By Olha Chepil | 2025-11-18

Flamingos aren't supposed to vanish in a flash of noise and dust. But along Ukraine's southern coast, entire colonies lift off in panic as missiles slam into the steppe, leaving their nests, and their future, behind.

War is turning southern Ukraine into an environmental disaster zone, as drones, missiles and constant explosions tear through protected areas and drive birds from the places they once bred.

In Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park, the crisis unfolds relentlessly. For the second year in a row, flamingos have been unable to breed.

"When drones and Iskanders strike, or various explosions occur, it greatly frightens the birds. And the herons, pelicans and flamingos just fly away," Ivan Rusev, an ecologist, conservationist, ornithologist and head of the park’s research department, told Kontur.

If a colony is near a missile strike, the birds simply disappear.

"The chicks die. The adults abandon their nests and leave the territory. The noise and impact of the missiles or Shaheds have a devastating effect on the birds," Rusev says.

Flamingos under fire

Flamingos first reached Ukraine's coast in 2021 after Lake Tuz in Turkey dried up, wiping out their usual nesting grounds. A small group of 67 settled on the Tuzly lagoons.

Rusev said the birds couldn't nest in 2022 as Russia's full-scale invasion began, and military training blocked their new site in 2023. Only after troops left one of the islands did flamingos manage to hatch about 200 chicks, some tagged by researchers.

Their success didn't last. Thousands tried again in 2024 and 2025, but every clutch failed. Combat noise drove adults off their nests, and yellow-legged martins consumed the eggs. In 2024, none of the 400 nests produced a chick; in 2025, every colony collapsed.

"Flamingos are hit particularly hard by the war," Rusev said, noting that the population still grew -- from 67 to 500, then 1,700, and roughly 2,800 by fall 2025.

The birds keep returning because the lagoons offer reliable food, and climate change in Turkey is pushing them farther north. But Rusev warns their future is uncertain.

"They are coming back, but the question is whether they will be able to withstand the constant stress and adapt to the war."

Nature burns up

Southern Ukraine faces an unprecedented environmental crisis. Steppes and nature reserves once covered the region; now they're carved up by craters, trenches and scorched earth.

The front line stretches nearly 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles), creating "a colossal stress for wildlife," Vadim Manyuk, an ecologist and associate professor at Dnipro National University, told Kontur.

He said even World War II didn't produce destruction on this scale, as natural areas shift into human-made landscapes where soil, vegetation and even the soundscape have changed.

The terrain is now "riddled with endless trenches, fortifications and craters," Manyuk said. Weeds and synanthropic species spread through this corridor, crowding out native wildlife.

Animals accustomed to silence now live with constant explosions, a level of stress Manyuk said makes reproduction nearly impossible. Foxes adapt somewhat, but wolves struggle, and many species that survive can no longer breed undisturbed.

The front line cuts directly through national parks, steppe reserves and lagoons. What were once pockets of intact nature have become barren fields.

"There is simply no room for wild species," Manyuk said.

Some recovery has begun. After the Kakhovka Reservoir drained, new ecosystems appeared, bringing pelicans, sturgeons, jackals and rare steppe grasses, including compact feather grass, which hadn't been recorded there before.

But Manyuk said these are exceptions. Much of the front line remains a place where wildlife clings to survival.

Ukrainian soldiers sometimes photograph Red Book species -- animals listed as threatened or endangered under Ukraine's official conservation register -- hiding in trenches.

A marbled polecat in such images, he said, isn't evidence of a comeback, "it is a desperate attempt to hide."

Recording the ecocide

Ecologists are documenting the damage across southern Ukraine, tracking everything from Shahed strikes and shell craters to oil spills and beached dolphins.

Rusev said teams monitor the coast daily, logging stranded animals, determining causes and drawing conclusions.

In 2022, the park prepared a scientific rationale for creating new marine reserves to protect the most affected cetaceans. He said "about 80,000 cetaceans have died in the 3.5 years of war."

The devastation of flamingos, whales and other wildlife is part of a broader record of environmental losses Ukraine has tracked since the first months of the invasion.

Parliament member Elena Krivoruchkina, deputy chair of the Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management, told Kontur the government expanded the State Environmental Inspectorate's authority early in the war so it could document and assess combat-related damage and compile a unified list of losses.

Ukraine has pioneered new methods for cataloging environmental war crimes.

"There have been no similar precedents in the world. Not even the cases of Iraq–Kuwait or Costa Rica–Nicaragua," Krivoruchkina said. "Humanity has never seen such large-scale destruction of nature."

But quantifying the loss of wildlife -- from flamingos and pelicans to dolphins and wolves -- remains the hardest task.

Krivoruchkina said no standardized methodology exists, so officials rely on remote assessments and expert analysis, "because our primary goal is to keep the inspectors alive."

Restoration will take generations.

"Houses and roads can be rebuilt with the help of donors, but it will take an entire era to revive destroyed ecosystems," she noted.