In Ukraine, the war causes environmental devastation, another “catastrophe” for people and wildlife

Fires decimating hectares of forest, attacks on chemical plants, threats to nuclear power plants, hydrocarbon leaks and polluted agricultural soils… The war launched by Russia in Ukraine does not only mow down lives. It also endangers the environment and the livelihoods of Ukrainians in the short and long term. To document this damage, the NGO Zoï Environment Network has launched an interactive map* from the first weeks of the Russian invasion, in collaboration with the United Nations. “It’s a disaster and we don’t even know the extent of what is really happening”deplores Nickolai Denisov, director of the Swiss NGO.

It is difficult to accurately assess the damage on the spot. “We make a lot of assumptions,” recognizes Nickolai Denisov, depending on the infrastructure affected and the type of bombardment, with also satellite images, information provided by the authorities and in the local media. “Ideally, you should go on site to collect samples when the pollution is taking place, but it is impossible in combat zones”explains Oleksiy Vasyliuk, of the NGO Ukrainian Group for the protection of nature.

The case is taken very seriously at the top of the state. Hoping to one day sue Russia for its “environmental crimes”, the Ukrainian government has set up a working group which publishes a weekly report on the damage caused by the Russian invasion*. In a country as industrialized as Ukraine, the installations at risk are not limited to nuclear power plants, which have not yet caused any pollution.

In a river near the city of Ternopil, in the west of the country, levels of ammonia exceeding 163 times the norm were noted in April. According to the Ukrainian government*, a fertilizer factory located upstream of the river had been hit by debris from a deflected Russian missile. “Ammonia is toxic to fish and indeed dead fish have been found. Local people were advised not to drink the water in the basements”explains Nickolai Denisov, who continues to warn of the consequences for human health.

The bombardments of fuel depots are also among the most devastating and impressive. Nickolai Denisov lists a dozen of them, “with plumes of smoke visible from space”. According to the Ukrainian government, in the kyiv region, several Russian cruise missiles destroyed ten oil tanks and pipelines, causing a fire that lasted a week and released tons of pollutants into the atmosphere. The local authorities carried out precise measurements of the quantities of substances released into the air, in particular harmful gases: 76 tonnes of carbon monoxide and 17 tonnes of nitrogen dioxide.

Hazardous industrial waste is another cause for concern: there are 465 storage basins in the country containing six billion tonnes of toxic residues from the coal, hydrocarbon and metallurgy industries. These basins sometimes pose a real threat to villages and drinking water supplies. Nickolai Denisov mentions numerous cases of abandoned coal mines flooding in Donbass, a region where war broke out in 2014. By submerging the mines, the water disperses polluting substances into the environment.

The most underestimated pollution, according to some NGOs, is that caused by the explosion of munitions which leads to the spillage of chemicals on the ground. “There are several kinds of ammunition and their chemical components are secret. The biggest threat is sulfur and heavy metals”, says Oleksiy Vasyliuk, of the Ukrainian Nature Protection Group. A lot of agricultural land is potentially contaminated, according to the activist. In this case, hundreds of thousands of people may have to stop cultivating their plots.

The association calls for the creation of “red zones” on the Ukrainian territory after the war, a reference to the more than 100,000 hectares where certain activities, in particular agriculture, had been prohibited in France, after the First World War. “This is the only chance to prevent Ukrainians from consuming poisoned products”, assures Oleksiy Vasyliuk. The government estimates that it will take at least five to ten years to clear the country of explosives once Ukraine is liberated.

Some consequences of the conflict on the environment could be irreparable. On the shores of the Black Sea, Ivan Rusev observes the damage of war on the fauna and flora every day. This researcher works in the natural park of Tuzly estuaries, a territory of lagoons west of Odessa. Part of his team has joined the army and many areas of the park are inaccessible due to bombardments. But the man continues to work to document the ravages of war.

The first victims are the three species of dolphins in the Black Sea. According to his calculations, about 3,000 cetaceans have been found dead on the coasts of the region since the start of the conflict, compared with the thousand victims of fishing nets and poachers in normal times. At the end of March, the Turkish Marine Research Foundation (In turkish) also noticed “an extraordinary increase” dolphin deaths.

If some are victims of underwater mines or bombardments, the main cause of death is elsewhere. “All these warships, with their sonars, destroy the dolphins’ navigation system. They use sounds to locate themselves and their ears are very fragile”, explains the scientist. Disoriented, the animals are unable to hunt for food and starve to death. Ivan Rusev is worried about the long-term effect of this mortality on an already weakened population. Bodies washed up on beaches are only a small fraction of the total, with most animals ending up on the sea floor.

Birds are also hit hard by this conflict: Ukraine is an important passageway for migratory birds. “Most migration corridors pass over conflict areas. This can cause animals to become stressed, fatigued with changes in route or the inability to rest and this exposes them to shooting”, says Anna Olenenko, an environmental historian at the Khortytsia National Academy in Zaporizhia. On the shores of the Black Sea, Ivan Rusev also deplores the destruction of nesting areas.

These are not the only ecosystems damaged by the conflict in the natural park of Tuzly. The bombings burned 40 hectares of forest and dunes, “very fragile ecosystems”. At the national level, more than 46,000 hectares of forest and grassland have gone up in smoke since the start of the conflict, according to the Ministry of Ecology*. In Tuzly, the Russian threat prevents desilting the lagoons, as every year, to allow water exchanges with the sea. Well aware that this damage weighs little in public opinion in the face of human losses from the conflict, the scientist recalls that ‘“there is no future for man without wildlife”.

The future of Ukraine, precisely, is at the heart of the concerns of Yevheniia Zasiadko, in charge of the climate within the NGO Ecoaction. From Slovenia, where she found refuge, this resident of Kharkiv insists on the need “not to pursue the same policy as in the past, with coal, gas or nuclear” but to bet on renewable energies. She also calls on European countries to lower their consumption of fossil fuels, which fuel the coffers of the Russian army like global warming. “Of course, the environment is not the priority of the government at the moment. But if we forget about it, it will have a huge negative impact on our future, she analyzes. Even if the war ended today, it would have an impact.” In a report published in early July, the United Nations Environment Program is also alarmed by the“toxic legacy” that this war risks leaving for future generations.

* Links followed by an asterisk lead to content in English.