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Ukraine

Assessing Environmental Damage in Ukraine, February 2024

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Overview

The intensity and visibility of wartime environmental damage in Ukraine has helped focus attention on who is collecting data, and for what purpose. On the surface, the conflict’s consequences are very well documented by historical standards, yet a deeper assessment reveals considerable gaps in the country’s capacity for data collection and analysis, which unless addressed, will threaten Ukraine’s recovery and accountability goals.

1. Introduction

The environmental consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are arguably better documented than any conflict in history. The reasons are manifold but include the penetration and utilisation of digital technologies, the accessibility of satellite-derived imagery, and the intensity of the conflict and severity of its environmental harms and risks. Similarly, the conflict’s environmental narrative enjoys a far higher profile because of energetic advocacy by Ukraine’s government, as well as the activities of domestic and international civil society and international organisations. That it built on existing environmental narratives linked to the previous eight years of conflict in the Donbas region has also helped, as has increasing societal concern and media interest on environmental issues globally, together with Ukraine’s focus on accountability for war crimes.

Taken together, these factors are creating expectations around the environmental dimensions of accountability and recovery. Historically and globally, wartime environmental damage and degradation, which are often exacerbated by weakened or distracted governance, has tended to be a low priority, going unaddressed, even where it is detrimental to human and ecosystem health, and to livelihoods and sustainable development. Accountability for conflict-linked environmental harm is underdeveloped, while environmental recovery, and the opportunities it can provide, struggles for attention in the face of economic or humanitarian priorities, which are often framed as competing, rather than complementary objectives.

Environmental data is foundational for accountability. It is also vital for informing recovery and reconstruction planning. Data collection and analysis methods can vary significantly depending on the purpose for which that data is intended to be used. Hence the modalities of collection and analysis warrant consideration. More fundamentally, at present, and in spite of the efforts of numerous stakeholders, substantial gaps remain in Ukraine in what data is collected, by whom and for what purpose. Unless these gaps are addressed, Ukraine may struggle to meet its accountability and recovery objectives.