WAR IS ECOCIDE
Ukraine is demanding $43 billion from Russia for environmental damage caused by the war, saying the invasion has pumped huge extra emissions into the atmosphere and destroyed land, water and forests. It is the first time a country has sought compensation for an increase in climate-warming emissions caused by a war.
Issued on: 19/11/2025 - RFI
Ukraine says the environmental toll of the Russian invasion must be accounted for.
AFP - ANATOLII STEPANOV
Kyiv se out its plan on Tuesday at the UN climate summit, Cop30, in Brazil. Ukraine plans to file the claim through a new compensation process being set up within the Council of Europe.
The main source of the extra emissions is the fighting itself. Fuel burned by tanks and aircraft and the steel and cement produced for the front line are major contributors.
There are also fires that firefighters cannot go and extinguish in combat zones and civilian planes forced to reroute around Ukrainian territory. The war has destroyed trees through these fires, which further adds to the climate impact.
Nearly one million hectares burn as war ravages nature across Ukraine
Climate damage
In total, experts from the Initiative for GHG Accounting of War (IGGAW), an association funded by Ukraine and European governments, say the war has produced the equivalent of 236.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
According to Lennard de Klerk, a Dutch carbon-accounting expert who works with the group, that figure is nearly equal to the annual emissions of Ireland, Belgium and Austria combined.
Pavlo Kartashov, Ukraine’s deputy minister for economy, environment and agriculture, told a side event at Cop30 that Ukrainians are facing many pressures at once.
“Every day people are dying, we have energy problems... but one day Russia will have to be held responsible for all the damage it has caused... including damage to the environment, water, animals and soil,” Kartashov said.
"The vast amounts of fuel burned, forests scorched, buildings destroyed, concrete and steel used, all these things are essentially ‘conflict carbon’ and have a considerable climate cost.
"We in Ukraine face brutality directly, but the climate shockwaves of this aggression will be felt well beyond our borders and into the future."
A member of the Russian delegation at Cop30 declined to comment on Ukraine’s announcement.
Kyiv se out its plan on Tuesday at the UN climate summit, Cop30, in Brazil. Ukraine plans to file the claim through a new compensation process being set up within the Council of Europe.
The main source of the extra emissions is the fighting itself. Fuel burned by tanks and aircraft and the steel and cement produced for the front line are major contributors.
There are also fires that firefighters cannot go and extinguish in combat zones and civilian planes forced to reroute around Ukrainian territory. The war has destroyed trees through these fires, which further adds to the climate impact.
Nearly one million hectares burn as war ravages nature across Ukraine
Climate damage
In total, experts from the Initiative for GHG Accounting of War (IGGAW), an association funded by Ukraine and European governments, say the war has produced the equivalent of 236.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
According to Lennard de Klerk, a Dutch carbon-accounting expert who works with the group, that figure is nearly equal to the annual emissions of Ireland, Belgium and Austria combined.
Pavlo Kartashov, Ukraine’s deputy minister for economy, environment and agriculture, told a side event at Cop30 that Ukrainians are facing many pressures at once.
“Every day people are dying, we have energy problems... but one day Russia will have to be held responsible for all the damage it has caused... including damage to the environment, water, animals and soil,” Kartashov said.
"The vast amounts of fuel burned, forests scorched, buildings destroyed, concrete and steel used, all these things are essentially ‘conflict carbon’ and have a considerable climate cost.
"We in Ukraine face brutality directly, but the climate shockwaves of this aggression will be felt well beyond our borders and into the future."
A member of the Russian delegation at Cop30 declined to comment on Ukraine’s announcement.
Wartime emissions
IGGAW produced the emissions estimate now used by Kyiv.
De Klerk told Reuters that he helped Ukraine calculate the damage figure using a 2022 study in the journal Nature that puts the social cost of carbon at about $185 a tonne.
The social cost of carbon is an estimate of damages to society from CO2 emissions. He said this calculation fed into Ukraine’s overall claim.
Ukraine is preparing to submit its climate-related demand through the new Council of Europe process, which has already received some 70,000 claims from Ukrainian individuals for wartime damages.
All of the claims, including any filed by other legal entities such as companies, will be decided by a claims commission.
It remains unclear where the compensation will come from. De Klerk suggested that the billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets could be used to cover successful claims.
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