How Nature Had War in Ukraine

Burned land. Dirty rivers. Flooded villages and open craters.

A year after Russia's war broke out in Ukraine, the second largest state in Europe faces environmental damage caused by war ʹ worth 47 billion dollars, the Ukrainian State Inspectorate estimates for Environment.

Yet, such recognition is only temporary.

As Russian military troops still occupy part or fully five Ukrainian crime regions, Herson, Zaporija, Donjeck and Ukrainian scientists, environmental protection specialists and state inspectors, they cannot travel freely to Ukrainian territory to assess environmental damage.

For a more specific assessment, the Ukrainian Radio Free Europe Service has told Ukrainian experts about the environment, several photos supplied by the American company Planet Labs of eight areas in Ukraine before the launch of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Lviv: The Gas Deposit

Russian missiles have hit Lviv on March 26, 2022, one of Moscow's first attacks on this western Ukrainian city.

Bombings destroyed an oil depot, damaging tank tanks, which has resulted in fire. The Ukrainian state inspector for Environment has failed to assess the exact volume of flows.

In the picture below, provided by this inspectors, there is a leak in the warehouse.

The state inspector considers the consequences of attacks on these environments to be among the most dangerous for the environment. Oil flows that affect the earth and water can kill virtually all the organisms that come in contact with it.

When state inspectors visited the oil depot in Lviv, they found earthworms on the surface of the oil leaks.

Earth's worms increase earth's fertility by contributing oxygen, various nutrients, and by clearing the space for root growth.

Kiev region: Irpin River Dam

In mid - March 2022, Ukrainian armed forces have destroyed a dam of the Irpin River to prevent Russian forces from advancing the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

Water engineers estimate that the “s make the land impassable, but without flooding all villages”, said John Spencer, a retired American colonel who heads the War Research Department at the West Point Institute, in an article published on July 1, 2022.

As a result of the floods, seven villages in the Kiev region of Demidiv, Kozarovic, Chervone, Hutta-Megihirska, Horenka and Moshcuni ú and pesticides and other agricultural equipment have been destroyed.

According to the Ukrainian State Inspectorate, the flooded area has reached 15 square miles [46 sq km].

Although the floods may have caused a lot of “to run the Irpin River with various chemicals, the deputy director of the State Institute for Environmental Andriy Vahin, has told Free Europe Radio that nothing like this is mentioned in government data.

He has not mentioned the potential reasons for this.

Harkiv region: Izjum Forest

Massive cemeterys in the forests of Izjumi are evidence of the brutality of Russian forces in April-September 2022, in this once city of 46,000 people.

But the forests themselves have suffered war.

Ukrainians collectively refer to forests, including a national park and a forest area in the city.

Summer fires, fuelled by fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, have burned 70 percent of the 53,000 hectares of forests found in Izjum, Oleksandr Lysenko, deputy director of the Forest and Hunting Department in the Harkiev region, said in November 2022.

Satellite images have shown that environmental damage, as a result of fighting, was “large, ”, Vahin said, without offering additional details.

The agency has not yet had full access to forests to make accurate assessments, because Russian forces control certain positions, while for other parts there are concerns about mine presence.

The damage, however, is beyond the trees themselves, Hanna Dobchenko, the forest project manager at the international environmental organisation, WWF-Ukraine, said.

Besides losing animals and plants, land and air damage affects increased carbon dioxide emissions, what, “accelerates continued climate change”, she said.

Recyperation from this loss cannot be quick.

You need to understand that the trees that were burned there were, on average, 30 to 40 years old”, Vahin said.

This is not a plantation, but a forest, and it will take decades to improve the situation in”.

Region i Mikollaiv: Kinburn Peninsula

Before February 2022, the Kinburn Peninsula, a strategic angle between the Black Sea and the Dnjeper-Buh estuary, has been known for more than 60 hectares of red orchids, lakes and millions of birds.

