The environment, the silent victim of the Russian invasion in Ukraine

As anti-aircraft sirens sound throughout Ukraine, Russia's strategy of siege and bombing heavily industrialized cities and the unprecedented military occupation of nuclear facilities make the environment a silent victim of war, according to experts in the field.

“Although the first victim of wars is the inhabitants of the invaded country, after the roar of the shells lies environmental damage, which exposes the weak legal protection afforded to the environment during armed conflicts,” says the director of the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) in English), Doug Weir.

The head of this British observatory focused on studying the environmental impact of wars, warns of two main concerns: “the siege of heavily industrialized cities” and the “extraordinary, unacceptable and unprecedented military occupation of nuclear facilities”. Putin's decision to occupy nuclear sites “has taken the world by surprise” as “the international community does not have mechanisms to deal with such eventualities”, emphasizes the British analyst.

It is clearly an ecocide, since it extends the nuclear risk to the entire European continent,” says Greenpeace spokeswoman María José Caballero, who recalls that the Chernobyl workers, “who do a job of precision” have until a few days ago been “hijacked in their posts since the beginning of the invasion”, on February 24.

Greenpeace believes that “nuclear safety protocols are useless and situations like this show it”, so “having renewable alternatives, nuclear energy is not necessary”, they argue. Seen as collateral damage, “the destruction of the environment becomes a warlike use” against the people of Ukraine, warns Caballero, because “without water, electricity or food, resistance is weakening”, as is happening in the besieged city of Mariupol (southeastern), on the shores of the Azov Sea.

Attack on industrial centers

According to the Greenpeace spokeswoman, high-explosive projectiles used against infrastructure and industrial facilities disperse “carcinogens, cement, asbestos and heavy metals”, pollutants that “leave a long-term legacy”, especially in a country such as Ukraine that has important metallurgical facilities, such as Azovstal plant in Mariupol, a steel megaproject of the Stalin era “that has been bombed by Russian forces”.

Environmentalists' attention is also focused on Donbass, a region in the east of the country “with a lot of biodiversity, but also very rich in coal”, crossed by “kilometers of tunnels that are flooding”, which can drag a stream of “harmful chemicals” throughout the basin. For the director of CEOBS, rivers “are a means through which pollution travels, in the event of damage to an industrial center located next to a watercourse,” says Weir, as is the case of the failed Chernobyl power station and the Zaporiyia nuclear plant - the largest in Europe, with six reactors - located on the banks of the Dnieper.

More than the direct damage of weapons on biodiversity, Weir is more concerned about “the closure of environmental projects and programmes and the diversion of funds from green projects due to their loss of priority”, which in the long term will affect “environmental governance in Ukraine many years after the conflict ends.”

The 2022 King Jaume I Award and researcher at the Higher Council for Scientific Research, Fernando Valladares, warned this Saturday that “the deterioration of the environment is related to the invasion of Ukraine and the coronavirus”, while noting that our physical and mental health depends on environmental care.

He explained this during the keynote lecture he gave as part of the 29th Congress of the Valencian Society of Pneumology (SVN) held at the Valencia Mercantile Athenaeum, which was attended by around 300 respiratory specialists, doctors and nurses from the Valencian Community, as explained by the Valencian Society of Pulmonology in a statement. The researcher stressed that there is only one health and that depending on that of the ecosystem and our environment, that will be ours. He also warned that issues such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss “impact our health and could prevent deaths.”

“It is estimated that every year the order of half a million people die directly from climate change and, indirectly, tens of millions; in order to avoid it and reverse these numbers, it is necessary to establish connections between what is happening to us and the future scenarios of our human actions, only in this way will it significantly improve our health and we will gain in the sustainability of the ecosystem,” he said.

For the CSIC researcher and Jaume I Prize 2021, “biodiversity plays countless roles in ecosystems (pollination, water filtration, regulation of fauna and flora) and also acts as a protector against pandemics like the one we are now facing. It would take four quarantines like that of the pandemic to reach the goal of reducing emissions by 23% by 2030,” he suggested. Valladares added that preventing pandemics and their mental consequences requires global interventions to reduce climate change and air pollution.

“What is happening is that COVID-19 or war conflicts such as the invasion of Ukraine make climate change disappear from public attention. One way to compensate is by learning from the positive lessons of the coronavirus to address climate change,” he said. In this regard, Valladares recalled that Covid-19 prevention behaviors are significantly associated with attitudes to prevent climate change, while those given to conspiranical theories reject vaccines and climate change.

“We must continue on the path of prevention and try to anticipate those future scenarios that do not help our physical and mental health. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the economic and energy crises are environmental crises that take these manifestations. We see disconnected pieces or current news where some pieces cover others, that makes it difficult to see the environmental crisis”, concluded the expert.

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