The combination of global warming, Russian aggression, and the corruption and negligence of Ukrainian officials has been a deadly combo for the Ukrainian environment.
EcoPolitics offers a brief digest of the biggest natural disasters and crimes against nature that have caused enormous damage and worsened the ecological situation.
Destruction of forests
Due to the full-scale war, Ukraine has lost approximately 20% of its forest land. Nearly half a million hectares of forest have been mined or contaminated with explosive devices.
However, such colossal losses do not stop officials, entrepreneurs, and simply irresponsible citizens from cutting down trees. Of course, it is precisely because of the actions of civil servants that the scale of the damage is greatest.
Source: State Ecological Inspectorate
During 2025, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) recorded 546 million UAH of environmental damage due to various illegal logging schemes involving forestry officials.
Information on this topic would be incomplete if we did not mention mountain off-roading (jeeping), which is still not practically prohibited, as well as the felling of primeval forests for the construction of controversial wind power plants in Zakarpattia.
The "fight" against nature reserves
This year, Ukraine has faced a number of scandals concerning protected areas. Among them is an attempt to sell off 200 hectares of protected land in Lviv region before the “Kava” reserve could be established there, and the illegal lease of the Pyriatynsky National Park.
Environmental activists are also trying to protect plants and animals in reserves from the shortsighted actions of the Ministry of Economy (formerly the Ministry of Environment). The Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center filed a lawsuit with the Office of the Prosecutor General regarding unlimited logging quotas in national parks.
Pollution of the Black Sea
Since the winter, hundreds of tons of fuel oil have been found on the shores of the Danube Biosphere Reserve. These ended up on the coast due to accidents involving Russian tankers. In September, petroleum products again entered the sea because of a leak from a Russian vessel.
In the Black Sea, almost 1,000 active sources of methane leakage have also been detected, which threatens complete poisoning of the water area. The reason for this is both military actions and the drilling of the shelf.
Photo: sprotyv.org.ua
And at the end of the year, as a result of an attack on the port of Odesa, oil spilled into the sea. The substance blocked the access of oxygen for marine life and also caused the death of birds. The oil slick was washed ashore, now endangering unique ecosystems. According to environmentalists, the catastrophe was aggravated by the erroneous actions of the Military Administration.
Large-scale fires
Throughout the year, due to drought all over the country, large-scale fires were observed in various ecosystems – in forests, steppes, and along riverbanks. For example, fires in the Odesa region caused environmental damage amounting to 28 billion UAH. In Mykolaiv, in August, 40 hectares of forest burned with losses reaching 110 million UAH, and reeds along the Inhul River were also burned, causing the environment to suffer 2.2 million UAH in damage. On a single day, October 4, 4 hectares of vegetation in protected areas of the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions were burned. In the autumn in Poltava region, peat bogs were burning on a large scale.
Photo: facebook.com/share/1GQySAxmXp
The majority of fires were caused by the war, so the regions leading in forest fires are Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk. In total, about 5,500 hectares of forests burned nationwide.
War and its consequences
The greatest environmental crime, or more precisely, full-scale ecocide, is the impact of Russian aggression on Ukraine's environment. According to calculations by the State Environmental Inspectorate, the estimated damages caused by Russia's actions have already exceeded 6.1 billion UAH.
Indirectly, the hostilities are the cause of all the above-mentioned catastrophes, except, of course, those related to illegal activities.
