In early June, satellites recorded hundreds of artillery shell craters around the village of Dovenke in eastern Ukraine, as well as a 40-meter-wide bomb crater.

This is just one area with visible signs of a Russian invasion, and as the war continues to claim lives, the conflict is also leaving a much less visible, toxic “legacy”: heavy metals, fuel and chemical residues from munitions and missiles. entered the territory of Ukraine.

Although the full extent of soil contamination in the country is not yet known, there are fears that the conflict will cause long-term problems in the agricultural production of the country. Ukraine is one of the most important producers and exporters of grains and oilseeds in the world: corn, wheat, barley and sunflower. The widespread contamination from the conflict also threatens the health of residents who are at risk of eating contaminated food, as well as local wildlife.

The Government of Ukraine has requested assistance from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to assess the environmental damage from the war. Preliminary research shows that urban and rural areas are at risk of having a “toxic legacy” for future generations.

Waste and damaged chemical plants

Attacks on Ukrainian territory have destroyed chemical plants and waste dumps, creating a “cocktail” of pollution. The latest data collected by UNEP in January shows that over the past 12 months, 618 industrial and critical infrastructure facilities have been damaged or completely destroyed. The real number is likely much higher, as the BBC points out in their article.

“Many reports cannot be verified,” says Andrea Hinwood, chief scientist at UNEP. “We don’t know the pollutants yet, many of these areas are currently inaccessible. Some remote technol- ogy methods can be used for review, but we will not actually be able to conduct real checks for specific contaminants until the end of the conflict.”

Will they farm in contaminated soil?

Can devastated rural areas be cultivated again? A general answer cannot be given, but experts agree that pre-treatment of titanium will be required, and the proposed solutions will not be the same for each case, since the level of contamination varies from region to region.

Cleanup methods may include using microbes to break down oil pollutants and growing plants such as ferns and sunflowers to gradually remove certain toxic chemicals and stabilize the soil.

Some of the hardest-hit areas of Ukraine are in the southern and eastern parts of the country, which also have the most fertile soil, says Yevheniya Zasiadko, climate director for EcoAction, a Ukrainian non-profit organization that records the environmental consequences of the Russian war in databases. To date, EcoAction has recorded 841 incidents.

Soil pollution

The soil becomes contaminated whenever heavy machinery compacts the soil, explosions create sinkholes that disrupt temperatures, and fires directly affect ecosystems, UNEP describes.

Mines and rockets, fuels and lubricants from military equipment cause chemical contamination of the lands of Ukraine, says Zasiadko. “Plants growing in this soil can be exposed to harmful substances, so the food can become poisonous to those who eat it,” he says.

Once the munitions are dropped, soil toxicity can be an intractable problem, Hinwood said, so operations in different areas need to be prioritized based on the scale of the problem. The widespread bombardment of places like Mariupol, a port city with various types of industry and urban development, is fraught with huge problems in terms of crop recovery.

To this day, efforts are being made to record the full scale of the disaster. A non-profit peace organization from the Netherlands, Pax, uses satellite imagery and public data to detect and map pollution incidentsincluding 213 reports of hostilities in the energy infrastructure.

Pollution can negatively affect soil productivity, but the impact on crops is not always noticeable, explains Pax researcher Wim Schwetzenburg. Satellite scanning can help locate burnt areas, craters, and troop movements.

As Marcos Orellana, UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Substances and Human Rights, explains, armed conflict increases pollution. War “undermines the ability of a state to effectively control hazardous substances and wastes on its territory, resulting in increased pollution and human exposure to hazardous substances.”

Heavenly and masculine

If they are released into the environment, the contaminants can pose a serious risk to human health and are difficult to remove. Other dangerous substances in Ukraine are uranium and arsenic.

According to UNEP, studies conducted prior to the Russian invasion showed significant arsenic contamination from mining operations in the Donbass and around uranium mining and processing facilities. UNEP warns that without management and oversight, the risk of pollution spreading could increase in the heat of war.

According to UNEP, depleted uranium in the armor of missiles and tanks has potentially serious consequences and complicates cleanup efforts. Many shells that hit the ground often remain buried. Over decades, uranium dissolves in the soil. In mammals, uranium toxicity can affect brain development, behavior, and kidney function.

In addition to being radioactive, dissolved depleted uranium compounds can accumulate in the kidneys when ingested with food or water. One of the most serious forms of exposure after the end of the war is when children play on old military vehicles and tanks and ingest or inhale dust from explosions. Scrap yard workers are also at risk.

Depleted uranium can be transferred to an unborn fetus through the placenta, and a large study of more than 8,500 pregnant women in China has linked its exposure to a higher risk of preterm birth.

From soil to plants, from plants to people

When heavy metals and radioactive substances enter the soil, plants can absorb them through their root systems and people are at risk of ingesting them. But Switzenburg says there aren’t many studies showing that heavy war metals make their way into the food chain or are assimilated at alarming levels. “I’m more concerned about pesticides on crops that aren’t controlled to be used in safe amounts,” he says.

Most chemical agents that are toxic to humans are also harmful to other vertebrates, and when they persist in plants, they can cause developmental problems in herbivores.

According to Ganga Hettiarachi, a soil chemist at Kansas State University, soil contamination from combat causes many different problems. “It is not only chemical, but also natural, biological. Lands can be affected for decades or longer” due to conflicts. The use of heavy machinery and equipment can compact the soil and damage the ecosystem of microbes that live in it, even without chemical pollution, he says.

One method of purification is the use of plants to remove pollutants from the environment. This process is known as “phytosanitisation”. Some plants, such as alyssum and pteris fern, are known as “super accumulators” because they can absorb and accumulate significant amounts of inorganic pollutants such as nickel or arsenic without affecting their own growth or function.

Hettiarachi says it may have taken “a very long time, maybe 200 years” to remove heavy metal contaminants from the soil through multiple crops.

Meanwhile, the UN is working with Ukrainian officials to train, collect more data and set up laboratories that can assess soil contamination. “When this conflict is over, we want to take a greener approach that supports both the environment and human health,” says Hinwood.