ZHYTOMYR (Ukraine aEUR) The fighter jet crashed into the woods of northwestern Ukraine killing the pilot. It splintered trees and spewed fuel. This caused a huge hole in the forest canopy. It exploded. It set off a wildfire, which charred earth and trees, and threatened two villages nearby.
Although the fire was extinguished two months later, the area still smells of jet fuel. The ground is littered with debris. Between the green shoots of green grass that grow through blackened leaves, a jagged piece made of metal is found. Another shard is visible from 20 feet above the ground, hanging from a tree.
Viktor Radushinskiy (a member of the state’s forestry department) said, “It is a disaster.”
One of many.
The State Environmental Inspectorate of Ukraine is a government agency that has documented over 300 instances of Russian “environmental crimes” since the invasion in February. It believes the actual number may be closer to 1,500. However, many sites remain occupied or are inaccessible due to fighting.
Fuel depots are often lit by fire. Boiling of toxic chemicals in contaminated reservoirs. Gas pipelines damaged. Wildfires and disruptions in the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion area. In the Black Sea region, destroyed vessels. These are the immediate concerns identified and addressed by the state agency.
However, Russia’s invasion could have far-reaching environmental effects beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Waterways that supply water to the region’s fertile farms and provide drinking water are being poisoned by chemicals and other bodies. Conflicts with warships are causing the death of dolphins, and preventing bird migrations. Long-range artillery fires are leaving craters in wildlife refuges. There are also concerns that Russia, Europe and the Middle East could be hindered by the conflict and its aftermath in fighting wildfires in an even more devastating year.
Yevgeniy Medvedovskiy is the head of the Zhytomyr state department of environmental inspectors. He looks at the burned husks from fallen trees and says, “This will impact people in the long term.” “The atmosphere doesn’t have any borders. This will impact everyone.
Due to the atrocities committed against civilians in Bucha and Mariupol and the current violence inflicted on the east by Russia, environmental damage such as splintered trees or polluted waters may seem secondary.
However, the effects of war on the environment will continue to be felt long after the shells stop exploding, long before the bullets and guns cease,” Carroll Muffett, the head of the non-profit Center for International Environmental Law, Washington, D.C. Muffet was one of the main authors of an open letter that hundreds of environmental and law experts signed in March, warning of the long-term dangers the conflict poses for Europe and Ukraine.
He says, “When we speak about the environmental effects of war, we really mean the impacts of war upon humans and the places they live in a more prolonged and often more insidious manner.”
This fact is not lost on the Ukrainian authorities. Ukraine has established a team of around 100 scientists in 18 regions to document evidence of environmental war crimes.
The Zhytomyr task force’s scientists are mostly women, like Iryna, who used to monitor gas pipelines, industrial sites, and air quality before Russia crossed into Belarus in February. They will now visit Russian-occupied areas, mine-littered forests, and fuel depots that still burn to gather air, water, and soil samples.
Bereziuk, the head of the laboratory where she works, says that sometimes the smell can be so strong that it is impossible to breathe.
Each location is treated as a crime scene. Photographs are taken. Interviews are conducted. Samples collected. Oleksiy Obrizan (chairman of the task force) stated that all evidence would be used “to punish the aggressor before the international courts.”
International courts have little precedent for prosecuting these crimes. Ukrainian environmental advocates can refer to the United Nations compensation commission, which was established after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991. Scientists advocate for strengthening international law in order to make it easier for countries to be held accountable.
An independent panel of international attorneys launched a campaign to define ecocide last year. They defined it as “unlawful or willful acts that are committed with the knowledge of serious and widespread or long-term environmental damage being caused”. This is according to the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court.
Obrizan, who is based in Kyiv, says he understands that prosecuting these crimes in international courts will be difficult, especially since Russia has a seat at the U.N. Security Council aEUR”, the body which established the commission after the Gulf War.
He says it is worthwhile to collect evidence of environmental war crimes. He says that these environmental problems are not only Ukraine’s. They are also the world’s.
