By: James Wen
Edited By: Nicole Cannock
War is fundamentally centred around humans. It is fought by human soldiers and with human strategy. When any conflict is mentioned, humans are often the focus of concern. How many casualties were there? Which cities have been destroyed? While these concerns are fully reasonable, an unignorable aspect deeply intertwined with human well-being is often overlooked: war’s impact on the environment.
To state that humans are fully ignorant of the environment would be starkly false. In the past few decades, tremendous efforts have been concentrated into promoting environmentally sustainable practices to ensure prosperity for future generations, but this global cooperation was focused in moments of peace. At war, when the livelihood of a country, people, and culture are in jeopardy, sustainability becomes an afterthought, and survival becomes key. Nowhere is this abandonment of sustainability more apparent than in the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022, which continues to this day. The war has caused widespread environmental devastation, and to understand its consequences, three major impacts will be analyzed: mass-scale landscape fires, unexploded ordnance and landmines, and fossil fuel emissions.
Most recent data shows that in 2024 alone, Ukraine was the European country with the single most vegetation lost to fires, with 965,360 hectares of vegetation lost. Among this, 33% was agricultural loss, 27% was forest loss, and an additional 39% in other natural loss (San-Miguel-Ayanz, 2025). This loss was brought about by 8753 fires, with 317 fires exceeding 500 hectares, and 110 exceeding 1000 hectares (San-Miguel-Ayanz, 2025). In perspective, Portugal, second in fire-related vegetation loss, suffered a loss of 147,461 hectares, a mere 15% of Ukraine’s loss. Causes for these great losses can mainly be attributed to mass increases in shelling and bombing from both sides, which create minor fires that quickly spread by triggering nearby landmines and unexploded ordnance. Additionally, fighting has been concentrated in the eastern oblasts of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Sumy and the northern Chernihiv, which possess some of Ukraine’s most arable, agricultural land, as well as forest cover. This was exacerbated by hot and dry weather in Ukraine in 2024, which only furthered forest fires spiralling out of control once started by war-related factors. Importantly however, Russia has been accused of using drones to target firefighters, firetrucks, and national park workers attempting to contain fires (Greenfield, 2025). Fire rescue teams must routinely bring jammers and rifles in order to combat drone activity. In total, an estimated 46.7 million tons of CO2 emissions have been attributed to landscape fires since the beginning of the war, and experts predict that it may take 70-80 years for forests to recover (Greenfield, 2025).
Apart from fires, greater long-term environmental harms are also apparent in large quantities of unexploded ordnance and landmines that litter the landscapes of
Eastern Ukraine. It is currently estimated that ⅓ of Ukrainian territory is contaminated with unexploded ordnance, including artillery shells, missiles, mines, and other explosive devices. In total, they are estimated to be found in 139,000 km2 of Ukrainian soil. Over 6 million people live in these contaminated areas, with over 800 casualties already attributed to detonation of mines/other unexploded ordnance (UNICEF, 2025). The estimated laying of over 2 million anti-personnel, anti-tank and other mines within Ukraine by both sides have ravaged agricultural lands, forests, and biologically-sensitive ecosystems. As such, food sustainability is directly impacted, with much fertile agricultural land being now unsuitable for use due to landmine presence, playing a role in $83.9 billion in losses to Ukraine’s agricultural sector. Detonation of these mines causes lasting damage to flora and fauna, decreasing biodiversity and causing chemical contamination of soil by heavy metals. However, removing mines proves to be a very inefficient, costly, and time-consuming process, meaning they may very well remain for decades following the war’s conclusion.
Fossil fuels and gasoline remain as the lifeblood of any military, providing the fuel that run vehicles, jets, and vital military activities. However, its overwhelming use has had serious impacts in carbon emissions. Since the start of the war, 230 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents have been emitted, equivalent to the annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia combined. Surprisingly, however, only 36% of these emissions are attributed to warfare, with 27% of emissions coming from extensive reconstruction efforts, and 21% from landscape fires (Igini, 2025). Additionally, there are many distal impacts of the war on emissions as well, with large-scale disruptions to energy infrastructure, transportation, and efficiency worldwide from sanctions of Russian oil, as well as changes in civil aviation. With Russia closing its airspace upon the start of the invasion of Ukraine, thousands of flights worldwide have had to change to less efficient routes, not only delaying travel times, but also increasing emissions. In total, roughly 13.86 million tons of CO2 emissions have been attributed to rerouted flights since the beginning of the war.
With the war soon entering its fourth year with no immediate resolution in sight, it is likely that these issues will only continue in their current negative trajectories. There remains little incentive for fighting countries to prioritize the environment over their own livelihoods, and even less pressure from international bodies who desire primarily to see the end of hostilities, rather than an environmentally-sustainable, protracted war. This ensures that the environment will suffer as long as the war machines continue to run.
It seems then, that war and sustainability are two concepts fundamentally incompatible with each other. But does it really have to be this way? Can we at least agree to keep the planet intact while we try to destroy each other? Of course, if humanity were capable of that much cooperation, we probably wouldn’t be destroying each other in the first place.
Image Citation: Rawpixel. (2025). Devastation in Bucha, Ukraine. [Photograph]. Rawpixel.com. www.rawpixel.com/image/6918385.
References:
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Greenfield, P., & Hourani, L. (2025, October 23). Wildfires Have Consumed Vast Chunks of Ukraine. Is Russia Deliberately Fuelling the Flames? The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/23/drones-ukraine-wildfires-russia-heat-mines-shelling.
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