The black soil of the Donbass is one of the most fertile in the world. Thanks to it, Ukraine is one of the leading grain producers. The war, however, is making them unproductive and uninhabitable. The approximate million projectiles that fall each month have ruined them and it will take several decades for the contamination to subside.
Last summer, Russia was launching about 50,000 shells a day on the Donbass. Ukraine, about 5,000. Now, according to Josep Borrell, head of EU diplomacy, Ukraine is launching 10,000 a day. Sometimes even double. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksi Reznikov has given the figure of 120,000 shells per month. The Russian army, according to data from the European Commission, fires between 600,000 and 1.8 million shells every month.
The explosions open craters, start fires, contaminate the soil with heavy metals, chemicals and fuels. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) speaks of a toxic legacy that “will take several generations to disappear.”
As long as the cannons keep firing it is impossible to know the extent of this environmental tragedy. Without being able to access the front, the land cannot be analyzed, but, with the naked eye, the damage is catastrophic.
The Ukrainian environmental organization EcoAction has documented 841 “incidents”, that is, places where the environmental impact of the war is very severe. Its spokesperson, Yevhenia Zasialko, explains that “artillery explosions are not the only concern we have. We must also take into account the destruction of chemical plants and toxic product dumps. There is no waste management. Garbage is piled up in landfills, but no one manages it. The waste leaks out, polluting the land and the aquifers.”
Marcos Orellana, a UNEP researcher, acknowledges that “the armed conflict complicates contamination because it reduces the ability to clean up toxic substances.” UNEP has counted 618 industrial and energy infrastructure destroyed or badly damaged. He suspects, however, that there are many more.
The city of Mariupol, for example, on the shores of the Azov Sea, which fell into Russian hands after a long siege, is today a very unhealthy place. Not only because of the destruction of the housing blocks but, above all, because of the collapse of the chemical and steel plants, because of the ruin in which the water sanitation system has been left.
The Donbass was not just an agrarian arcadia before the war. It was also a region dedicated to mining and the production of iron and steel. The contamination by arsenic and uranium was already worrisome. Now it will be more. The explosions stir up the soil and release the contaminants.
The inhabitants, as ecologist Zasialko warns, “will inhale contaminated dust for years because the trees absorb the contamination through the roots and release it through the leaves, also through the firewood that is burned in home stoves. Uranium, present in explosives, but also in armored vehicles, affects brain development and kidneys. It causes cancer and malformations in fetuses, as well as premature births.
Pollution of Ukrainian land dates back to World War II. The battlefields of then are the same as now. The legacy of the Soviet Union is also very polluting. Not only because of the mines and industries, but also because of Chernobyl, the nuclear power plant that caught fire in 1986.
Bombs that have fallen near Chernobyl have disturbed the earth and released radiation. An investigation by the University of Exeter has detected that the Estonian 90 isotope is very present in water, cow’s milk and cereals produced near the power station. The nearest perimeter is closed and will remain so for many centuries.
The areas hardest hit by the war should also be depopulated. The UN advises that they be treated as protected natural spaces. It is possible to combat pollution in these places with plants that absorb toxic products. Ferns, sunflowers, and alders, for example, can accumulate arsenic and nickel. However, cleaning the floor with these techniques can take more than 20 years, according to expert Marcos Orellana. And they don’t work for heavy metals.
The bombs will continue to fall on Ukraine. Defense Minister Reznikov says his army needs 250,000 155mm rounds a month and the European Union is finalizing a program to finance the purchase of one million. Russia is also increasing production of ammunition for its artillery.
The war continues and the contaminated land will ruin agriculture. Wheat, barley, corn and sunflower, products that Ukraine exports to the whole world and on which the poorest countries depend, will cease to be produced in the fertile lands of the Donbass even if peace comes.
