Nearly three years ago, in the early days of the conflict, the first environmental disaster of the Ukraine-Russia war occurred. In the Chernobyl area, the soil had remained untouched for 40 years after the reactor disaster. Then came the Russian attack, and soldiers dug up the contaminated soil. As a result, radiation levels in the area measurably increased, says Tetiana Gerdashuk, a Ukrainian environmental philosopher, V4NA reports.
They dug trenches, built bunkers, and even hunted wild animals for food.
In the following days, many Russian soldiers reportedly fell ill with radiation sickness. Gerdashuk, a researcher at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, spent three months as a guest researcher at the Viadrina Research Institute in Frankfurt an der Oder, collaborating with German colleagues from the International Ukraine Research Competence Network (KIU) to analyze the environmental damage caused by the war
When Susann Worschech, a researcher at KIU, talks about the environmental impacts of the war, she cites figures that defy imagination: 25,000 hectares of forest burned, 220 conservation areas endangered or destroyed, and over one million hectares of land, including forests, mined. It’s not just people who suffer—animals are dying too. Countless dolphins and whales in the Black Sea have perished due to torpedoes, mine explosions, naval sonar noise, and water pollution.
Most recently in December, two Russian oil tankers collided near Crimea, causing an oil spill that has yet to be contained.
Environmentalists now refer to the situation as "ecocide”—the large-scale destruction of natural resources. Various organizations, including scientists in Frankfurt an der Oder, Ukrainian environmental initiatives, and the Berlin-based Vitsche civil organization, are working to document the damage. However, in Russia occupied territories and active war zones, recording the full extent of destruction is nearly impossible.
Here are just a few of the most severe incidents:
- March 2022: Repeated bombings of oil drilling platforms and storage facilities, leading to oil spills, contamination, and increased air pollution across Ukraine.
- Spring 2023: The Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve came under threat. A total of 220 protected areas, including the Biloberezhia Sviatoslava National Park near the Dnipro River’s mouth into the Black Sea, remain endangered.
- June 2023: The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. Consequences included mass fish die-offs, increased salinity in drinking water, E. coli contamination, Black Sea pollution with pesticides, heavy metals, and transformer oil, and the death of 20,000 land animals.
Scientists also classify the rise in civilian and military border traffic—and the pollution that comes with it—as a war-related environmental consequence. Air pollution and CO2 emissions have surged. In the Black Sea, dolphin populations have been decimated, and 80 animal species, including bison, lynx, and brown bears, are now at risk of extinction. Fighting has led to forest fires, soil contamination, and entire swaths of deadly minefields.
Even on the Russian-controlled side of the front, environmental damage has occurred. However, just like the Crimean oil spill, documenting these incidents remains difficult. Even outside the war zone, the risk of environmental disaster is rising. According to Worschech, the movement of Russia’s shadow fleet and the deteriorating condition of its ships have significantly increased the likelihood of tanker accidents, not just near the shores of EU countries like Romania and Bulgaria but also in Turkish waters and the Baltic Sea.
At Viadrina, KIU researchers are compiling and calculating the war’s environmental impact costs. Nearly three years on after the war began, Worschech estimates total damages at 72 billion euros.
Worschech emphasizes that the war and its environmental damage directly affect Europe and the international community. The worst-case scenario, she warns, would be an accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under Russian control. „This would be an unimaginable nuclear disaster— on a scale dwarfing the Chernobyl disaster by comparison,” she says.
A Crime Against Nature?
The environmental destruction in Ukraine has not been a major focus of public attention, not even within Ukraine. However, the government, scientists, and civil organizations continue to gather all available evidence. This includes performing autopsies on beached dolphins and whales to determine their cause of death.
The time-consuming search for evidence serves a higher purpose: to bring ecocide before the court with detailed proof and for Ukraine to file compensation claims based on this evidence.
So far, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has not opened a case for ecocide as a crime. However, both the EU and the UN have called for environmental crimes to be added to the list of prosecutable offenses. If this happens, not only could compensation be sought, but individuals could be prosecuted and sentenced to prison for environmental destruction.
Cover photo: Military trenches in a Kharkiv forest during the Russian-Ukrainian war (Photo: AFP)
