A history of Greenpeace Ukraine

But Greenpeace has a long history of working Ukraine, dating back to the 1986 Chornobyl disaster:

Greenpeace 2024

Video transcript:

- History of Greenpeace Ukraine in the 90s
- Enough of Chernobyl
- Children of Chernobyl
- No to new reactors
- Water for life
- Greenpeace investigations

1994. The Moby Dick ship is sailing down the Dnipro River. It carries Greenpeace Ukraine activists to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where they will later hang a banner “Enough with Chornobyl.”

This is one of the many actions of Greenpeace Ukraine in the 90s. This video is about the history of one of the most famous environmental movements in our country. This story is about Greenpeace and its activities in Ukraine in the 90s.

Greenpeace started working in Ukraine after the Chornobyl tragedy, helping people affected by the nuclear disaster.

In 1989, the Children of Chornobyl project was launched - Greenpeace Ukraine organized a laboratory to diagnose and treat children living in radiation-contaminated areas.

With the assistance of Greenpeace Ukraine, Canadian experts provided training for Kyiv doctors who worked with affected children.

Since the early 1990s, activists in Ukraine have launched several environmental initiatives. First, they tried to stop the construction of new nuclear power plants. The banner on the cooling tower of the Zaporizhzhia NPP is just one of Greenpeace's Ukraine most spectacular anti-nuclear actions in the country.

In 1993, Greenpeace traveled across Ukraine for nine days from Lviv to Zaporizhzhia. The bus tour “No to New Reactors” collected more than 15,000 signatures against the expansion of nuclear power in Ukraine.

Greenpeace activists handed over more than 260,000 postcards from people around the world calling for the closure of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant to then-President Leonid Kravchuk.

Another critical area of work for the organization at the time was the fight for clean and safe water in the capital. Greenpeace Ukraine launched the “Water for Life” campaign in 1994.

They installed a giant crane near the government building to draw attention to the problems with water treatment in Kyiv.

After the pickets, Kyivvodokanal changed its water treatment technology, which reduced the formation of carcinogenic organochlorine substances, although it did not abandon chlorination.

For more than five years, Greenpeace Ukraine has been trying to stop importing toxic waste from European countries for disposal in Ukraine.

Activists have found more than 300 tons of hazardous waste imported to Ukraine from Germany.

During one of the actions, Greenpeace Ukraine activists lay on the ground in the middle of the capital for several hours. They held banners warning Ukrainians about the danger of toxic waste.

Similar actions were held at the German Embassy.

The campaign was successful - in 1994, the Cabinet of Ministers banned the import of toxic waste into Ukraine.

In 1996, Greenpeace in Ukraine had more than 3,600 supporters.

However, due to the difficult financial situation and the crisis of these years, the office has been closed in our country.

In 2022, Greenpeace returned to Ukraine. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Central and Eastern Europe office launched a project to support green recovery.

Since then, the project team has been looking for opportunities to rebuild schools, hospitals, and kindergartens affected by Russian attacks in a green way.

At the same time, Greenpeace launched an investigation into Russian crimes at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which aims to return the plant to Ukrainian control and avoid a new nuclear incident in Ukraine.

In September 2024, Greenpeace Ukraine officially reopened its office and launched several new environmental projects.