The surrounding Russian world. Wired magazine doubts whether it is possible to achieve compensation for damage to nature during the war in Ukraine
As the tumors grow, they kill Ukrainians and destroy their cities, sweeping the environment to correct the effects of the war to increase the diversity of the country. Many, risking their lives, sorties for frog livers, rare plants, or bat colonies. The variety of ecological niches in Ukraine is enormous: there are dense forests, alpine and water meadows, steppes, swamps and estuarieswhere bears, wolves, lynxes, ground squirrels, black grouse, storks, sturgeons, dolphins and mole rats live. They stop here while collecting many species of migratory birds.
The significance of the environment only increases as war destroys it, sometimes irrevocably. The damage to air, water, plants and animals of Ukraine is probably not compensated even many years after its cities are rebuilt. Someday, the data currently collected by American scientists may become the evidence base for environmental protection in Russian countries. But first, the right to come out of hibernation.
War has a powerful effect on wildlife. “Animals are frightened by loud sounds, vibrations,” says Kyiv-based ecologist Oleksiy Marushchak. Bird nests are destroyed. Together with the sinking industrial flora and fauna, countless tons of harmful substances get into rivers and lakes: “The food base of insects is collapsing,” Maruschak continues. “Without insects, there will be no frogs, and without frogs, there will be no cranes.”
Explosions, fires and collapses of buildings filled the Ukrainian air, soil and water with poisonous particles and nitric acid. Poisoned natural resources will be restored by ladders.
The habitat of the bandage – a delightful animal that looks like a ferret with golden spots on its back – is found in the observation zone. In a protected nature reserve in southwestern Ukraine, Russian troops drove through the habitats of the steppe colchicum, a rare flower likely on the crocus. Dolphins are dying in the Black Sea. In Chernobyl, up to 150 square kilometers of forests were burned during the invasion. According to the Ukrainian Conservation Group, 44% of protected natural resources have been used since the beginning of the invasion.
To survive hard times, ecosystems feed on biodiversity. Even before the start of the war, Ukraine had insufficiently protected natural resources, and when it ends, the country will consume healthy areas for crops, clean water reservoirs to supply the population and fisheries, cooling reproducing forests and areas where biodiversity will be restored – and possibly even mental health of people.
Bomb-spitting and chemical-poisoned soil layers are removed and replaced. This may be suspicious. Toxic substances in water bodies will kill or poison the fish and those they feed on. Arisen from forests that survived under the bombs and were not touched by fires, went to logs to restore destroyed buildings, and appeared there unsafe due to unexploded shells. The war in Iraq ended more than ten years ago, but it still reminds of itself with roads filled with sewage and the disgusting quality of tap water.
“Restoring factories, shops and McDonald’s is a matter of investment,” says Oleg Prilutsky, professor of mycology at Kharkiv State University. “But the natural and cultural heritage of Ukraine can be lost forever.”
Russia should be held accountable for the damage caused. The destruction of the environment robs the country of cultural and natural values, and also worsens the living conditions of citizens. If no one suffers for such actions, they will be considered acceptable.
While there is no doubt who is responsible for starting a potential war, it would be wise to achieve a success where the destruction of the natural environment would be declared a war crime. According to the definitions of the 1949 Geneva Affiliation, property rights belong to the international criminal court, belonging to the category of belonging to people, not owners. If this logic is followed, Putin would be an obvious candidate for indictment, but as moderator Doug Weir of the Center for Wartime Nature Observation (CEOBS), “including goals intention “to identify large-scale, severe, severe damage to nature” – “you need to find the presence of all three signs.” And while it may be obvious to Ukrainians what they all saw in the actions of the Russian military, experience shows that the reason is that such things are too hard in court.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi authorities set fire to 900 oil wells. For months, the smoke plume of the goref stretched for more than a thousand kilometers, in the Persian Gulf a slick of oil spilled a hundred and fifty kilometers for seventy kilometers. Swamps and mangrove forests were common, with 50–90% of deaths in the county. Scientists have observed goats and birds drowning in oil. Due to the soot rising from the fire, the Himalayan glaciers began to melt. But even this case did not reach the court, despite persistent international demands.
Since then, the legal environment has become a little bit of me. In 2016, the US International Criminal Court policy paper about being willing to regulate with congressional districts and involve in cases of environmental destruction if it is considered a “serious crime under state law.” The article states that “the court pays particular attention to cases committed by means of spreading the environment, detecting the use of natural resources or land acquisition.”
But even if the damage alleged by the secondary invasion were found to be a war crime, a criminal court might not be the best way to reach a place of reparation. “Okay, here is Vladimir Putin’s extradition,” says Sami Payne, a Rutgers University law professor and expert in environmental law. This is extremely unlikely, but possible. And then what? He still won’t be able to pay for everything – unless he has the billions he stole.”
apply not to the criminal court, but to the civil court, consider Weir and Payne. Instead of saying: “You are a criminal,” it is better to say: “You broke it – now fix it.” Payne says that after the Iraq war, the UN compensation commission only accepted $85 billion in environmental risks, and $5.4 billion in payments were awarded and transferred.
In May, the United Nations Commission on Law Enforcement adopted a draft “Principles for the protection of the environment during armed manifestations.” It is a set of practical grounds based on social laws and precedents. Ninth principle fact: “The internationally wrongful act of a state in connection with an armed conflict, causing great poverty among the population, entails the international responsibility of that state, which includes full reparation for such damage, including the bad faith of the population itself.”
Technically and legally, Russia can compensate for the damage to Ukrainian nature. “The question is whether it is politically feasible and what the consequences will be,” says Weir. For example, if in the future the US and the UK start another cash desk in Iraq, will they be ready for what will already be a precedent, if necessary, the UN General Assembly can implement a compensatory tribunal to consider issues already against them? Will they, and other countries as well, want to create such a precedent, ask their assets to be frozen too?
Be that as it may, while the Ukrainians are creating an evidence base for such a tribunal. Public organizations collect and update a database on individual cases of environmental impact. Can you get compensation? One thing is for sure: if the current damage is not to be compensated in any way, Russia – like any other country – will behave in the same way in the future.
Author: Jenny Morber
Translation: “Russia must pay for its environmental war crimes”, June 22, 2022
Translation: N.B.