The pro-Russian oligarch Dmytro Firtash tries to withdraw billions of hryvnias from local communities at the expense of environmentally harmful production – extraction of titanic ore on 100 hectares of land in Zhytomyr region.
This was stated during a press briefing in the Verkhovna Rada by the MP from UKROP Vitaliy Kupriy, speaking with his colleagues – MP Valentyn Didych and a deputy of Zhytomyr Regional Council from UKROP Vitaliy Naumenko.
“It’s the fifth year of war, and we still have the business of the aggressor on the territory of Ukraine. Moreover, pro-Russian oligarchs like Dmytro Firtash still affect the situation in the country,” said Vitaliy Kupriy.
According to him, in Zhytomyr region there is a scandal around the criminal seizure of land plots for the development of a career for titanic ores extraction with a total area of 100 hectares. The extracted raw materials are to be supplied to the concern “Crimean Titan”, which belongs to the disgraced oligarch and has been working freely on the occupied peninsula for the fifth year.
Development of the deposit will result in destruction of forest plantations and three surrounding villages. In addition, building a career involves the complete drainage of land within a radius of at least 20 kilometers. And the main thing – radioactive minerals, which are byproducts of mining, threaten the people in the entire region.
“The huge dumps that are planned to be thrown on the surface will be dispersed by wind even to Kyiv. We cannot allow the crime that they want to commit in Zhytomyr region,” said Valentyn Didych, MP from UKROP.
In 2016, Zhytomyr Regional Council postponed the hearing on the transfer of land for the ecological examination. However, Firtash has managed to persuade some local deputies to return to consideration of the draft decision without any preliminary public discussion and conclusions of ecologists.
“The UKROP faction in Zhytomyr Regional Council, together with the representatives of the “Ukrainian Association of Patriots” in the Verkhovna Rada, has been steadily fighting against the pro-Russian oligarch Firtash for more than two years. It seems that the leads of this deal actually go to Bankova. Perhaps this is their “solidarity” 50/50,” stressed Vitaliy Naumenko.
