By Olha Hembik | 2024-11-07

WARSAW -- The destruction of Ukraine's environment by invading Russian troops is being called an ecocide.

"What is now happening to nature in Ukraine can be compared to the Chernobyl catastrophe -- no border will block the flow of polluted air or water," said Jacek Wiśniewski, an ecologist.

"All of this will soon end up in other countries," he told Kontur. "Ukraine isn't an island. It's a European country, and we live together in Europe."

At march against Russia's environmental crimes in Warsaw on October 19, demonstrators called on the global community to prosecute Russia for ecocide in Ukraine.

"Nature has no borders. Russia is killing it," they chanted.

The event was part of the #StopEcocideUkraine campaign spearheaded by the organization UAnimals, which has been working to save animals from towns on the front in Ukraine.

The march took place with backing from Euromaidan-Warszawa, whose activists organize antiwar and anti-Russia rallies.

"Russia has already killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, more than 600 children, but for [Russia] that's nothing," said Mikołaj Petryga, a Euromaidan-Warszawa activist.

"That's why every day it also kills biodiversity and the ecosystem," he told Kontur.

"As a result of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, 80 animal species are at risk of extinction. That's genuine environmental murder."

Kakhovka explosion

The biggest environmental crime may have occurred on June 6, 2023, when the Kakhovka dam blew up in an explosion internationally attributed to Russia.

About 80 cities and towns, including Kherson, were in the flood area.

The flooding left 620 sq. km of territory underwater, according to the United Nations (UN).

"Millions of living organisms drowned," Petryga said.

The flooding affected 333,000 hectares of nature reserves and 11,300 hectares of forest land. In addition, 160,000 birds and more than 20,000 wild animals were at risk of dying, EcoPolitic.ua said in June 2023.

When the Kakhovka reservoir dried up, large numbers of fish and amphibians died, the drained land became marshy and the region's climatic conditions changed.

The Black Sea Biosphere Reserve and the Nyzhniodniprovskyi National Nature Park were completely or partially flooded, Espreso.tv reported in June.

The unique saltwater lakes of Kherson province were ruined.

After the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, Solone Ozero, a saltwater lake, became freshwater. Fish populations that typically swim to seawater died there, Kavun.city reported in April.

The silt and brine from Solone Ozero, which medics used to treat a range of ailments, were destroyed by trench digging and shelling. Russian military bases now occupy the grounds of the sanatorium beside the lake.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office charged Russia with ecocide for blowing up the Kakhovka dam and power station, and representatives of the International Criminal Court (ICC) traveled to the region shortly after the explosion to investigate.

Askania-Nova animals at risk

The Askania-Nova nature reserve in Kherson province also has suffered after Russia installed occupation authorities there in March 2023.

Until recently, more than 3,000 animal species and more than 500 plant species were living in the reserve.

"Regarding Askania-Nova and Dzharylgak National Nature Park, we received information that the enemy started hunting and exporting animals from these reserve sites," Ukrainian Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets said in May 2023, according to Mind.ua.

Since the Russian troops' arrival, Askania-Nova had suffered 69 fires that had burned 7,109 hectares of land as of July 1, Swivomi.in.ua reported in September.

During the same period, about 150 saiga antelope died from braxy, an infectious disease that had never been diagnosed previously in the nature reserve.

Russian occupiers moved 20 hoofed animals -- including protected or near extinct species -- from the reserve to Russia and Crimea, said Viktor Shapoval, the director of Askania-Nova.

Among them were two Chapman's zebras, two American bison, two Przewalski's horses and one Père David's deer. It has also been reported that another Père David's deer was injured and died while being transported.

Animals are dying in the Askania-Nova reserve from negligence and a lack of proper scientific guidance and veterinary care.

In August, the Russian television channel Russia-1 reported that the animal population in the captured reserve had nearly doubled.

"This isn't very good news because on the steppe there needs to be a balance between flora and fauna," said Natalia Korinets, senior scientist of the Askania-Nova reserve.

"If you exceed that number, the hoofed animals will eat everything there, and in so doing will destroy the Red Book [endangered] vegetation and then will die of hunger," she said.

European conservation network threatened

The decimation of a 1,588-hectare steppe within the protected area of Dzharylgak is another of Russia's environmental crimes, the Ukrainian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources posted on Facebook in November 2023.

Russian forces connected the reserve's environmentally sensitive island to the mainland so they could use the island as a training ground, Ukrainian army spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk said last November, according to News.online.ua.

The destruction of the Kakhovka dam wrought havoc on various wetlands. Some lands were flooded or dried out when the dam burst and the reservoir drained.

Destroyed wetlands include Archipelago Velyki and Mali Kuchugury and the Sem Mayakov (Seven Lighthouses) Marsh, while the Velikiy Lug and Kamianska Sich national nature parks are turning into a desert, Ecopolitic.com.ua reported in June 2023.

There are 2.9 million hectares of land in the Emerald Network, part of Europe's conservation network, that are at risk of destruction and are protected under European Union law. Seventeen wetlands that have unique biodiversity are at risk.

In all, as of November 2023, 812 sites in the natural reserve fund, covering a total of 0.9 million hectares, had been destroyed, the ministry said at the time.

Documenting Russia's crimes

In September, "a team from Greenpeace started working in Ukraine," said Katarzyna Bilewska, the vision for Greenpeace in Poland. "My colleagues in Kyiv are now documenting Russia's environmental crimes."

"We hope to prosecute [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and everyone who is guilty of these atrocities," she told Kontur.

Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe formally opened a new office in Kyiv on September 10.

"Collaborating with local environmental organizations, Greenpeace has already documented the war's environmental devastation, including the destruction of the Kakhovka dam," the organization said in a statement.