Official: Donetsk Oblast farmers' war losses exceed $125 million
Agricultural enterprises in Donetsk Oblast have suffered losses totaling over five billion hryvnias ($125 million) since the start of Russia's full-scale war, according to Olena Rybakova, deputy agriculture director for the Donetsk Oblast State Administration.
Settlements in Donetsk Oblast suffer from daily Russian strikes due to their proximity to the front line. Russia controls around 60% of Donetsk Oblast and illegally annexed the occupied territory along with Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts in the fall of 2022.
The estimated losses to farms and agricultural enterprises may be lower than the recorded figures, Rybakova cautioned.
"This is only the calculated amount, because there are still many unaccounted for, because it is impossible to get to the territories there, to inspect them," Rybakova told a reporter from the news outlet Ukrinform at a press briefing on April 30.
There are 352 agricultural enterprises in the Ukrainian-controlled territory of Donetsk Oblast that are currently on the list of local companies that have sustained damage and losses since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Rybakova said.
"Before the full-scale war, in 2021, about 850 agricultural enterprises operated in the government-controlled Donetsk region," she told reporters.
"Now 352 enterprises operating in the region have been affected and suffered losses ... It is difficult to say exactly how many enterprises have left the region, as circumstances change every day."
According to a report published by the Kyiv School of Economics in February 2024, Ukraine's total agriculture losses since the full-scale invasion amount to over $10 billion.
