Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched by Russia on February 24, 2022, the world has watched in horror as the greatest European conflict since World War II escalates. On the heels of centuries of political domination, regional territorial disputes and cultural conflicts have taken place in the region. Armed conflict began in 2014 with the Annexation of Crimea and the War in Donbas. Estimates report that nearly 1 million individuals, both military and civilian, have been injured or lost their lives in the conflict. The conflict has incited trauma upon millions of Ukrainian citizens, forced nearly 7 million Ukrainian refugees to flee their country, and displaced 3.9 million internally, producing generations of scarred Ukrainians at the behest of the violence initiated by Russian forces.
In many cases, the severity of a conflict is calculated purely in human, economic, and social costs, yet the environmental damage is often the untold story—one which bears a great burden upon the future prosperity of the nation and its land.
Political conflict responsible for such large human losses has moreover produced an environmental catastrophe, contaminating soil, covering the nation in deadly land mines, releasing thousands of oil into the marine environment, releasing nuclear radiation leaks, and collapsing vital infrastructure that is critical to the survival of millions of Ukrainians.
Before the environmental devastation accompanying the Russia-Ukraine Conflict, more than 55% of Ukrainian land was arable, asserting the nation as a global agricultural producer. Boasting some of the world’s most fertile soil, the chernozem, or ‘black earth’, covering nearly two-thirds of the nation, is a highly fertile soil that powered the country’s agricultural exports, which totalled 41% of total exports. However, the conflict has threatened Ukraine’s title of ‘breadbasket of the European Union.’ Millions of artillery shells released throughout the conflict have resulted in explosive residue infiltrating the air and land, presenting a risk of contamination from heavy metals and other pollutants far into the future. Naomi Rintoul-Hynes, a soil expert at Canterbury Christ Church University, asserts “even a century after World War I, soil in France is still contaminated with heavy metals above safe levels for humans, particularly if crops are grown.” The longstanding soil degradation which continues to impact agriculture in France, poses dire implications for the future of the Ukrainian agricultural sector. As of December 2023, Ukrainian agriculture has sustained damages and losses that top $80 billion USD, and revenue losses are estimated at $69.8 billion USD. The crippling of the vital agricultural sector will impact the livelihoods of those relying upon agriculture as a source of income, present challenges for an immediate economic bounceback from the conflict and raise food prices for the millions of Europeans, Chinese, Indians who are Ukraine’s largest agricultural export partners.
Land Mines
As of April 2023, 30% of Ukrainian territory was contaminated with landmines and unexploded ordnance involving artillery shells, grenades, mortar shells, cluster munitions, rockets, missiles, and other improvised explosive devices. The World Bank estimates that $37 billion is required to complete total demining of the territory, alongside nearly 50 years to clear all unexploded ordnance and landmines. The presence of such deadly devices throughout the landscape presents an immense risk to civilian lives, taking the lives of nearly 1,000 individuals solely between February 2022 and March 2023 (1 in 8 being children), alongside hindering post-war agricultural recovery and the conservation of biodiversity across one-third of the nation.
Marine Life Destruction
Coastal and Marine ecosystems have emerged as another casualty of the conflict, the primary impacts of such devastation being chemical pollution, physical damage from shelling/fortifications, and sea landmines. Major ports such as Odesa, Mariupol, and Mykolaiv have been persistent targets of attacks initiated by Russia, causing oil spills that eviscerate marine life. Russian attacks and blockage of access to the aforementioned ports have led to a 67% decline in fish catch. Not only do oil spills threaten the present marine life, but they also risk the contamination of the food chain for decades to come, accelerating the degradation of the Black Sea marine environment.
Nuclear Radiation Leaks
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has dire implications for the ecosystems, and the public health of civilians residing in regions such as Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, all of which possess a nuclear power plant. The ongoing militarization of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, was seized by Russian forces in early 2022 and presents a clear example of the power possessed by the Russian forces in initiating an “invisible exile,” where land is not physically destroyed but becomes entirely unable to sustain life, agriculture, or any development. The plant is located near the Dnipro River and contains six reactors, hundreds of tons of nuclear fuel, and radioactive waste. While a full-scale meltdown has not yet occurred, the management at the Plant has deemed the site a “permanent nuclear safety crisis” zone. The site has undergone numerous close calls with being struck by artillery and drone attacks on numerous occasions, a repeated loss of external power, disruptions to the cooling systems, and staff operating under duress. A radioactive incident at Zaporizhzhya could potentially devastate critical agricultural zones downwind and down the Dnipro River, including parts of southern Ukraine and the Black Sea basin. Moreover, long-term contamination could render swaths of land uninhabitable, displacing communities and harming ecosystems in ways similar to and potentially more devastating than the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
Collapse of vital infrastructure – dam
The disastrous failure of the Nova Kakhovka Dam which occurred under Russian control on June 6, 2023, precipitated a severe humanitarian and environmental emergency in southern Ukraine. The rupture led to widespread flooding, displacing thousands of individuals and disrupting basic services. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, around 1.25 million individuals, including more than 300,000 children, in the Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and Kherson oblasts did not have safe access to drinking water. This exacerbated existing challenges because prior to the event that occurred in April 2022, an estimated 6 million Ukrainians, approximately 15% of the population, lacked or had restricted access to clean drinking water due to the disruption associated with the ongoing conflict. The dam rupture not only inundated vast tracts of land but also contaminated water supplies with pollutants, thereby posing a high risk of long-term health hazards and complicating relief efforts. The scale of the disaster underscored the vulnerability of critical infrastructure in conflict-affected areas and the heavy toll that such incidents have, and will continue to exact on civilian populations.
Conclusion
In addition to the human costs of the conflict, the long-term environmental consequences of the war in Ukraine pose an extraordinary threat to the safety, well-being, livelihood, and economic recuperation. Experts have concluded that restoration of Ukraine’s physical environment will span generations, particularly in regard to soil, marine, and protected areas. Ukrainian legal officials are in active pursuit of 247 legal cases against Russia for environmental crimes in both Ukrainian and International Courts. The future of the nation depends not only on rebuilding infrastructure and economic processes, but also on prioritizing the preservation of the ecosystems, caution with and protection of the land, and acknowledging and focusing on the aquatic environment that is essential to survival. Moreover, Ukraine will continue the legal battle in seeking justice for the environmental devastation, which presents the opportunity to establish new norms in international environmental and humanitarian law. Countries must be allowed to defend the right of their nations to exist without the threat of their ecosystems turning into collateral damage. The Ukrainian case provides the precedent to inaugurate this into international law, and yet it is critical that the conflict ceases before further devastation occurs. As Iryna Vykhrystiuk, director of Tuzlovsky Lagoons National Park, stated, “against the backdrop of these immense losses… we need to seek out any fragments of living nature and protect them.”
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
