In the framework of permanent cooperation with United Nations’ bodies and officials, our Association sent a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change Professor Elisa Morgera for her report on transforming food systems to protect human rights and prevent climate harm.
The ARC submission, prepared by Anna Prykhodko, Olexii Plotnikov and other experts and published at UN official web-sources now, stressed again that negative impacts of Russian aggression against climate and agriculture include atmospheric pollution due to mass extensive emissions of combustion products, destruction of thousands of square kilometers of forests and plantations near the frontline, as well as natural soils in the combat zone close to the Crimea, due to the intervention of the Russian occupiers in the melioration management and natural watercourses in Southern Ukraine.
The ARC submission reminded to the UN officials that Russian central authorities, military structures, and illegal “governments” in Crimea and Henichesk disseminate a system of fakes regarding events with the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP and catastrophe with Russian tankers “Volgoneft-212” and “Volgoneft-239,” and that all systems of the agrarian sector in modern Crimea are totally ineffective and caused broad-scale growth of prices on basic food products.
The ARC submission also described the next challenges for rights to food and sustainable development, escalating in the Russia-occupied Crimea since 2025, when illegal “republican authorities” started a broad-scale campaign of “confiscation” of agricultural land plots, gardens, and vineyards.
The ARC submission pointed that Crimea and other Russian-occupied territories suffered severe crop failures due to frost and drought in 2025, producing less grain that local population needs per year, but in same 2025 Russian “authorities” organized illegal transfer of 2 million tons of grain via Crimean maritime ports to third countries for political and corruption purposes.
Also so-called “Strategy for the sustainable development of the Azov Region through 2040,” approved by Russian government on December 29, 2025 contains no solutions in food system areas, it consistently ignores the situation of the large-scale war in the Azov Region.
The ARC submission stressed also that such Russia’s illegal activities made strong challenges for the right to food in conditions of food systems transformation, for the cultivation and preparation of local food by indigenous Crimean Tatar people, and Russia bans any civil society activities for advancing an equitable and sustainable food system in Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine.
