The ecological effects of war

War is always a human tragedy. In Ukraine it is also an ecological one, reshaping rivers, soils, forests and seas in ways that will be measured not only in months or years but in decades. The destruction is uneven and difficult to count while shells are still falling, yet several patterns have emerged with grim clarity: hydrological shock from the Russian demolition of the Kakhovka Dam, continent-scale contamination by mines and unexploded ordnance, wildfire and forest loss across the front, greenhouse gas emissions on a national scale, and cascading harms to biodiversity from the Black Sea to the Carpathians. Together they amount to a second battlefield, where nature and public health are the collateral. 

The single most devastating ecological event to date was the blowing of the Kakhovka Dam on 6 June 2023. The lake behind it, which had held roughly a third of the Dnipro’s stored water—about 19 billion cubic metres—was abruptly drained; the flood pulse scoured downstream floodplains, nature reserves and farmland, and swept oil, sewage, pesticides and ordnance into the Black Sea. In the weeks that followed, scientists recorded a sharp biogeochemical shock in the north-western Black Sea: suspended sediments and chlorophyll-a spiked to more than fifty times normal levels across half the region; nitrates and phosphates rose along the Odesa coast; and intense algal blooms persisted for some twenty days. This was not a local mishap: it was a basin-wide disturbance to a semi-enclosed sea already under stress. 

Mine and shell contamination has carved a toxic archipelago through her agricultural heartlands. As of the end of 2024, an estimated 139,000 square kilometres—nearly a quarter of Ukraine—were considered potentially contaminated by mines and explosive remnants of war. Deminers have made steady progress, clearing thousands of hectares each month in liberated areas, yet the backlog is immense and recurrent shelling re-seeds the landscape. For farmers, the ecological effect is immediate: fields go fallow; soils compact and erode; heavy metals accumulate; and rural economies that once sustained careful crop rotations now face years of unproductive, dangerous land. The national food system—keystone of European grain security—is thus constrained not merely by markets or ports but by millions of hidden charges wired into the soil itself. 

War has also turned vast tracts of forest into tinder and ash. Fire studies in the conflict zone indicate that shelling-ignited fires have been the most frequent cause of forest disturbance, while the hazards of unexploded ordnance and ongoing combat often make suppression impossible. The result was a record-breaking fire season in 2024: satellite data suggest close to one million hectares burned in Ukraine that year—more than twice the area burned across the entire European Union over the same period—followed by continuing severe seasons. In addition to immediate habitat loss, such fires denude soils, alter hydrology and release stores of carbon; the cumulative area burned from early 2022 through late 2024 likely exceeded two million hectares, much of it along or near the front. 

All wars emit carbon, but the scale here is extraordinary. Independent climate-accounting initiatives estimate that, by the invasion’s third anniversary, war-related greenhouse emissions approached or exceeded 230 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent—comparable to the combined annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Emissions arise from fuel-hungry armour and jets, the torching of depots and refineries, forced rerouting of aviation, and the indirect effects of wildfires and reconstruction. In recent tallies, media and research syntheses have reported similar or higher figures as fires and infrastructure attacks mounted in 2024–25. This is climate harm measured in national units—an ecological debt that Ukraine and her neighbours will pay long after the smoke clears. 

The war’s energy front has its own ecological ledger. Precision strikes against gas fields, compressor stations and power plants spill hydrocarbons, scatter toxic residues and force dirtier or riskier substitutes. Recent waves of attacks have disabled large proportions of domestic gas production and power capacity, which in turn drives emergency imports, grid instability and localised pollution from backup generation. Each such strike multiplies environmental exposure: burning fuel releases particulates; shattered substations leak oils and coolants; and sudden load shifts encourage ad-hoc diesel generation in cities already strained by displacement and reconstruction works. 

Biodiversity damage is widespread and variegated. Protected areas inside the combat belt have been fragmented by trenches, craters and fire. In the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and other reserves, conflict-related fires burned tens of thousands of hectares of habitat. Riverine and wetland ecosystems—nurseries for fish, amphibians and migratory birds—have been disrupted by altered flows and contamination; the Kakhovka breach affected sturgeon hatchery operations and drowned or stranded countless freshwater organisms. At sea, naval acoustics and blast shock add to stresses on cetaceans, while eutrophic pulses and sediments from the Dnipro flood complicate already delicate Black Sea food webs. Some “positive” effects, such as reduced tourism or fishing in the most dangerous areas, may provide temporary respite to a few species; but these are poor compensations when the underlying drivers are explosives, oil slicks and hypoxia. 

The soil itself is a casualty. Artillery shreds structure; tracked vehicles compact subsoils; and craters fill with water that mobilises contaminants. Where fields cannot be worked, weeds and pests spread; when they can, farmers must navigate a patchwork of cleared and uncleared parcels that undermine rotations and soil-improving cover crops. Analyses from Ukrainian and European observers suggest that only a little over half of the country’s agricultural land is currently safe and accessible, once contamination and access restrictions are taken into account. Every season lost deepens the ecological deficit: humus declines, nitrates leach, and dust storms carry degraded topsoil far downwind. 

Public health consequences follow close behind. Smoke from depot strikes and urban shelling raises particulate levels; damaged waterworks force towns to rely on shallow wells or tanker supplies vulnerable to faecal contamination; and chemical hazards—from fertiliser stores to industrial solvents—are liberated by shock and fire. After the Kakhovka flood, for example, downstream communities faced a slurry of organic and petroleum pollution, while floating mines and ordnance rendered cleanup perilous. Such compound disasters blend acute toxicology with chronic exposure, and they strain already stretched medical and environmental monitoring systems. 

What, then, is to be done while the fighting continues? Some measures are already under way. Ukraine’s deminers are scaling clearance with drones, tractors and rakes where safe, coordinated with agronomists to prioritise high-value soils and lifeline infrastructure. International partners have channelled targeted funds to environmental recovery and monitoring, recognising that nature repair is not a luxury add-on but integral to economic survival. The science community is rapidly documenting impacts—from satellite fire mapping to ocean biogeochemistry—so that response can be guided by evidence rather than guesswork. These efforts deserve greater scale: predictable multi-year finance, protected-area rangers equipped like emergency services, mobile labs to test water and soil near strikes, and green reconstruction standards that lock in efficiency and resilience rather than rebuild yesterday’s vulnerabilities. 

After the guns fall silent, the work becomes longer and more intricate. Demining at the present scale will take years; restoration of floodplains along the lower Dnipro will demand both engineering and ecological design; fire-scarred forests will need careful, often patient, regeneration rather than simple replanting; and the climate cost must be offset by a reconstruction model that treats emissions reductions as a strategic imperative. Ukraine has already shown, in energy and digital policy, that she can leapfrog. If donors and Kyiv align reconstruction with biodiversity recovery—rivers re-meandered where possible; wetlands re-connected; soils rebuilt with rotations, cover crops and hedgerows; grid decentralised with renewables and storage—then the country can use tragedy to catalyse a cleaner, more resilient landscape. That will not erase the damage, but it will ensure that nature is treated not as silent collateral but as a co-author of Ukraine’s recovery. 

The ecological effects of the war cannot be cordoned off from the humanitarian, military or economic. They are braided together. Clearing a minefield re-opens a school bus route and a crop rotation; repairing a substation prevents both blackouts and oil leakage; restoring a wetland attenuates flood risk for a town and nursery habitat for fish. Ukraine’s victory, when it comes, will therefore be measured not only in reclaimed territory but in restored ecosystems—rivers that run cleaner, forests that burn less often, soils that feed her people again, and a Black Sea whose tides carry life rather than the wreckage of war.