Dear friends!
We send you our warmest wishes for the New Year. We hope that in 2025 you will be surrounded by the support of friends, family and community, and that your ideas will develop and come to fruition. May you be accompanied by inspiration, success and joy!
We naturally hope that this year Russia’s war in Ukraine will come to an end. Even if it does, this will not mean that our work will be done. The manner in which the country is rebuilt will determine not only Ukraine’s future, but that of the entire region. Today, when environmental movements all over the world are coming under pressure, it is important that islands of ‘green development’ appear everywhere. And Ukraine has the potential to become one of these centers. However, a lot of work needs to be done in order to achieve this.
One of the main problems that will face Ukraine after the end of the war is, of course, landmines. There is no historical precedent for mining on such a vast scale in a European country. Almost 30% of the country is mined – a statistic which puts Ukraine ahead of even countries such as Afghanistan and Syria, where wars lasted for decades. Oleksiy Vasyliuk, head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group and UWEC Work Group expert, explains what methods can be used to solve the problem, where demining operations can begin and which areas to leave for the preservation and development of nature:
Agricultural areas suffer most from mining. As of January 2024, Ukraine has lost almost 20% of its cultivated land since the war began. Many of these areas are either under occupation, contaminated by military action, or both. Restoring agricultural land after the war is an important process that will allow the country not only to recover economically, but also to improve the ecological situation by cleaning the soil. Ukrainian scientist Oksana Datsko’s article, written especially for UWEC Work Group, looks at what methods have already been tested and can be used:
Renewable energy, which is also one of the drivers of Ukraine’s “green recovery,” has suffered from military activity as a result of Russian aggression. The issue of energy independence is acute today for a country which has been the victim of a particular kind of hybrid warfare: hydrocarbon blackmail. As of January 1, 2025, Ukraine no longer allows Russian gas to transit its territory. But how does Kyiv plan to solve the energy issue in the future? What role can renewable energy sources play, especially given that the war years have significantly restricted the generation of green power? Read more in the article by our regular contributor Viktoria Hubareva:
Nuclear energy is considered by many to be an alternative to renewable energy sources. However, the war has shown that this is an inherently risky direction, since it is vulnerable to use as an element of blackmail in the event of a conflict. For almost three years, Ukraine and Russia have been balancing on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe, and shelling continues to take place in the immediate vicinity of nuclear power plants. For this reason, Ukrainian environmental initiatives such as Razom We Stand are calling to prioritize the development of energy-efficient projects, rather than the creation of energy hubs around nuclear power plants or hydroelectric power plants. Read about this and other environmental consequences of the war in Ukraine in our regular review:
Unfortunately, the consequences of the war for zoos and animal shelters, whose inmates have suffered greatly during the war, are rarely discussed. One of UWEC Work Group’s Ukrainian editors, Yuliia Spinova, has written a special feature on this issue, beginning with a look at how various zoos were forced to rescue animals that suffered from military actions during World War II. Unfortunately, Ukraine is now experiencing this challenge in the 21st century, with many of the country’s zoos having become shelters for injured animals, while other zoo animals have had to be evacuated to zoos abroad.
You can find more coverage of the environmental consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on our website, on Twitter (X), Bluesky, Facebook and Telegram.
We wish you strength and peace!
Alexei Ovchinnikov, editor of UWEC Work Group