As the Ukrainian war entered its fourth month, there were more and more reports of attacks on chemical facilities. On May 31, an air strike in severodonetsk led to the explosion of nitric acid containers, spraying a large amount of toxic smoke into the air, and residents were urged to stay at home. On June 12, it was reported that a fire broke out in the Azot chemical plant in the same city, where hundreds of civilians took refuge.

For Yaroslav yurtsaba, the Ukrainian State head of the organization for security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the news of the leakage of such chemicals was not unexpected. For many years, the organization has been cooperating with the Ukrainian government to monitor and improve chemical safety, but the hostilities in Donbas in eastern Ukraine are particularly worrying. This part of the country is highly industrialized. More than 600 industrial enterprises that actually store a large amount of chemicals are located there.

The safety and environmental consequences of chemical spills have been a long-term concern of Ukraine, but the situation has further deteriorated since the Donbas conflict in 2014 and the subsequent small-scale conflict. In 2017, baskut tuncak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and hazardous waste, raised concerns about the shelling of a building storing 7000 kg of chlorine. Fortunately, there is no container rupture - the leakage of a 900 kg container alone could lead to death and serious health consequences for anyone within a few kilometers. "The risks that existed five years ago still exist," said tonkak, director of the Institute for toxic substance reduction (turi) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell

Since 2017, the OSCE Project Coordinator in Ukraine has raised about 1.7 million euros (1.5 million pounds) for projects supporting chemical safety, including contributions from OSCE participating countries and additional funds from the European Union, the United States, Germany and Finland. Jurchaba recalled, "in 2017, OSCE conducted a comprehensive study on chemical safety and safety risks and threats." They recorded 655 industrial facilities, which stored or used more than 196000 tons of hazardous chemicals. Yurtsaba said that an example is a nearly 700 km long ammonia pipeline across the eastern part of the country. He estimated that "if something terrible happens to this pipeline", nearly 1.5 million people may be in danger.

The situation of mines in eastern Ukraine is also worrying. Since 2014, many facilities controlled by separatists in the region have been closed and are now flooded. Mercury and sulfur enter the groundwater level and eventually enter the Assyrian sea. Yurtsaba and his colleagues also investigated the tailings storage facility (TSF), a pond containing waste chemicals. By 2019, 465 TSFS in Ukraine had stored more than 5.4 billion tons of industrial waste, less than half of which was in Donbas. He said that if the dam bursts, toxic chemicals will flow into the West vosgidainez River, which is the main water source in the eastern part of the country I'm actually surprised that the hostilities in the East have not yet brought about this disaster. "

Equip Ukraine

OSCE also helped Ukraine build its analytical capacity. Two years ago, they provided the most advanced analytical laboratory equipment to the river basin management authority of slovyansk, and now the city of slovyansk is under attack. These devices have been evacuated, "but we are not so lucky with other devices," yurtsaba said. A mobile Chemistry Laboratory - the first of its kind in Ukraine - was provided to the Donetsk national emergency service, located in the now destroyed city of Mariupol. He added: "we don't have any information about the whereabouts of this mobile laboratory. I really hope it has been safely removed."

Before the current war, the OSCE has also begun to improve the country's emergency response capacity. Anna predvichna, an OSCE project official, said the basic idea was to develop a set of simple guidelines for emergency personnel. From 2020, they began to carry out multi agency training programs for local officials and emergency personnel. "We spent a lot of time on practical operations, such as learning how to use personal protective equipment, how to evacuate people from dangerous areas, and how to decontaminate ourselves and those affected by chemical hazards," prevenina said

In addition, OSCE simulated a series of inter agency emergencies. When the war broke out, they were designing exercises at the Ilyich steel plant in Mariupol. "That steel plant is even bigger than azovstal," predvichna explained. "We plan to conduct a practical exercise of ammonia leakage, with more than 45 participants from different regions participating... Unfortunately, we can't do this, not now.

In response to the war, the team collected emergency briefings on exposure to toxic chemicals. Andrii dziubenko, OSCE communications official, said that when we saw the development of the situation, we naturally took action. The material includes information for identifying and dealing with ammonia, mercury, chlorine and nitric acid leaks. In April this year, they also held a webinar for journalists. Dziubenko said: "(they) are usually the first people to arrive at the scene." He hopes that these briefings will also be available to the wider public.

In the current war, the use of chemical weapons by the Russian army is a new area of concern for the country. Jeubob said that the OSCE has no supervision responsibility in this region, only the same information reported by the media, such as the rumor that the Russian army used chemical weapons in Mariupol. Dziubenko said, "we can't confirm the authenticity of this information, we just don't know." But he added that now "chemical warfare is one of our biggest fears."