Environmental damage as a war crime: ecologists examine the consequences of hostilities in the Black Sea and document ecocide

Black Sea, Photo: unsplash

Almost every day, Russia carries out strikes on the waters and coast of the Black Sea and attacks the port infrastructure. All this harms the environment, but it is currently impossible to assess the consequences of the war for the Black Sea.

Nikcenter, in a joint project conducted with colleagues from five Black Sea countries, investigated the impact of military operations on the ecology and state of the sea.

According to the estimates of the Naval Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation had about 80 combat units. In February 2024, the number of Russian ships decreased significantly: 26 units were destroyed, another 15 were seriously damaged, and in March, the Defense Forces struck another Russian ship, the Sergei Kotov, which was hit near the Kerch Strait.

Some of the destroyed Russian ships, which posed a threat to Ukrainians and had already attacked peaceful cities, sank. The most famous of them is the destroyed cruiser «Moscow». The flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation approached the coast of Ukraine at a critical distance, which the Ukrainian defenders took advantage of by targeting it with Neptune missiles. Although the Russians tried to tow the ship, «Moskva» still sank in the Black Sea. Environmentalists assume that the wreckage of the destroyed flagship of the Black Sea Fleet will become a permanent source of pollution.

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After the strikes of the Defense Forces of Ukraine on the so-called «Boiko towers» — gas drilling platforms — significant oil slicks were observed in the Black Sea. Platforms belonging to Ukraine were used by Russia to monitor the surface situation in the Black Sea. After a powerful blow to them in June 2022, Ukrainian ecologists watched gas production platforms continue to burn for a year.

However, experts say, it is currently impossible to investigate what kind of damage the great war is actually causing to the Black Sea, which was considered the most polluted even before that.

«It is very difficult to collect information, because if a plane has sunk somewhere far out at sea or a ship has sunk, it is very difficult to assess the damage. Over time, the ship rusts and if there were any chemicals on the ship, the same oil products or fuel, they can gradually come to the surface and pollute the marine environment. What we are doing is observing short-term changes. No one can make any predictions for the future based on them. Until we have open access to the sea, I don't think anyone will undertake to make any predictions,» says Yuliia Kalinina, head of the marine environment protection department of the State Environmental Inspection of the Southwestern District of Ukraine.

According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, the full-scale war caused almost UAH 305 billion in damage to the Black Sea region. Among the crimes of the Russians is the destruction of the Kakhovska HPP dam in June 2023, which led to the entry of fresh water and sewage into the Black Sea.

According to Ivan Rusiev, a scientist of the Tuzlivski Lymany National Park, the greatest damage to marine organisms, as well as to the sea in general, is caused by military actions. They were most active at sea during the first half of 2022, when Snake Island was captured and eventually de-occupied.

«Zmiinyi is 50 kilometers from us. And there in our building, where the inspectors are, during the de-occupation of Zmiinyi, there was a very powerful bombardment. Our house shook from these explosions. When Zmiinyi was de-occupied, there were many dead dolphins. At the same time, the so-called «Boiko towers» were de-occupied, and they burned until the last, until the summer of last year,» says Ivan Rusiev.

Almost every day during more than two years of full-scale war, the occupiers strike both in the water area and on the coastal zone in the Ochakiv and Kutsurub communities in the Mykolayiv region. One of the most powerful such attacks took place in January 2023, when the enemy targeted the coast of Ochakiv, and the explosive wave reached Mykolaiv.

Ukrainian scientists together with law enforcement agencies record Russian crimes in the Black Sea and their consequences for ecology. Experts are convinced: this is ecocide — the intentional act of harming the ecology of Ukraine and the Black Sea region, for which the Russian Federation must be held accountable at the International Criminal Court.

«We are developing a methodology at the international level that will allow us to further assess all this damage and then assess the damages caused by this damage in order to present it at an international court. A separate criminal case is opened for each of the cases, which involves the police, the prosecutor's office, the SSU, with the involvement of specialists and experts. We are talking about ecocide — the intentional damage to the natural environment. This is not an accident, no, it is a targeted, deliberate task of harming the natural environment,» says Viktor Komorin, director of the Scientific Research Institute «Ukrainian Scientific Center for Marine Ecology».

Previously, NikVesti wrote about how the war destroys the ecology of the south. The main problem of the environmental consequences of war is their long-term and global character. Therefore, possible ways to overcome them become more difficult, but you need to look for a solution now.