ROME — Ukrainian Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk warned Saturday that Russian soldiers have been polluting the nation’s drinking water, creating a potential crisis.
In a video message, Archbishop Shevchuk said “the occupiers, in particular in Donbas, are flooding abandoned mines. And this water pollutes sources of drinking water. And this whole part of Ukraine and Russia will be in great trouble due to the lack of drinking water.”
The poisoning of drinking water is part of a larger ecological problem predicament brought on by Russia’s war on Ukraine, the archbishop said, which also comprises the possibility of a nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
Invoking memories of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Shevchuk reminded his hearers of the real danger posed by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the face of ongoing Russian shelling. A commission from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the plant Saturday, he noted, while urging prayers “that their presence will help prevent a new nuclear disaster on the territory of Ukraine.”
“How important it is to be able to engage in stewardship wisely, to worry about the common home, and in no wise destroy it,” he said. “Because this is one of the types of love for the motherland. Being responsible for the environment also means being a patriot of one’s homeland.”
As he has done in many previous messages, Shevchuk offered an update of the status of the “large-scale war that Russia started against the Ukrainian people.”
Between Friday and Saturday, Russia carried out six major missile strikes as well as some 20 aerial bombings of cities and villages in Ukraine, the archbishop said, in particular, the bombardment of Mykolayiv and Mykolayiv Oblast with “high-explosive bombs.”
“They are shelling the border areas in the north of our homeland, in the Sumy region and Chernihiv region,” he said, with more shelling on Kharkiv. The most active hostilities are taking place in the Donetsk region, he said, where Russian forces are relentlessly attacking the cities of Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Slovyansk.
“But despite all this trouble, sorrow, pain, and tears, today we can once again say that Ukraine is standing! Ukraine is fighting! Ukraine is praying!” he declared.
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