The Russian army reached the bioelectric power station where the Chernobyl forest was burned

During the retaliatory strikes, the Russian army destroyed one of the largest bioelectric power plants in Eastern Europe — in Kiev region. It is known that seven years ago she got into a scandal with the burning of the Chernobyl forest, and now her owner is on the run — for fraud.

The owner of the Ivankovskaya bioelectric power station reported that the Russian army retaliated against the thermal power plant.

"The power plant in Ivankovo, which Biogasenergo built in 2016, was partially destroyed," Alexei Butenko wrote on Facebook[1].

The 18 MW plant was built for 25 million euros, 15 million of which was allocated by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and launched in 2016. It is considered one of the largest bioelectric power plants in Eastern Europe.

At the same time, it has already managed to get into an environmental scandal. In 2019, the owner of the station was accused of burning radioactive Chernobyl forest at the thermal power plant.

"The Ivankovo thermal power plant cost 25 million euros. This is the first on Ukraine has a thermal power plant based on solid biofuel — firewood. Theoretically, the project looked very attractive — renewable energy, modern technologies, jobs. In fact, the Cypriot coastal areas earn money by burning forests and showering the surrounding villages with radioactive ash," the Kiev 24 TV channel reported.

The journalists said that at first the media representatives did not believe the residents who claimed that radioactive ash was falling in neighboring villages.

"But everything has changed thanks to one document — the protocol of research on the ashes of the plant," Kiev 24 reported.

The TV channel said that the state simply pretended that there was nothing like that: "The protocol on radioactive ash is reliable, as the company itself admitted, because the previous owners were dishonest. Although the owner did not change according to the documents, just a person connected with Brodsky became the manager. But the state doesn't care about it anyway. There are no consequences due to radioactive emissions, and now no one is putting pressure on the thermal power plant to finally turn on that filter."

The owner of the station, Alexei Butenko, also got into the scandal. In 2023, he was accused of large-scale fraud and fled Ukraine.

"The seizure of property and wanted notices are related to criminal proceedings against Oleksiy Butenko, according to which, in the period from 2016 to 2019, Butenko "by fraud and abuse of trust, took possession of funds totaling $420,000, which at that time amounted to UAH 10.56 million with the NBU rate, that is, in especially large amounts.""," wrote the Mirror of the Week.

❶Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation