oa Use of Geoinformation Technologies for Fixing the Facts of Ecocide in Ukraine

The intensive development of weapons, forms and methods of armed struggle in armed conflicts of the 20th-21st centuries significantly increased the long-term negative impact on the natural environment and actualized the need to formalize generally accepted approaches to minimizing the impact of hostilities on the natural environment as components of international law. As a result, the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) of June 8, 1977, prohibits to the parties of an armed conflict to use methods or means of warfare intended, which are intended to inflict or, as can be expected, will cause extensive long-term and serious damage to the natural environment (Article 35). At the same time, the application of measures to cause damage to the natural environment as one of the forms of reprisals is prohibited by the specified protocol. During the large-scale invasion of the russian federation into the territory of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the russian occupation forces captured the Chornobyl and Zaporizhzhia NPPs, the Kakhovka HPP and other critical infrastructure facilities. Objectively, as a result of the violation of their regular functioning, the risks of emergency situations with potentially catastrophic consequences for the population and the natural environment have significantly increased. This determined the extreme relevance of remote monitoring of the situation at such facilities. The subject of this publication is the results of remote sensing monitoring of the state of one such critical infrastructure facility, namely the Kakhovka HPP.