Unexpectedly, the war’s wider environmental repercussions are affecting the ability of the region to respond to wildfires in the summer.
Last year, wildfires devastated Western Europe, Turkey, and northern Russia. Record heat waves caused fire to ravage the Greek Islands and woodlands around Athens.
Scott Dehnisch (wildfire coordinator for U.S. Agency for International Development) said, “We’re seeing the exact same pattern as last year.” “Very hot and very dry.”
The first heat wave in Western Europe this summer has already started to cause wildfires in Germany and Spain. The temperatures are higher than average in certain areas by more than 10 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit), which meteorologists call a sign of climate change.
Dehnisch explains that Russia is the source of many firefighting aircraft used in Western Europe and the Middle East during the fire season. He says they are contracted through the summer. “And because of the war and the sanctions, these are no longer on the table.”
Dehnisch states that there is an effort to fill the gap in Western Europe, and around the Mediterranean, with U.S.- and Canadian-based firefighting planes. Both countries have pressing needs and backfilling aircraft there does not solve the problem in Russia, the world’s largest forest country. Russia is dependent on its military for most of the year.
Already, Siberia is experiencing huge wildfires in Russia’s forest-covered north. Russian President Vladimir Putin took a break in May from his wartime thoughts to address the Russian state media situation.
He said in a video message that “We cannot allow another year of the same situation,”
The world’s climate is greatly affected by wildfires in Siberia, the Arctic and elsewhere. Scientists believe that the Arctic Circle holds nearly half the world’s carbon-stored in peatland. This carbon is locked up by permafrost, cold temperatures and other factors. Wildfires release more greenhouse gases, which can worsen global warming. They also cover snow and ice in black soot, causing them to melt faster.
Dehnisch states that “this war, beyond Ukraine, really has multiple exponential layers of damage that is being done.”
A small group of seabirds rests on the shoreline of southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coast next to a still lagoon.
Ukraine has 35% of Europe’s biodiversity, despite it occupying less that 6% of Europe’s landmass. It is home to thousands upon thousands of rare animal and plant species. This country is also a crucial resting place for migratory birds such as the curlew Sandpiper, who migrates from Africa to Siberia every spring.
The springtime migration coincided with Russia’s invasion Ukraine in February. Nature refuges were rocked by the roar of fighter jets. Over the Black Sea’s crashing waves, explosions erupted. Ivan Rusev, an environmentalist and ecologist from Tuzla Lagoons National Park, said that birds, sensitive to sound, were scared from their usual resting places.
Rusev is a wide-eyed man with a tanned complexion and a large smile. Rusev wears a necklace with a diving bird on its wings, which are locked to its body in the form of the Ukrainian trident. He explains that he learned to protect the natural world from growing up in Soviet towns where water was polluted and forests destroyed.
He says, “We must save biodiversity and help the environment.” It will benefit us.
Rusev was instrumental in the creation of Tuzla Lagoons National Nature Park, with its 18-mile sandbar, in 2010. This park protects the ecosystem from development and poaching. Rusev states that there are 55 national parks within Ukraine. Many of them, including Ukraine’s largest, Black Sea Biosphere Reserve, near Kherson, are now under Russian control.
Other aEUR” parts of this park are also being used, he said. This is done by the Ukrainian military to stop future Russian advances.
Just a short drive away from the park’s headquarters is Iryna Vykhrystyuk. She walks along the black sand beaches of Ukraine’s Black Sea Coast.
She says that parts of this national park were attacked during the first month of war. Explosions can still be heard off the coast, usually in the direction Snake Island. The low-frequency radars used by Russian warships and submarines to detect dolphins running ashore can cause confusion and lead to them being found on the beaches.
Vykhrystyuk said that the place was like paradise as waves roll along the shore. It is home to some of the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises. Photographers from all over Ukraine and around the globe love its starscapes and dark skies.
The beach is now empty.
Ukraine will win the war, not if, aEUR” Vykhrystyuk said, looking out at the sea, that she hopes people will return when they do.
She hopes it will aid them in healing.
Olena Lysenko contributed reporting.
