Putin's Ecocide in Ukraine

by Jozef Pawlukiewicz

Famous de-Nazifier Vladimir Putin’s "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine has become the hot-bed for claims of ecological terrorism. Once a sprawling array of Europe’s most fertile farmland, Ukraine now sits in the crossroads of the future: devastating war and environmental disaster. Putin’s demolition derby of an entire sovereign nation knows no bounds, aside from the bounds of winning, that is. The missiles and drones don’t discriminate; this war of aggression has devastated both innocent human lives and the natural infrastructure.

Warfare isn’t always just soldiers shooting at one another; it has background consequences. Like a rather brutal game of football, training, new complexes, and testing can all lead to a number of issues. Thank goodness Manchester United don’t employ an armed militia or else Stretford would quickly look like Serbia after attempting a genocide. Construction of new military bases poses a danger to the local wildlife of the area being built on, and with the war not giving up anytime soon, the presence of these bases in Ukraine will continue to eat into the soil.

Soil, of course, is not the only place where harmful materials can dramatically change a nation’s landscape. The Black Sea, a strategic location for whichever peace-seeking nation controls it, has fallen prey to the Russian coastal peace-brigade. The use of sonar by Russian submarines had killed around 50,000 dolphins in just the first 3 months of the war, according to estimates by Dr. Rusev, an ecologist clearly blind to the fact that these dolphins probably just fell out of their Moscow apartment windows. These dolphins sometimes lose their echolocation, and like an elderly genocidal maniac’s army, they wash up on Ukrainian soil, half of them dead. Some dolphins also die due to intentional dumping of waste barrels by the Russians which contain pathological diseases (the barrels, not the Russians). Fire and forest-loss have gone hand in hand with the decline of Ukraine’s biodiversity. 65.8% of forest-loss has been due to warfare in the 2022-2023 period. When patches in forests appear, communication between animals begins to fade away and with isolation brings a slow

decline, like a certain world superpower whose name sounds like Prussia.

With less diversity in the supply chains in Ukraine, food insecurity becomes a dire threat. Almost 20% of farmland has been lost from Europe’s largest agricultural producer. Ukrainians make 11 billion dollars a year less than usual due to the number of mines in the once lush countryside. Food insecurity drives discontent within a population: as the Snickers' tag line says, You’re Not You When You're Hungry. The lack of budget to an already cash-strapped country makes investments in public health not an easy or popular thing. With everyone having to move out (tanks don’t make for kind neighbours), finding new and accessible care once moved proves to be a difficult task.

Socially, Nature is important to Ukraine and Ukrainians. Without it they face less and less hope as the war continues, and as this is a war on all fronts, the Russians are guilty of crimes against the environment as much as those against humanity. Having one of the largest militaries of all time breathing down your neck means the Green movement in Ukraine has had to be put on hold. Despite an environmental toll of over $60 billion, the war has been the only thing to dominate headlines. Just 1.4% of the news has been about climate concerns, perhaps something else was going on? 37% of the country’s money goes on defence, more than any other. Science goes on the back foot, and even with the largest threat ever facing mankind - climate change, not Putin - it would surely seem crucial, even in such trying times, to try and protect the climate. While soldiers on the frontline fight against Russians, others remain on the frontline of this fight for Nature. Oleksiy Vasyliuk, a Ukrainian biologist, says it is a “priority” for the country to continue the fight for biodiversity. Fellow conservationist Mikhail Rusin claims that his operations rely on the donations of random people, that government money is non-existent. Ukrainian Nature is in the hands of a dedicated few, those willing to defy everything around them - even if they are just clipboards and computers against a barbarian war-machine.

Ecocide is defined as a deliberate act of human activity to destroy the environment. A term Mr Putin should know all too well. Ecocide can be connected to genocide, as it compromises the potential for an ethnic or national group to exist, especially when a country is reliant on agriculture. Purposeful shelling by Russian artillery and the extensive mine-laying operations have decimated the ability for everyday Ukrainians to rely on their own land for their own food and livelihoods.

Russian crimes against Nature in Ukraine may be pushed aside until the catalogue of those against humanity are cleared, however their significance will not go unnoticed. It does seem odd, however, that someone who is trying to rid Ukraine of its seemingly evil leaders to liberate the country, is plunging them into ecological disaster and getting away with it. Being the country that feeds most of Europe, what happens to Ukraine has consequences for everyone. Hopefully the moral West (see Iraq, Syria, India, most of Africa et al) can seek criminal charges at the International Court of Justice, but until then the Ukrainians must reap what the Russians have sown, and nothing tastes better than total environmental failure.

Jozef Pawlukiewicz is a 19-year old student from Scotland with a Scottish mother and a Polish father. His parents met while working in Russia, when their only common language was Russian.