LIVE Event: The Environmental Cost of the War in Ukraine

The costs of the war in Ukraine can be measured first and foremost in human lives lost, in destroyed communities and infrastructure. But environmental damages are also widespread and will continue to impact Ukrainians for decades to come.

In early June 2022, the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River burst, unleashing much of the water from a reservoir roughly the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Large swaths of the reservoir dried up, while towns and villages south of the dam were flooded. Floodwaters contaminated with sewage, oil and land mines swept away houses and forced evacuations.

This incident sparked global attention on the war’s environmental impact. But the damage to the environment began much earlier — going back to February 2022, when the war started.

The World’s environment correspondent and editor Carolyn Beeler will be hosting an online conversation about the environmental impact of the war in Ukraine. 

She’ll be joined by Kateryna Polyanska, a Ukrainian environmental scientist with Environment People Law, who has been traversing the country to document the environmental damage the war has caused, and Doug Weir from The Conflict and Environment Observatory, who has been researching the environmental legacy of armed conflict around the world since 2005. 

Join the event on Facebook and on The World’s website on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, from noon to 12:30 p.m. Eastern time. 

You can also send your questions for the panelists ahead of time to myworld@theworld.org.

See you then.