Roads Are Cleared by the Local Government, Sites by the Owner: Ukraine’s Rules for War Debris

In front of apartment buildings destroyed by Russian attacks, chunks of concrete and brick, broken glass, and furniture and appliances pile up. Who clears this away, where is it taken, and what is it reused for? In Ukraine, Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1073 of September 27, 2022, sets out the procedure.

The legislation calls this debris “waste from destruction” (vidkhody vid ruinuvan). Based on the text of the law as of September 2026, this article looks in turn at who does the clearing, how debris with an unknown owner is handled, the rules for temporary storage sites and reuse, and why estimates of the quantity of debris differ between sources.

Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1073, September 2022

The full title of Resolution No. 1073 is “On Approving the Procedure for the Management of Waste Arising from Damage (Destruction) to Buildings and Structures as a Result of Combat Operations, Acts of Terrorism, Sabotage, or Work to Remove Their Consequences, and on Amending Certain Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers.” It has been amended six times between 2023 and 2026, and Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 964 of August 23, 2024, changed “handling of waste” (povodzhennia z vidkhodamy) to “management of waste” (upravlinnia vidkhodamy) in both the title and the text.

Paragraph 3 of the Procedure defines waste from destruction as fragments of damaged or destroyed buildings, together with items that were inside or near the building when it was damaged or demolished and can no longer be used for their original purpose or continue to be used on the spot. Paragraph 11 divides this into two categories: “main components” such as fragments of a building’s structure, doors and windows, piping, and sanitary fixtures, and “accompanying components” such as equipment, personal belongings, furniture, appliances, and organic matter.

The Procedure applies during martial law and during a 90-calendar-day “recovery period” after martial law ends (Paragraph 1). It does not apply to radioactive waste, facilities for defense or special purposes, facilities covered by nuclear-energy or cultural-heritage legislation, or waste from business operations (Paragraph 2). Under Paragraph 1-1, added by the December 2025 amendment, in areas designated as possible or ongoing combat zones on the list approved by the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories (Мінрозвитку), for which no end date for combat has been set, the Procedure applies only where the executive body of the local government (or the military administration) has so decided. Occupied areas for which no end date to the occupation has been set are not within its scope.

Who Does the Clearing?

The Procedure’s term “authorized body” refers to the executive body of a village, town, or city council. Where a military administration has been established, that local military administration takes on this role. Paragraph 5 divides responsibility for managing debris according to where the debris is.

Responsibility by Location

Situation	Responsible party	Basis
Debris on the grounds of a building, or on land with an owner	The owner or manager of the destroyed building, or the owner or user of the land	Procedure, Paragraph 5
Debris on streets and roads, in parks, squares, along riverbanks, around apartment building grounds, on beaches, in cemeteries, and other public places (including debris scattered by a blast)	The authorized body (the local government’s executive body, or the military administration)	Procedure, Paragraph 5
Debris the owner cannot clear personally for technical or economic reasons	The authorized body arranges the work at the owner’s request	Procedure, Paragraph 9
Demolition of a building	The decision to demolish is made by the executive committee of the village, town, or city council (or the local state administration or military administration), based on a building inspection report	Resolution No. 474, Procedure Paragraph 4
Recording and tracking debris	The authorized body. Reports to the oblast administration by the 5th of each month; the oblast and Kyiv City report to the responsible ministry by the 10th	Procedure, Paragraphs 6–7

The authorized body’s first priorities are streets and roads, the areas around schools, hospitals, social-welfare facilities and administrative-service buildings, fire and rescue posts, and the grounds around apartment buildings and dormitories (Paragraph 21). When an owner wants to clear their own site, they begin only after receiving notice from the authorized body that the urgent work (per the Procedure under Resolution No. 473 of April 19, 2022) has finished (Paragraph 22).

If a dangerous item such as an explosive is found during the work, or if there is a smell of gas or a leak of electricity, the work must be stopped immediately and the local offices of the State Emergency Service (ДСНС) and law enforcement agencies (such as the police) notified (Paragraph 19).

When the Owner Is Unknown

For debris whose owner is unknown, the authorized body searches for the owner under the “Procedure for Identifying and Recording Waste Whose Owner Is Not Established,” which the Cabinet set under the Law on Waste Management. If the owner still cannot be found, the authorized body arranges for the debris to be managed (Procedure, Paragraph 6).

Article 12 of the Law on Waste Management provides that the cost of transferring waste with an unknown owner to a processing operator, and the cost of removing waste’s harmful effects, is covered by the state or local budget. If the owner is later identified, that person must pay the cost of the search and of collection, transport, and processing (Article 12(3)).

For cases where the owner is known but has not cleared the debris, Paragraph 8 of the Procedure states that if the owner does not carry out the necessary work within 90 calendar days after martial law ends, the authorized body decides how to handle the debris, having regard to the Civil Code and other legislation.

Temporary Storage Sites and the Rules for Crushing and Reusing Debris

When the quantity of debris exceeds what a region’s processing facilities can handle, or when there is no processing facility, the oblast military administration (or, for Kyiv, the Kyiv City military administration) decides to establish a temporary storage site (Paragraph 25). Debris may be kept at a temporary storage site during martial law and for one year after martial law ends (Paragraph 3).

