In addition to sowing death and distress, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is also causing major environmental destruction in this country, which is home to heavy industries, but also a rich biodiversity. The authorities already estimate the damage at more than 50 billion dollars. Enough to feed the reflection on the idea of adding the concept of “ecocide” to the list of war crimes.
Since the start of the conflict, bombs have rained down on Ukrainian territory, destroying cities and energy infrastructure, but also factories, industrial sites and a multitude of natural environments. And if the human toll is extremely heavy, the environmental impacts are also growing a little more every day.
“It’s the return to high-intensity warfare in Europe, with conventional armies and industrial means. From an environmental point of view, we therefore see much greater damage than what we have seen in recent conflicts. The Russian strategy is a strategy of destruction of Ukraine and we are witnessing damage to ecosystems that should last several centuries”, underlines Adrien Estève, postdoctoral researcher at the Center for International Research at Sciences Po Paris.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) also mentions the risk that this war will leave behind “a toxic legacy for generations to come”. In light of very preliminary assessments, the organization says it has already identified “thousands of possible incidents of air, water and soil pollution. »
It must be said that Ukraine is one of the countries with the most heavy industries in Europe. However, Russian strikes and battles for control of various regions, including the cities of Odesa, Donetsk and Lviv, have caused incidents at nuclear power plants and facilities, energy infrastructure, refineries, drilling, gas installations, pipelines, mines, as well as industrial and agro-industrial sites.
“Poisoning”
The fact that the fighting directly affects various industrial installations linked to toxic substances is a source of concern, recalls Adrien Estève, author of the book War and ecology. “The destruction of polluting industries leads to spills of various products and significant damage to ecosystems. War is therefore very polluting. »
Hazardous substances, such as solvents, fertilizers and nitric acid, have been released by explosions or fires. “This results in multiple air pollution incidents and potentially serious ground and surface water contamination,” according to UNEP.
Near the town of Ternopil, east of Lviv, samples taken from river water, for example, showed ammonia levels 163 times higher than normal and nitrate levels 50 times too high, after the fall of debris from a Russian missile on a fertilizer factory. The contamination of Ukrainian rivers and soils remains one of the main fears in a country which stores in different regions a total of six billion tonnes of liquid waste from mining and industrial activity. Since the start of the war, these sites have been frequent targets of Russian strikes.
The Ukrainian Minister of Ecology, Ruslan Strilets, has also denounced “poisoning of the air” by “particularly dangerous substances”, due to the numerous fires at industrial sites. And the population is obviously directly exposed to several polluting sources, such as heavy metals, toxic gases and fine particles from explosions and fires.
Direct public health risks are also linked to exposure to hazardous substances contained in munitions remnants, which leak toxic materials into the ground and affect the quality of surface and ground water. Not to mention the large volumes of military waste, including the thousands of destroyed military vehicles, which pose a major cleanup challenge. The most recent report from the authorities shows at least 230,000 tons of military debris scattered on the territory.
Biodiversity under threat
Ukraine, which is home to more than a third of all European biodiversity, is also seeing its ecosystems severely damaged. “Forests have been destroyed by fires caused by bombing and the actions of Russian forces, and many are littered with destroyed or abandoned military vehicles,” summarizes the OECD. Estimates by the Ukrainian authorities show, in one year, more than 100,000 hectares of natural habitats destroyed by fire, including at least 35,000 hectares of forest.
A good part of the protected ecosystems have been affected, to varying degrees, by the war, including the majority of the national park known as the “Sacred Mountains”, a national jewel. In addition, there are 160 natural reserves directly threatened with destruction, including biosphere reserves recognized by UNESCO, but also dozens of animal and plant species, some of which are endemic to Ukraine. In the Black Sea, more than 3,000 dolphins have been found dead, possibly killed by sonar emissions from ships.
Several nature reserves, located in combat zones, play an “extremely important role in preserving the populations of many bird species on a European scale”, specifies the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group. But these areas are no longer accessible. “We will find out the extent of the damage later,” laments the organization.
In this context of large-scale destruction, Yuliia Ovchynnykova, member of the parliamentary committee on environmental policy and nature management, is leading an international call for recognition of the environmental “crimes” of the Russians. Adrien Estève hopes that such recognition will be possible, so that “Ukraine becomes a turning point for international environmental law in conflicts”.
“Ecocide”
This approach, which also aims to make Russia pay the bill for billions of dollars in damages, could be based on the Geneva Convention. This prohibits causing “severe” and “extensive” damage to the environment, underlines Maya Jegen, professor in the Department of Political Science at UQAM. “It’s certainly not the priority on the ground,” she adds, but the term “ecocide” is making its way into the vocabulary used to describe what is happening in Ukraine right now. According to her, it would also be important to “better assess the environmental impacts in conflict zones, particularly for natural environments that could be restored”.
Mme Jegen and Adrien Estève also point out that conflicts have always caused environmental disasters. The most infamous case dates back to the Vietnam War, during which the Americans dumped more than 80 million liters of “Agent Orange”, a powerful herbicide that destroyed wooded areas, in addition to poisoning soldiers. and the populations. Even today, the impacts of this poison continue to be felt.
Like the damage assessed after the fact by UNEP, Mr. Estève believes that “it will probably take several years to measure the impact of this pollution, and in particular chemical pollution, on ecosystems”. Especially since we do not see, for the moment, an end to this conflict. “If it lasts for several years, with the level of destruction we see today, we can be extremely pessimistic about the future of Ukrainian territory. And the damage will go beyond this territory. We can already see it with the impacts in the Black Sea or in various rivers that cross the country. The damage does not stop at borders. »