Ukraine's extensive forests have been destroyed in a war-torn landscape

Serhiy Tsapok gazed at the smoldering remains of pine trees, with blackened stumps stretching as far as the eye could see, a testament to a devastated nation.
"They're gone now," said the exhausted ranger, referring to the trees he had cared for over nearly two decades. The 41-year-old's once-enjoyable daily patrol through Ukraine's forests has turned into a distressing ordeal.
"Now when I drive, it's easier to just keep my eyes on the road."
The fire he battled, triggered by an unknown blast, destroyed three hectares of 80-year-old pine trees in the Sviati Hory national park in eastern Ukraine, according to park officials. They reported that 80% of the park's nearly 12,000 hectares have been either damaged or destroyed by fires or shelling.

This is just a fraction of the widespread damage caused by the war, which has scarred Ukraine's landscape and large portions of its 10 million hectares (100,000 square kilometers) of forest. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces exchange thousands of shells daily, ripping through the land in relentless fighting reminiscent of World War I trench warfare.

The war has also introduced new methods of destruction. In September, a Ukrainian unit from the 108th Territorial Defence Brigade posted two videos showing a drone releasing a red-hot substance onto a line of trees, igniting them in an attempt to dislodge Russian troops.

Reuters spoke with almost 20 experts, including forest rangers, ecologists, demining specialists, and government officials, who detailed the extensive destruction of Ukraine's forests after 31 months of war. Russian officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Serhiy Pryimachuk, the director of Sviati Hory national park, told Reuters that Russian munitions had scorched large areas of the park, once a cherished natural treasure in an industrialized region.
"We've lost an immense amount," he said.

Tending to the forests has become dangerous, with landmines and unexploded shells posing the greatest risks.

Oleksandr Polovynko, a 39-year-old ranger, nearly lost his foot after stepping on a mine while working in the forest last year. "I crawled back to the car and drove home on one leg," he recalled. He took six months to recover and return to work.

Many forests in eastern Ukraine have been reduced to fields of stripped, broken trunks. Local wildlife, such as deer, boars, and woodpeckers, has suffered severely due to habitat loss, although experts say it is difficult to measure the full impact on biodiversity.

In the Chornobyl nature reserve in northern Ukraine, the conflict has taken a toll on the population of over 100 Przewalski's horses, an endangered species of wild horse, according to Oleh Lystopad, an ecologist with the ANTS advocacy group. He noted that landmines are making it difficult to control fires.
"There's uncertainty about whether this species can continue to survive there," Lystopad said.

DECIMATED DENSE FORESTS
Protecting the environment is understandably not Ukraine's top priority in a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. However, the damage to forests is part of a larger environmental catastrophe, experts say, that could leave a bleak legacy for generations. The war has poisoned soil and rivers, polluted the air, and left vast areas riddled with mines.

In addition to the war, the destruction of Ukraine's forests has been exacerbated by long-standing issues like illegal logging. Bombing can ignite large fires, and some forests near the frontlines have been shelled so relentlessly that they are reduced to fields of stumps.

The dense pine forests common in eastern Ukraine are highly flammable and have been severely impacted by the conflict, said Brian Milakovsky, a U.S.-based forester who lived and worked in Ukraine for eight years.

The war has also torn through the habitats of unique species like the chalk pine, a rare subspecies of Scots pine, according to ecologists and park officials.

Milakovsky said the environmental crisis is especially dire in Russian-controlled areas, nearly a fifth of Ukraine, where local authorities seem ill-equipped to extinguish forest fires. He estimated that about 80% of the pine forests in Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine, have been destroyed.

BOOBY TRAPS AND LANDMINES
Approximately 425,000 hectares of forest across Ukraine are contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance, an area about half the size of Cyprus, according to Ukraine's environment ministry.

Authorities say they need to inspect up to 3 million hectares of forest, which are or have been occupied by Russian forces, and are likely littered with explosives. The rangers interviewed mentioned that retreating Russian troops have left behind booby traps and tripwires.

"If we want to put out a fire quickly, we can't because the entire area is mined," said Ruslan Strilets, who was Ukraine's environment minister during a July interview. "There's a risk of being killed or seriously injured."

Alongside severe injuries to rangers like Polovynko, 14 forest workers have died from landmines, traps, and shelling during the war, according to the environment ministry.

In Donetsk, Reuters witnessed rangers and fire crews standing on narrow, cleared paths as fires consumed the mined forest in front of them.

During the summer, Reuters observed deminers from Ukraine's State Emergencies Service carefully clearing a dirt path in Sviati Hory's forest. Mykyta Novikov, the 24-year-old squad leader, said his team had cleared a 200-meter long, 8-meter wide strip over two days, but some days they managed only 5 meters.

"We've had days where we destroyed 50 explosives," he said.

Clearing forests is significantly harder than working in open fields, demining experts explained, as most equipment cannot maneuver around trees.

"It has to be done manually, inch by inch," said Adam Komorowski, regional director at the Mines Action Group NGO.

DECADES AND BILLIONS
The experts interviewed believe it will take decades and billions of dollars to repair the damage to Ukraine's forests. Some doubt that certain heavily mined forest areas will ever be fully cleared, referencing other European forests that were declared off-limits after previous wars.

Strilets, who has since left his position as environment minister, said it will take "many, many years" just to assess the full extent of the damage to Ukraine's forests. In Kyiv on July 22, he stated that the current estimate for demining all contaminated areas, including forests and agricultural land, was 70 years.

Four ecologists specializing in Ukraine's forests said restoring the damaged areas will be a complex, multi-decade process that will require billions in investment.

A June 2024 study on the war's carbon emissions found that conflict-related forest fires released greenhouse gases equivalent to 6.75 million tonnes of CO2—comparable to Armenia's annual emissions. Ukraine has also lost the carbon-absorbing capacity of those burned forests.

The World Bank estimated in February that damage to forests and other natural areas like wetlands and marshes had reached over $30 billion. That figure included $3.3 billion in direct combat-related damage, $26.5 billion in broader economic and environmental costs, and $2.6 billion in repair expenses.

Ukraine insists that Russia should pay for the environmental devastation it caused. Maksym Popov, an environmental adviser to Ukraine's chief prosecutor, told Reuters that Kyiv is pursuing around 40 criminal cases against Russia related to the destruction of forests.