Since the start of the war, repeated attacks have transformed his identity.

In June 2022, Russian forces have gained control of Kinburn, a territory in the middle of the Black Sea, and the Dnjeper River.

Since then, frequent fires have affected the entire region.

Ukrainian Radio Free Europe Service has reported that the Russian Brigade Don Cossacks has bombed the Ukrainian town of Ocakov and other nearby Kinburn.

Satellite images have shown burned areas on nearly the entire peninsula.

For now, without access to the peninsula, or in protected areas, researchers “cannot collect precise data”, to understand which regions were destroyed the most, WWF-Ukraine manager Olesya Petrovych said.

Zaporigja region: Zaporije nuclear power plant

Fires around the largest nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian region of Zaporija in August 2022 have mostly highlighted international threats to the environment.

As a result of the Russian bombings that month around the Zaporizhja nuclear power company in Ukraine, Enerhototom, has disabled the two single functional reactors to avoid a nuclear disaster.

Although reactors have already been activated, this Russian-controlled nuclear power plant no longer produces electricity.

Still, there are risks for promotions.

On January 24th, 2023, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Gross told the European Parliament that he, along with other agency experts, has visited the plant in Zaporija, and has called for the creation of a safe haven around the facility.

I don't know how long we'll be lucky to avoid a nuclear accident”, he said.

Both Ukraine and Russia have supported Gross's proposal to create a secure area around the plant to reduce the risk of such an accident.

Region i Herson: Agricultural Fields

Russian troops have advanced to the Ukrainian region of Herson in 2022, burning many agricultural lands, crops of grain and sunflower seeds.

The Ministry of Food Policy and Kiev School for Economics estimates that by November 2022, war has caused damages worth $34 billion for the agriculture sector in Ukraine.

Before the war, Ukraine has been recognised as one of the largest exporters of its crops and by products.

Losses include burnt agricultural lands and loss of revenue from sales.

Ukrainian REL service has compared satellite images of the Herson region to 2021 in 2022 respectively. The second photograph shows the damage caused by ongoing fires. The black parts are burned.

Centers hit by artillery

The craters formed by artillery strikes pose an incoming problem for Ukraine's environment, field experts have warned.

When a shell breaks out and creates a crater, polluting substances penetrate the earth and earth's waters.

Western military experts estimate Ukrainians have far fewer missiles and rockets than Russians.

Satellite images have shown less dense crater areas near Russian military positions than Ukrainian military positions.

To address the damage, the state Inspectorate for Environment, there must be information on chemicals used in the most modern Russian missiles, as well as adequate laboratory equipment to analyse them, Deputy Inspector Vahin said.

“Shembul, we analyse the [sus] missile. Kh-101, which hasn't exploded, but that has a amount of chemicals”, Vahin said.

No oil was found there, but other substances like decilen have been identified there. We don't even have labs that test such substances”.

The Organization for Co-operation and Security in Europe has said that some substance mixtures are equal to “toxic bombs”.

When these substances penetrate the water, they release large amounts of toxic toxic acid.

Decilene is one of them, who, according to experts, is “hostile”>.

Fortifications

Russia's “Dragon Legs” ʹ triangular antitank barriers made of reinforced concrete date back to World War II.

Russian forces now use these devices to prevent the movement of Ukrainian light equipment.

Fortifications such as cannot be easily moved have been seen in all four Ukrainian regions that are partially controlled by Russian forces: Donjeck, Luhansk, Herson and Zaporije.

Satellite images of Planet Labs show a grouping of these structures near the village of Baranicivka, located in the Luhansk region, or about 60 miles [100 km] east of the Ukrainian - controlled city of Izyum.

Recalling that these structures were used during World War II, Vine has said that the movement of the dragon's <x0-beds” may not be economically easy after the end of the war.

Such structures, established by Finland in the time of the 1939-40 Cold War, are still present in the Russian region of Carelia. / REL