determined that this decision was made unlawfully because it is a regulatory act, which has a different adoption process. Furthermore, the Kyiv City Council violated its own regulations: they wrote that all projects for reservation (and we made 20 of them) should be submitted to Mr. Vozny, which, according to their regulations, should not be done. So, the regulations say one thing, and they write completely differently,” emphasizes the ecologist.
Currently, the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center is challenging the Kyiv City Council's decision in court. So far, the ecologists remain optimistic.
“There have already been two hearings. Last year we won a case regarding Lysaya Hill against the Kyiv City Council and forced Klitschko to abandon the destruction of Lysaya Hill for a military cemetery. I believe we will win this case as well because the law is on our side, and we have been supported by the State Regulatory Service, which has entered the process as a third party,” says Vladimir Boreiko.
Yuliya TENENYOVA