The Hidden Front Line: How War Damages the Natural World
From soil degradation and water contamination to ecosystem destruction and biodiversity loss, wars such as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine have serious and extensive consequences on nature that can last for generations and affect the health and livelihoods of entire populations.
On 6 June 2023, the world watched as the Kakhovka Dam on Ukraine’s Dnipro river was breached. The immediate images were dramatic: towns flooded, families fleeing, infrastructure swept away. Yet, beyond the headlines, a slower disaster emerged. Huge volumes of water scoured industrial zones and farmland, releasing toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and oil into the Dnipro-Bug estuary and the Black Sea, polluting important habitats and killing countless aquatic species.
The environmental fallout of the breach was considerable, with irreparable harm done to wetlands, riverbanks, and marine ecosystems and enduring hardship inflicted on communities that depend on these resources. Though the full cost will take years to assess, the breach stands as a major ecological catastrophe whose consequences will persist long after the initial flood-waters recede.
The environment: war’s unseen casualty
When people think of war, they picture ruined cities, displaced people, and shattered lives. But the impacts of conflict extend far beyond immediate casualties and social disruption. In addition to its human toll, war has another profound yet often frequently underexamined consequence: environmental damage, both direct and indirect. This destruction can take various forms, including deforestation, soil degradation, water contamination, harm to farm animals, damage to ecosystems, and biodiversity loss. The scars left on nature can persist for generations, shaping the health, livelihoods, and futures of entire populations.
The environmental impacts of conflict are as varied as they are profound and reveal themselves across time and space with consequences beyond the battlefield. Some effects are immediate and visible, while others unfold slowly and remain hidden from view. Certain impacts prove irreversible and fundamentally alter ecological systems for generations.
The destruction of ecosystems is one of the clearest forms of wartime environmental damage. Fires, explosions, and troop movements systematically destroy habitats, fragment landscapes, and disrupt critical migration routes. In Ukraine, more than 12,000 square kilometres of nature reserves have been transformed into active war zones, and fires sparked by shelling have consumed over 100,000 hectares of forests and grassland. This destruction results in the loss of rare species, the obliteration of decades of conservation work, and the release of carbon and fine particulate matter into the atmosphere, degrading air quality across the region.
The contamination of soil and water systems is perhaps the most insidious form of wartime environmental damage, as these impacts often remain invisible while causing profound long-term harm. Explosions release toxic substances, including heavy metals, fuel residues, and sometimes depleted uranium, into environmental systems. Damaged industrial facilities and fuel depots leak chemicals into rivers and groundwater, where they contaminate drinking water supplies and kill aquatic life.
In Ukraine, soils have become polluted with heavy metals and explosive residues, making farmland unsafe or unusable for agriculture and threatening one of the nation’s main economic activities. At the same time, bombed industrial infrastructure and abandoned military equipment continue to leach toxic chemicals into rivers and seas, posing ongoing threats to aquatic ecosystems and the broader Black Sea and creating cross-border environmental impacts that may persist for decades.
The legacy of warfare extends far beyond active conflict periods through long-term contamination. Landmines, unexploded ordnance, and chemical residues linger indefinitely after fighting ceases, creating environmental hazards that prevent ecosystems from recovering and humans from resettling. According to the United Nations Development Programme, widespread landmine contamination in Ukraine currently threatens millions of people and could take decades to clear, with the result that vast areas are effectively removed from productive use.
Warfare also triggers massive displacements of both human and animal populations, creating secondary environmental pressures that compound the direct impacts of conflict. By forcing wildlife to abandon established nesting grounds and habitats, conflict disrupts breeding cycles and migration patterns that have evolved over centuries. Human refugees often settle in environmentally fragile areas, which places additional pressure on already stressed ecosystems and creates competition for limited natural resources. This displacement produces a cascading effect in which environmental damage transcends immediate conflict zones.
These patterns of environmental destruction are not unique to contemporary conflicts but are a recurring feature of modern warfare. The Russia-Ukraine war is only the latest chapter in an extensive history of environmental devastation caused by military conflict. During the 1990–1991 Gulf War, retreating Iraqi forces set Kuwaiti oil wells ablaze, creating vast plumes of toxic smoke, contaminating soil and water across the region, and affecting air quality for years. Similarly, during the 1998–1999 Kosovo War, NATO air strikes on industrial sites in Serbia released hazardous chemicals into the Danube, with harmful consequences for water supplies and biodiversity over a large area.
Lasting consequences
Environmental destruction during war is more than an unfortunate side effect: it is a catalyst for prolonged human suffering. By contaminating the air, water, and soil, warfare leads to severe public health crises. Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam collapse in 2023, for example, released machine oil, fertilisers, and an estimated 83,000 tonnes of heavy metals into downstream regions, putting residents at risk of major health issues. Toxic remnants of war can make entire regions hazardous for decades. Not only that, but food supply chains are also highly sensitive to the environmental consequences of war. Contaminated land and water disrupt agriculture and fisheries, leading to food insecurity and economic hardship for rural communities.
As conflicts become more frequent and climate change accelerates, the environmental costs of warfare are rising exponentially. The systematic destruction of ecosystems undermines resilience against climate shocks and threatens food and water security on a global scale. The intersection of environmental degradation and armed conflict creates vulnerabilities that extend far beyond immediate combat zones, affecting regional stability and human security for decades.
Yet, discussions of warfare’s impacts do not sufficiently address the profound ecological consequences that shape the prospects for long-term recovery and development. The environmental dimension of conflict is not merely collateral damage but a fundamental threat to sustainable peace and global security. Future conflict-prevention and post-conflict reconstruction strategies must therefore integrate environmental assessments and remediation as central components of international humanitarian and security frameworks.
Rebecca Hirschfeld is a political science & environment researcher focusing on environmental damage in conflict and aspiring PhD candidate at King’s College London.