A temporary storage site must be at least 0.5 km from housing, public buildings, and social facilities; 0.2 km from farmland, public roads, and railways; and 0.05 km from forests. It may not be established on land bordering water bodies or in water-source protection zones (Paragraph 26). Processing at a temporary storage site is limited to separating, crushing, and sorting by particle size the “main components” that contain no dangerous substances (Paragraph 28).

Appendix 1 to the Procedure lists ways each component can be reused. Concrete, for example, may be used as aggregate for concrete up to strength class C20/25, as a crushed-stone-and-sand mixture for road base courses, for road embankments, and for backfilling mine workings. Brick may be used as a drainage layer in wetlands or to reinforce unpaved roads and forest roads. The appendix also lists asbestos-containing insulation and asbestos-containing building materials as components.

Paragraph 31 obliges the authorized body to take measures to reuse processed main components in construction projects for which it itself is the client, and to encourage other clients to use them as well. At the same time, managing debris under martial law does not require a waste-processing permit (Paragraph 4) and is not subject to environmental impact assessment (Paragraph 14).

Asbestos and Other Hazardous Waste

If hazardous waste is found from a destroyed building or during demolition, it is handled under Chapter IV (Hazardous Waste) of the Law on Waste Management (Procedure, Paragraph 12). Before demolition, provided there is no risk of the building or any of its structural elements collapsing, the demolition contractor is required to first remove parts that may contain hazardous waste, such as asbestos-containing materials, and to take measures during the work to prevent asbestos dust (Paragraph 24).

Putting debris into household-waste bins or separate-collection containers is prohibited (Paragraph 20). Other types of waste may not be kept together with debris at a temporary storage site (Paragraph 29).

The Law on Waste Management, and Construction and Demolition Waste

The underlying law is the Law on Waste Management (No. 2320-IX) of June 20, 2022. It was promulgated on July 9, 2022, and took effect 12 months later, on July 9, 2023. This caused the 1998 Law on Waste to lose effect.

This law defines “construction and demolition waste” as waste arising from major repairs, construction, or demolition of buildings and structures (Article 1). Article 13(7) requires businesses carrying out construction or demolition to collect this waste separately, record it, and hand it over to a processing operator, with non-hazardous waste directed to preparation for reuse, recycling, or backfilling, among other uses. Article 13(9) states that the management of waste arising from an emergency, including war, follows a procedure set by the Cabinet of Ministers, which for waste from destruction is Resolution No. 1073.

How Much Debris Is There?

What Do “6 Million Tonnes” and “17.2 Million Tonnes” Count?

Estimates of the quantity of debris vary greatly depending on who publishes them, because the scope and point in time being counted differ.

Publication	Point in time	Figure	Scope counted
Statement by the minister of the (then) Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources	Announcement of June 4, 2025	Over 6 million tonnes	Waste from destruction nationwide (no explanation of scope given)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study report (commissioned by UNDP and Ukraine’s Ministry for the Development of Communities and Territories, funded by the Government of Japan; the ministry was renamed the Ministry for Restoration, Infrastructure and Transport in July 2026)	Estimate as of September 2025 (report published June 2026)	Approx. 17.2 million tonnes	Debris from damaged or destroyed housing in government-controlled areas. Does not fully cover occupied areas or non-residential facilities
Same report	Same	Approx. 11.7 million tonnes	Of the above, the amount not yet processed. Regarding the remaining approximately 5.5 million tonnes, the report’s main text (Section I) states that, as reported by communities, it has already been “disposed of, reused, or recycled,” while the summary at the start of the report states that it has already been “removed and disposed of in landfills”
Same report	Same	Approx. 8.2 million tonnes	Of the unprocessed amount, the quantity that could be reused depending on contamination and sorting (up to 70%)

UNDP’s report describes this estimate as an “indicative” figure derived from public information and statistics, in the absence of a unified national method of calculation. Using a method that assumes the type of housing and degree of damage and converts floor area into weight, it finds the largest amounts by oblast in Donetsk (approx. 5.7 million tonnes), Kharkiv (approx. 3.4 million tonnes), Kyiv (approx. 1.9 million tonnes), and Kherson (approx. 1.1 million tonnes) Oblasts. It estimates the composition of the debris as approximately 50% brick, 45% concrete, and 5% other.

There are also figures for the amount cleared. UNDP states that it has supported the removal and sorting of more than one million tonnes of debris across eight oblasts since the full-scale invasion. The June 2025 announcement by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources notes that in Bucha, 30% of over 80,000 tonnes of debris was used to repair roads.

The Fifth Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA5), an estimate of recovery costs, counts debris in terms of cost rather than weight. Of the $25 billion in losses in the housing sector, it attributes $6 billion to debris removal. How to read the RDNA figures is covered in our article on recovery cost estimates.

Links to Compensation and Support Programs

Clearing debris is a separate program from compensation for destroyed homes. Compensation for homeowners is covered in our article on ЄВідновлення. Debris-processing equipment provided by Japan’s JICA, and the transfer of technology for operating temporary storage sites and handling asbestos, are covered in our article on what JICA has sent to Ukraine.